Lighter pickups coming soon- but geez have they gotten fat!

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by Clev

A Foreman 4x4 quad on a Harbor Freight folding flatbed trailer is 850 pounds, and can easily be towed by anything larger than a Smart FourTwo. For 95% of the truck owners out there, a car would suffice.

Just to see, I looked up the smart FourTwo and you are right, 725 pounds is as much as it is rated to tow, most compact cars are good for 1,000 pounds at least.

[cujet]

I have rural FL and TN property. I own a 4x4 F150 that gets exactly 14MPG. Sure, it's a waste when it carries just one 4 wheeler. But, it can carry both a 4 wheeler and a big dirt bike at the same time, without a trailer.

Plus, I load up the back with gravel for the driveways, mulch for the flower beds, potting soil for my raised garden and so on. There is no way on God's green earth that a small vehicle can move that much weight. I suppose a bed chock full of gravel is about 3000 pounds!

Plus, I can tow my 26 foot travel trailer from FL, to TN without difficulty. While carrying said 4 wheeler and dirt bike.

However, I don't use it as a daily driver. That's a waste of a perfectly good and long lasting, hard working truck.

And the cost of my truck was EXACTLY the same a a common 2010 Toyota Camry. That's not "insane". That's getting your money's worth.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by ShadeTreeMech

your 86 toyota is likely not 5000 lbs either

Nope. I've never weighed it, but the model is under 3000 lbs - which means that I don't have to haul around an extra ton of parasitic weight :-)

As far as utility goes, my neighbor has a "full-sized" Chevy. Sometimes we go to get firewood together, and I can haul just as much as he does. It'll haul a bed full of sand or gravel, sheets of plywood and such, or a half-dozen bales of hay. What more would I want?

And if you don't think there's a market for this size truck, try putting one up on Craigslist. I had an '84 before this one, which had a carbed engine that I couldn't get to pass the smog. Listed it for a reasonable price, and it was gone that evening. Maybe the reason there's not such a market for new ones is that the old ones just keep going :-)

[KITT222]

The other day I was riding with my dad in his lifted '02 2500HD, and a brand new Ram was right next to us on the freeway. And oh my Vibe, the thing was almost as tall as my dad's truck! I looked closely at it, and it's just a bulky truck, plain and simply. My Vibe is attractive to me because I want to knock my dads truck down a peg. When we got out for plants and such this spring, we're taking the Vibe and the Corolla probably, and I'm going to prove to him that small cars can indeed haul. I also want to get a hitch for it, for whatever things might come up. I know that truck can probably haul all four of our compact cars at once, but he really doesn't need that much power. He sorta knows that, and understands the need for a better car, and he would surely jump on a 30MPG pickup.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by cujet

Plus, I load up the back with gravel for the driveways, mulch for the flower beds, potting soil for my raised garden and so on. There is no way on God's green earth that a small vehicle can move that much weight. I suppose a bed chock full of gravel is about 3000 pounds!

Plus, I can tow my 26 foot travel trailer from FL, to TN without difficulty. While carrying said 4 wheeler and dirt bike.

However, I don't use it as a daily driver. That's a waste of a perfectly good and long lasting, hard working truck.

And that's the key. I have a 4x4 Ranger. It's used for hauling heavy stuff around and for commuting on the rare occasions where a snowstorm makes my Honda unusable even with chains. The truck sees well under 2,000 miles per year. The problem is that people insist on a 3/4 ton truck to haul around a jetski, and then complain that gas is too expensive when they use it as a daily driver. (And then they insist that they can't afford $2,500 for a car to use as a daily driver, even as they're taking the jetski to the river every weekend in the summer.)

I have a family member who pays a $400 per month truck payment for a Dodge Ram 1500 crew cab longbed. She now barely makes her bills because it costs so much for gas and insurance. She has never, in the year she's owned it, had more than one passenger in the thing, and she's NEVER put ANYTHING in the bed. Yet she insisted on having this truck, and mocked me for daring to suggest she buy a compact truck or, god forbid, a car.

[nemo]

Want verse need. That is what 90% of this thread is about. There are many way around needing a large truck for most people. In many cases if you looked at the total cost of ownership most people would find that they could pay someone to deliver the rock, gravel, sand and so forth. But like wise most people don't need half the car they drive or one that goes from 0 to 60 in a heart beat. And as for vacation renting may be the way to go. Sure beats the payment thing.

All that said. Choice is great. Buy what you want but be honest "I want it", yea some actually need it.
But don't engage in that favorite America past and whine about the price of gas. Because in my opinion it going to continue to go up. Big oil is not going to give up those profits.

And when I win the lottery that will be me passing you in that brand new Mustang Shelby GT 500 with the tach at the red line. Because "I WANT IT". lol

[Frank Lee]

Actually the thread is about how upcoming pickups will attempt to lose some weight via expensive materials while maintaining the excessive bulky size and loads of accessory garbage the mfg's conditioned their customers to expect then demand. But, carry on, I like ranting about how dumb it is to commute with them as the next guy.

[tim3058]

Originally Posted by Clev

...The problem is that people insist on a 3/4 ton truck to haul around a jetski, and then complain that gas is too expensive when they use it as a daily driver. ...I have a family member who pays a $400 per month truck payment for a Dodge Ram 1500 crew cab longbed ...Yet she insisted on having this truck, and mocked me for daring to suggest she buy a compact truck or, god forbid, a car.

I would agree with what you said here, people won't even consider not buying the big truck. The only thing I've ever seen in my boss's 8.1L 2500HD is a push-mower. Anyone buying said 3/4 ton rig shouldn't be complaining, but they do.
Instead of inviting the nanny-state to invade more of our purchasing choices, we citizens should educate those who are shopping about the true costs of the big rig (props to the guys that started this site). I was once much like your relative, but am not anymore - commuting for as cheap as possible frees up money for other things. Doesn't take a new law, just education.
What do you base the "Bureaucrats have already distorted the market by heavily subsidizing fossil fuels" on?? As far as I know they are subsidizing the alternative fuels (correct me if I'm wrong), to the extent they instituted a 10% ethanol-monopoly at the pumps (which is killing my mpgs!!!!)

[Ryland]

Thing is, most people who use a truck for work would rather have it simple, easy to clean and to be a utility vehicle, thus the utility vehicle laws that exclude anything larger then half ton from EPA testing, but then auto makers slip things like Hummers in there, claiming that they are a 3/4 ton utility vehicle, or sell leather lined F-250 for $60,000 each and people who have more money and ego then brains buy them up.

[robchalmers]

I don't get it. From a simple Euro p.o.v we don't do te whole truck thing, yep there are a couple of folkes in Nissan Nevaras etc but if you need hauling power most of us buy a van! apart from that its old imported soft roaders from japan.

As a closet truck lover, I miss too miss the old single cab's from the eighties - especially the mechpump'd diesels they were unstoppable, 2.5 four pots, no turbo, it'lll haul anything you want.

you're not telling me ford/chevy/whoever can't go on a lightweight 'retro' trip in the design studio??