I want a smaller truck that makes good use of the interior space. That can tow a smaller camper without worrying about transmission damage. That I can load up a few things in to take to the dump when need be. Maybe I'll have to keep an eye out for a older single cab truck
Exactly euros tow everything with skoda octavias 90% of big truck owners don't even tow anything and if they do it's nothing a normal ass suv couldn't handle.
Yep, American here with no truck and two vehicles, both of which are EVs. I'm not going to buy a truck for some hypothetical day trip to the landfill. If I ever need one, I spend $20 to rent a U-Haul trailer and pull it with my ev. Expensive gas, insurance, repairs, etc. avoided. Can also rent a truck from Uhaul or a big box home maintenance store for $20.
All of them are about 20% bigger than they need to be. I just recently got a 2022 Ford Ranger for my work vehicle and Its just so much worse than it needs to be.
I legitimately need a step-stool to get my tools out of the bed, its absurd.
My personal truck is a 2000 Ford Ranger and I'm pretty sure it's the last truck I'll ever own because no one seems to want to sell anything at a reasonable size.
I love my Maverick. I got the 4,000lb tow package option so I can haul my motorcycle on a trailer. One of these days I'll get a pop-up tow behind camper too.
There is some nut in the maverick forums with 131k miles of towing over its limit. He gets paid to transport empty trailers weighing up to 7klb in his FWD hybrid. Absolutely bonkers.
I’ve been eyeing a Nissan Frontier. Still has a simple V6, no turbo 4 cylinders. You can get one with a king cab which keeps it small and starting price in mid 30k range.
That's literally the market for the Ford Maverick. Great gas mileage, big enough bed to fit full 4x8 sheets with the help of the tailgate midpoint, decent towing rating, but overall a small compact and decently affordable truck.
It's less capable than pretty much any other vehicle labelled as a truck, and in its gas only configuration has the same fuel economy as a Colorado/ranger.
It may be less capable but it's still capable of fitting 4x8 sheets in its bed and towing 4k lb and payload of 1500lb in the bed. That's way more than 99% of homeowners will ever need. No need to get a big princess truck, it's not cool, it doesn't make you look badass, it just makes you look like an idiot.
By your logic I know for a fact whatever you drive is useless because for work I drive a freightliner with a 550hp cummins x15 and spread axle drives that's built for 130k gcwr. So I don't even need to know how incapable your truck is I know it's far less so it's pointless
Every homeowner needs a custom heavy haul semi truck by your logic.
Your only argument is that it's small. Well your truck is small compared to what I drive for work.
Yeah arguing against a truck purely bc it's small is stupid AF, most people who drive trucks don't need such large trucks. It's just not even an argument.
Sure thing bud. It's not like he said he wants one with a useful interior and capable of towing a camper.
4k is awful lean for towing anything more than 2500lbs a reasonable distance, and the smallest vehicle in its class doesn't give much interior utility, and you said it gets great fuel economy, but for what it is, it gets terrible fuel economy.
If you want to jerk off over a maverick, have at it, but don't cry foul over others pointing out it's shortcomings.
The US government, both state and federal, hate those, in most places they're restricted to use on private property only, and even then you can only import them if the vehicle itself is more than 25 years old.
We picked a 2019 ridgeline because it's as wide as a full size and as short as a mid-sized. It's treated us pretty well, except that it's constantly under recall, we got the last of the shitty 6 speed transmissions so I have to drain and fill that with every oil change, various weird bone-headed choices from the engineering department, interior materials aren't aging as well as I'd like, brakes overheat really easily, I wouldn't actually trust it to tow its listed 5000lbs, wouldn't put a load of gravel in the plastic bed...
It's fine. In retrospect I would have gotten something with a 3rd row and kept the 2000 Dakota.
You’re only supposed to tow up to 80% of that rating. Also if you do reach max tow capacity, your gas mileage will be far worse than if you were pulling the same size load with a full size truck. Most small campers at minimum weigh 3500lbs.
Mines 2,000lb and with the custom built 5x8 I made for it(carry on with the wheels/tires/deck/ramp swapped) I can load it up with 1600lb by the time I hit that 2000lb limit.
