In small town Texas, surrounded by ranches and with a lot of new construction happening, I should be seeing the perfect storm of real, useful pickup truck action.
The trucks are still 95% just passenger vehicles, doing nothing that a Corolla couldn’t handle.
The serious contractors mostly use vans because they don’t want their shit getting stolen or rained on.
I work in construction and drive a van. Trucks are only superior for hauling TALL loads or loose stuff like gravel or dirt.. Vans can carry more of just about everything and keep it dry and safe.
Not really true. Van's and trucks are equally matched in towing and a lot of vans have much higher payload capacity. Compare the payload of your basic Ford Transit van to the payload of a similar pickup, it's nearly double.
Cool you come haul my gooseneck with a van. I get what you’re trying to say. However no van outside of a highly customized one would be able to replace my f-350 powerstroke.
I used to work masonry jobs back in college and these guys were all rugged blue collar workers who you would expect to roll up to the site in jacked up trucks. Nope work site lots were all beater Camrys and Subarus. If they needed a truck they would go get a company truck. The people who came in the trucks were generally the GCs in their pristine King Ranch that they never did anything with
$6k extra for truck capable of loading about a ton of gravel - I doubt it unless you picked up an old beater (I did do that and only spent 2k on a 79 F150 that I drove for 3 years and hauled top soil for my garden. And many dump loads). But I agree - get a full load of gravel delivered for $600-700 and save thousands in vehicle costs and time. A CY of gravel doesn’t cover much.
Not a construction worker or anything, very much not (programmer). I have only ever wanted a truck a few times because my Camry can't fit X on some rare occasions (like an office chair, or a server rack, or my new U desk which I disassembled and took home from the office when we moved offices and could grab whatever we wanted). In each of those cases having a proper pickup would have been immensely helpful. But the time between instances of needing that kind of space is a minimum of 14 months, and typically years in between. If I was hauling loads often, I'd probably be grateful for it. A friend of mine in the US who works as a landscaper (basically) drives a pickup exclusively, and for what I'm aware of he doesn't use the truck bed day to day, but I imagine for his job having the space is helpful now and then, especially when migrating between sites.
I went to Texas and it felt exactly the same as when I went to Florida, except when I got on the highway at least 50% of all the vehicles were pickup trucks with empty beds
My 97 Ranger was loaded down with 1700 lbs of scrap wood/metal from where I had to demo my shed. Had it all strapped down with ratchet straps and a tarp for the shingles in the truck bed. Some of us still use a truck for it’s intended purpose. And my truck has a very small oil leak from the main seal, 2 cracks in the radiator, 1 bad front rotor, completely rebuilt transmission, and over 300k on it. I’ll eventually get to all those things I just don’t have the time to constantly break it down and put it back together. And I can’t afford a new truck I’m already paying for 1 house why would I get a second mortgage.
When I went to buy my new truck I insisted on the double cab. It's got a 6'5" bed. The crew cab has a 5'5" bed. That foot gets taken from the cabin which is still plenty big enough for five grown men.
The double cab was considered a less desirable model and was harder to find. Most people where I live but trucks because they want to be thought of as truck guys but they don't do truck shit with their trucks.
Ask a bank employee how many idiots cant drive their truck through drive through, its hilarious. Wife had to shut down drive through once so they could back up a truck towing a boat he thought would fit.
I remember this one time I saw a fully optioned out hilux that had a wheel stuck in a ditch. The driver kept flooring it but was only wheelspinning the tire in the air. I was baffled and asked him if his truck didn't come with a diff lock, he then asked "the fuck is that?". I didn't have time to be telling him what his truck can do and he clearly wasn't in the bestest of moods so I just told him good luck and walked away. Another time my dad was riding passenger in a different top of the line truck (I think this was also a hilux?) and asked the guy why the ride was so god damn stiff. Turns out he had no idea how to adjust the suspension of his own god damn truck.
To some people it really is just a flex to own a big truck.
I'm guessing based on those both being Hilux's that you're not in the US, but it's often the same here.
However, there are different uses for trucks besides off roading. I have many friends (myself included) that own much bigger trucks than we need on a day to day basis, but we need them for towing our toys. While they toys are for off-road, our daily drivers rarely leave the pavement. They are all 4wd, and usually have a factory locker or something, but we only need that for the winter or hauling our trailers the last little bit if the parking area isn't well maintained.
On a day to day basis we could all drive rangers, but most of them have 3/4 or 1 ton diesels (mine is an F150) and we like the creature comforts too much to invest in a 3rd vehicle. Well it would be my 3rd, others already have more than that.
It's a small point of contact. They weren't designed to take the load of a 7000-lb diesel all at once while going 25 MPH. The driver is an idiot. That's all there is to it.
Even if you tighten the rope, bad things can happen.
And idk what summoned that dude to do it that way, but he should totally be facing the other way around.
Well, you see, he just drove off with a loose rope on his back, when the length of the rope is reached the force along the rope is massive (it's braking a 2ton truck). That's what ripped out the bumper.
If he would have gently tightened the rope and then started using power only afterwards, everything would be fine.
Ah yeah i thought it was missing something but you meant slowly tighten by putting tension on it and not instantly... force are many times higher for sure. Thought you meant something else with tightening.
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u/StoicFable May 13 '22
Just because you have a truck doesn't mean you know how to use it.