Transcription
A picture of a hand holding remote car keys pointed at a white pickup truck. Below that is the text:
In the US, 75% of truck owners tow only once a year or less. Nearly 70% of them go off-road once a year or less. Additionally, 35% of truck owners haul something in their truck beds once a year or less
Find Sources @ unbelievablefactsblog.com
You must log in or register to comment.
A guy at work has a massive truck, and once had a bunch of bags of wood pellets delivered to the office.
As he wrangled a bunch of low level employees to help him load it all up, he exclaimed “I can fit two tons in the back of this!”
“I can have things delivered to my house” I replied.
Or if you’re like my neighbor you live in a town house and never tow anything and never use the bed for anything.
I have 4 acres of land and I tow my mower down to my land every weekend to clean up. So I use my truck all the time for towing and I also haul things at least once a month. Not all truck owners do it just for the truck. If I didn’t need a truck I wouldn’t own one.
I haul, tow, go off road more frequently in my Yaris.
Yeah, but that’s a quality car, that doesn’t count.
Just an example of when folks think they need a truck, most often what they really need/want is a fucking trailer hitch.
Excluding childish hotwheel fantasies, of course.
Or a station wagon
While I don’t tow more than 2 or 3 times per year, I like to daydream about owning a boat. I need to be able to tow one to imagine I could own one some day.
Meanwhile europe where you see people with renault twingos do more with their cars.
I get timber/PIR/plasterboard from the builders merchant, and also take that plus garden waste to the tip, 10+ times per year, in a 4 seat car that weighs under 1 tonne.
Anything truly massive, they just deliver it to me.
The day I discovered that a 2.4m 6*2 would fit inside was a very good day.
As was the one I bought roof bars.Heck people carry more on their bicycles that many ever carry on their trucks.
Actually true lol. I see people here with trailer thingies for their bicycles and they carry stuff with it. It probably has the same bed size as the newest “ford f-550 ultra extreme plus carbon dioxide poisoning engine from cruise ship edition”
I wonder how these terms were defined. Off road as in a dirt road or on a beach where any normal vehicle could go? Haul something in the truck bed as in something that an SUV could fit, too? ‘Bout the only thing unique would be towing, that’s usually a truck job. Boat, trailer, whatever.
Modern SUVs can haul most things these days including boats, small utility trailers, and small campers.
Modern SUVs are actually tiny, but look big, as far as I’ve seen here in Sweden. I’ve more then once parked next to a SUV I thought was big, then as I get out of my Volvo V70 I realise it’s very often just a Kia Picanto-esque car which had been raised, given a muffin top and ridiculously big wheels.
From my north american perspective, SUVs are getting bigger. Full size SUVs like a chevy suburban, toyota highlander, and even hyundai telluride are bigger than many older full sized trucks. The bumper heights are increasing and these SUVs are replacing the family minivan or hatchback to spend most of their lives just getting grocceries.
Depends on the SUV, and trucks can generally haul larger loads. I didn’t want to waste commentary pedantically covering every eventuality, and why I said “usually”.
All while the US actively outlaws small cars.
I would say more like actively discourages small cars by encouraging large vehicles and allowing them lower standards (emissions etc)
But they don’t
I think their joking.
And it is because of these people that I have to custom order a poverty spec work truck, because manufacturers will only send dealers 100k “family trucks” with fancy nonsense
I once sat behind a dude in line filling four propane tanks that he put in the back seat of his pickup truck.
Meanwhile I learned I could fit a 100lb propane tank in my sedan.
This is quite dangerous, though I admire the ingenuity.
just don’t get in an accident. ez.
Not dangerous. See Mythbusters on the topic of exploding LP tanks.
I’m sure that guys a chump. But it might actually be better than having them roll around in the bed.
If you have a pickup you should have either bungee-straps, wratchet-straps or ideally, both.
For sure. You don’t load your truck without making sure things are down tight.
And you gotta gently smack the item and say “That’s not goin anywhere”
Nah. Smack that removed hard. You gotta make sure it knows it’s not going anywhere.
While this sounds very believable, an actual source would be nice. I can’t find any such image on the website to view the sources they may or may not provide
Primary sources? We don’t do that here 🛻🛻🛻
Yeah, your source is just a website and not the article/page related. Also, the website’s search bar is broken. I couldn’t find anything related, nor simple with it. Such as “car.”