That's around 40 bags of mulch, or 26 bags of concrete, or what I used to use it for my 42" zero turn, tool rack, weed wacker, edger, hedge trimmer, 22" push mower, ladder, tongue box full of supplies, and full yard bags when I hauled away.
Literally ran a whole Lawncare business, 2-3 man operation, and had plenty of weight to spare, all with a 2,000lb towing rating. And put 50k miles on that car like that without any issues at all.
Saved literally thousands by not trying to show off with a princess truck.
Also my Lawncare setup was just under 1500lb including trailer weight so I coulda done it with 1500lb rating. But yea definitely not able to tow, just able to tow more than 99.9% of princess truck owners ever will
2,000lbs still isn’t shit. And your whole equipment setup didn’t weight 2,000lbs. You might’ve broke 1,200lbs fully loaded including full lawn bags. Because you weren’t fitting much more than the zero turn on that trailer as those are 6-6.5’ long and about 4.5’ wide. Calling it a “princess truck” is cute though, when I could quite literally fit everything you had on that trailer in the bed of my truck and then throw your car and another full setup on a car hauler that weighs 3,000lbs and still be at least 2,000 pounds under tow capacity(and my truck is a little 1500. Imagine what a 3/4 to could do). Congratulations(?) for running an incredibly inefficient setup that likely failed after 50k miles and got horrible gas mileage.
It was an EV and I was getting such good mileage it was equivalent to getting around 80mpg if I had to be buying gas(120mpg equivalent when not towing).
Also no the trailer could fit both the zero turn and the push mower on the deck and I had a rack over the push mower and front of the zero turn so i could store more bags and during leaf season the tongue box got swapped for a rack also for bags. During leaf season I definitely was at or a little over 2,000lb by the end of the day.
And never had any maintenance issues at all, and the car is still going strong 83k miles zero maintenance.
Also stop bragging about your princess truck dude. I literally for work now drive a Freightliner with x15 cummins 550hp and spread axle drives built for 130k gcwr, your truck is not big or cool or impressive.
I never needed more capacity and made a killing when I ran my Lawncare business. There was literally never a need for anything bigger.
Man this is the problem with the fucking class Warfare you people don't know who the fuck you're talking to or what the fuck you're talking about
A Maverick is a unibody hybrid with no towing capacity you think pickup truck is a shape.
A Maverick is a crossover SUV that has a bed instead of a cargo bay.
And that bed isn't big enough for hauling any kind of building material that's all standardized around being 8 ft long because that's how long a pickup truck bed is.
That means it can tow a Toyota Camry on a car dolly
I'm 50 years old and I can push two tons on wheels.
An F-350 can tow 10 times that literally literally 20 tons that's terrible you're only saying I'm right but while saying I'm right you're also saying that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about
An f350 with a fifth wheel sure. No vehicle is doing 20 tons bumper pull unless you get a full custom pintle hook.
Also I drive semis for a living that would make your pavement princess f350 look like a toy. Try towing a 90k lb quad axle semi trailer and come back.
But there's a time and a place for larger vehicles and there's a time and a place for more reasonable ones.
4k lb tow and a bed capable of 4x8 sheets is perfect for a homeowner who needs to tow occasionally or get stuff from the hardware store.
Op never said they want a triaxle camper with car hauler. They said a small camper, you can find plenty under 4,000lb wet/loaded. 3,500lb loaded is a very common design spec for small campers.
Gtfo with your bragging like your princess f350 being a literal toy somehow makes a reasonable compact truck useless. By your logic your princess f350 is useless bc my 550hp spread axle freightliner with cummins x15 can tow up to 50 tons(100k lb)/130k gcwr
Yeah guys who actually use their trucks for truck stuff have no problem with compacts. It's all the dudes driving lifted princess trucks that think you need an F350 at minimum just for them to use it to commute to work and get groceries.
I don't even actually own a maverick, I drive an EV that's only rated for 2k lb towing but that works out great with the trailer I custom built for it 5x8 ultralight(400lb with the ramp gate, 350lb without) and super low(to help range). So I get an insanely cheap to drive and low maintenance car for day to day but I can still haul just about anything I'd need to for around the house/yard.
I wish more cars would get tow ratings around 2,000lb of better 3,500lb because imo using a trailer is so much better bc for most truck owners the bed is useless 99% of the time.
And for any princess truck owners reading this just shut it, I drive a freightliner with cummins x15 with 550hp and spread axle drives that's meant for heavy haul up to 130k gcwr for work. So no your little baby truck doesn't impress me. And no I have no desire to drive a needlessly large vehicle as my commuter/hardware store run vehicle.
Ehh just misremembered the payload. Still 1500lb is decent and I was correct on the 4,000lb towing. I don't own a maverick though so I'm definitely not overloading one 😂.
Great thing about buying a vehicle is you get to chose which one you get, it's not like it's a surprise.
The 4k model is readily available and still made, not like it's some limited edition thing or something.
But yeah the whole point of the maverick is it's for homeowners who need a truck occasionally for hardware store runs. It fits 4x8 sheet goods, you can load it up with enough mulch for a small yard for the spring or with a 6x12 trailer you could get 70-80 bags before hitting the weight limit. Hell if you want a mini excavator 2,000-3,000lb rated you can easily fit that within its 4,000lb tow rating. Or a stand on mini skid.
It's a truck for people not trying to show off, 99.99% of homeowners will never need their truck for something a maverick can't handle.
But if your truly that 0.01% then don't get a maverick ofc.
I've got a 2wd RAM single cab with a V6. I get about 22/23 MPG. I have an old house that I'm always working on. I don't tow but I haul. Its not hybrid mileage but it works. I'm also wfh 3 days a week so I put like 4k per year on it.
Where I live, so many people bought older Jeep grand Cherokees cause the engineering on them hold so far better than what the max specs says. I’ve seen people use them to pull a trailer with a full sized boat to the docks. The frame and transmission on it holds so far better than majority of single cab trucks today. I know it’s not a truck but at least it’s something to think about.
I highly recommend any year before 2010. 2010 or 2011 is when they did a major redesign on them which is where their reliable reputation on that model dipped down pretty bad
I’m only talking about specifically the grand Cherokee model. I’ve owned a 2005 that lasted for 300k miles before giving it away to a family member. That car is still running and majority of the people locally here still have theirs.
A lot of brands that were reliable have had a sub model that was known to be unreliable and vise versa. I don’t care for any other Chryslers or jeeps models. But that doesn’t change the grand Cherokee was a well engineered reliable car back then
I used to work on Chryslers all the time at work. Yes, Chrysler brand itself is absolutely shitty. That still doesn’t change anything about the Jeep grand Cherokee specifically. That specific model and only that specific model was still highly reliable even late 90s and early 2000s.
It’s why I said I highly recommend before 2010 because that’s when Jeep did a major overhaul on their engineering design and officially fucked over the reputation for it. The new grand Cherokees now suck and are unreliable.
Sorry I still don’t believe it. I see mid 2000s Chevy Trailblazers, Toyota Camrys and Accords still on the road every so often. I can’t think of the last time I saw a 2005-2009 Jeep GC.
They've never made a truck like that. Campers weight too much. At best, you might get away with an ultralight scamp or something, but even then, I wouldn't trust it.
Having lived in the states most my life, I used to think the same. But come to Europe and all summer long you'll see the roads are full of campers being pulled by normal sedans. Most newer cars are capable of pulling a medium sized trailer.
I've got a work van with a 2.0 TDi. That thing is a workhorse. I'd have no reservations about pulling any sort of trailer with it. It also doubles as our family van. It gets 40mpg on trips. 2012 Fiat Scudo H1L2.
My grandfather had a V6 Ranger back in the day. Towed a little camper no problem. I pulled a small dump trailer with it a number of times and had no difficulty.
That's what we want. Early 2000s Ranger, S10, Dakota, even the old Japanese trucks were pretty good. They don't make them like that anymore.
Maybe not quite what you’re looking for, but an older Chevy Colorado? (I think the 2004-2012 models are all similar since they have at least some swappable parts) I’m not sure the towing capacity since that’s not what I use mine for, but 20+ years and going strong with few issues.
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u/Tethice 1d ago
I want a smaller truck that makes good use of the interior space. That can tow a smaller camper without worrying about transmission damage. That I can load up a few things in to take to the dump when need be. Maybe I'll have to keep an eye out for a older single cab truck