Getting this while I’m high off my ass felt like a ninja was jumping out at me. That is a beautiful alert.
Web page was actually an image! Whoops! (I get this error a lot)
It was the first for me and I was not mentally prepared for it to jump out at me like that
I’m glad to know you approve of my truck usage
Yet that one time that you need it, it’s quite nice to have.
Really that summarizes this whole debate. There are absolutely people that don’t need it but buy one for a litany of bad reasons. Then, there are entire swaths of territory where having a pickup is just plain necessary. Live up north in a rural area? You probably have both a trailer and a PU to tow it because you need to be self sufficient, and have a lot of long distance hauling jobs.
Idk your life but I’ve yet to be in a situation where a minivan wasn’t good enough.
The other 99.9% of the time you get better efficiency, space for 8 people and a smaller car
You know what you can do if you need to haul something and don’t have a truck?
Rent a trailer!
I like to think that people own trucks because they don’t know how to back a trailer. Or more humourously, because they don’t know trailers exist.
Over time that’s as expensive or more as getting a vehicle with more storage lol
Given the cost of a truck vs hiring a trailer, I have no idea how that can possibly be true.
How many rentals to hit 2-5k.
I doubt many people are driving around a $5k 2024 truck, but let’s say it’s reasonable or say that this is the difference between what you could otherwise have and what the truck costs. Let’s also say you own the truck 10 years.
I don’t know what your average trailer hire costs in the US. Maybe $20 for a few hours? Let’s assume $50. So you need to hire a trailer 100 times in those 10 years, or 10 times a year.
Though as someone who doesn’t own a truck but who hires a trailer once a year or so, if I have multiple things I save them up and do them together in one trailer hire, so a bit of planning makes it even less worth having a truck.
This doesn’t even include the extra gas a truck guzzles, the cost of bigger tires, the cost of maintaince (bigger parts are usually more expensive, bigger engine holds more fluids).
I went from driving a 4x4 jeep to driving a small hatchback and the amount of money I’m saving is astronomical.
Over time
Hey I think I found the issue, you rent a trailer when you need it, you don’t just rent it long term.
Also, even if you own a trailer, you don’t have to tow it all the time.
It’s even nicer to have that big item delivered and still come out on top in gas savings.
Here are a few options to remedy this rare problem.
- Uhaul truck rental.
- Ask a friend. family member or neighbor to help you out with their truck or ask to borrow their truck for the task at hand. (Fill the gas tank before returning it to ensure they’ll be willing to let you borrow their truck again, when you need it.)
The first option doesn’t act as a continued mode of transportation, and the second option still requires someone owning a truck lmao.
Yes, but it doesn’t require everyone owning a truck.
I didn’t say it did. I’m saying that when you need it, and you’re the guy that owns the truck, it’s nice. I’m not talking some lifted thing, but a midsize pickup is nice to have when you need it.
I think in his scenario, the friend who owns the truck is in the 15% who use the bed regularly
That’s a massive assumption and completely ignore that said family member may only use that bed once or twice a month to help others. And they would still be ridiculed by these people.
No I think you’re misunderstanding me. When he said “you should just borrow a truck from a friend”, he was describing what should be happening in an ideal situation. The ideal situation being that the only truck owners be people who legitimately need and use the truck for regular truck-related work. Thus whomever you borrow the truck from would be a person who actually uses the truck.
The whole purpose of this thread is calling out the problem of people who own a truck simply because “muh truck”. Even smaller ones have a different gear ratio than cars to favor torque instead of gas mileage, so I believe it is a fair complaint within the context of this community.
Everyone owns a truck? Where’s mine?
Those are both of the reasons why it works.
Rental.
Also your comment remind me of people having spare car.
A spare vehicle is legitimately useful if you have an actual use case and are fortunate enough to have the space for it. My winter car allows me to do all of my own maintenance without having to worry about stranding myself at home.
True, but most case i see is people spend more than necessary maintaining a vehicle they don’t have a place to store for an emergency that only came once every few years, which will end up selling it anyway. Just like truck, it only works for a minority of people.
I suspect for many it is just a convenient excuse to buy a new vehicle because they’re tired of their current one and need a way to justify the cost to themselves.
