Why not use a small trailer instead? I have a small hybrid, have driven 2200km since last time I filled the 40 liter tank, when I want some plywood, lumber or dump run I connect my trailer which I can load 1000 kg on. I do live in a country where petrol isn't almost free so am not only saving the environment but also lots of money from not driving a lorry
My honda can't really haul anything but a few people and some surfboards. If I attached a trailer with 2000lb of base rock in it, it would probably kill the engine but more importantly would be super dangerous to drive since there's no real hitch or brake controller.
So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense.
I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.
I have a little trailer and an older small SUV. I also have a house built in 1920. I would _really_ love a pickup. The trailer is a pain when you do as many runs for supplies as I do.
I had the SUV/trailer combo for years, and it was handy but there are lots of things it's just not worth the hassle for. Now I have a pickup and making a daily trip to the town compost pile (to eventually get rid of the large pile of stuff that accrued over the trailer years) is super easy. I still have the trailer but haven't touched it once, I'd rather just make two trips with the truck.
P.S. Trucks are just more fun!
P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
And then there was the time I discovered that you cannot get 10' rebar into a Corvette. 6'? 8'? Sure. 10'? Not without shattering that fancy curved rear window.
Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
Weekly? No. But it has happened enough times (20+) in the last eight months to justify a vehicle that can do it, among all the other things the truck can do that my honda cannot. Also, depending on the weight of the loads you're hauling in your trailer (lumber is obviously fine), you could be putting a lot of people on or around the road in danger. The brakes on a WRX are not designed for towing.
I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
Pure interest: would you mind listing the things you transported in more detail? Maybe not so much the raw materials but the end purpose.
I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile.
So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
Sure. A 3000LB (dry weight) travel trailer, a few larger deliveries where the driver didn't want to come to the house but instead wanted meet on a main artery, I mentioned the base rock (several days, multiple loads) to fill in a retaining wall, a decent number of loads of firewood (1 cord per load, generally) since we are primarily wood-stove heat in the winter, a lot of construction debris from renovations (not sure on the weight, but certainly more than a honda could pull on a tailer) and green debris from clearing the property (fire season, yay) sent to the dumps, etc. When building the retaining wall, I could have tamped the base rock down by renting a tamper and spending an afternoon...OR...drive the 4000lb truck back and forth over it for 15 minutes until it's completely packed in (the honda would have gotten stuck likely).
There have also been a number of mudslides in the neighborhood that block the only exit road in the past, and having a 4x4 vehicle would be the only manner of escape. Similarly, it's in the forest, so a when a tree falls across the road (and they do), freedom is only a truck, some straps, and a chainsaw away.
So how much of this could have been done with an SUV? Maybe 60%. And SUV and a trailer? 90%, and a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with. So why get an SUV and a trailer when the workload specifically calls for regularly hauling oddly-shaped or bulk items? That's exactly what a truck is designed for. If I already had a vehicle capable of towing a heavy trailer, the truck would have made much less sense. But given the needs, another vehicle was warranted, and mid-size 90s 4x4 truck checked all the boxes.
I think it's easy to underestimate just how large and undeveloped the majority of the USA is.
England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres.
The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density.
The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things.
1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land.
2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development.
3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped.
This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have.
One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
Around here (semi-rural WI, US) it's not so much the terrain where you're going as what you need to haul. 4'x8' sheets of building materials are one that get me a lot; I recently had to cut a sheet of styrofoam in half in the parking lot of the home improvement store to get it to fit into my car. There's also pieces of equipment that won't fit in the trunk (boot), like lawn aerators, rototillers, sod cutters, and stump grinders. (They might fit in a van or CUV, but then you have to deal with gas fumes and dirtying/damaging the interior.) Dirt and compost could fit but would be a pain even with a tarp.
I see a lot of fashion trucks but most of them also get used for towing or hauling on the weekend, and a lot of that stuff wouldn't fit in a car and would be unsafe on a trailer. A lot of people around here also have motorboats that would be too big to safely pull with a car.
You don't need a truck to tow a larger trailer. My Audi A3 is rated to tow 1600kg. I did tow my 1000kg race car many times using a normal car without any problems and it was both safe and legal when I was racing. Trucks, and SUVs, are bad for the environment and are more unsafe for both the driver and for others.
You don't need a vehicle to do anything. You can just walk or bike. If you need to move a large load, lift some weights or ask your friends to help you. People in egypt built the pyramids without vehicles. Vehicles in general are bad for the environment and are just plain unsafe for the driver and for others.
Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
Most pickup trucks are not going to be cheaper than the A3. A3's are not especially expensive if you factor out maintenance costs, and pickup trucks are inordinately expensive due to high demand in the US, plus dealers refusing to carry very many of the cheapest trim models for sales (unless doing a bulk deal for work fleet sales). Yes, in theory, an F-150 starts at 28K MSRP vs 32k for an A3...but good luck finding a new F-150 for 28k out the door.
That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
I got my truck for <$7000. If towing/hauling are the goal, I'd trust a 90s pickup over any sedan regardless of manufacturer claims. And I do tow more than the A3's limits, so either way it's out the window.
Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
> healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load
Not only that, but in some applications the stated limit is irrelevant. Utility trailers aren't usually a big problem, but a lot of people mistakenly think they can tow a 7500lb RV with a half-ton truck just because the manufacturer says the tow rating is some ridiculous number like 11,300 lb.
Interesting, up until now I would have trusted most tow ratings. How can you tell if a manufacturer is fudging the numbers or not? It it mostly a matter of engine/truck size?
It's not that they are lying, per se. The pull rating is idealized. A trailer needs 10-15% total weight on the tongue to pull safely, and a travel trailer in particular is sensitive to being balanced correctly. So if you have only the driver in the truck and no cargo, you might get to the pull rating.
But realistically, payload is what you hit first, especially a family towing a travel trailer. A very typical half-ton pickup will have around 1500 lbs of payload capacity [0]. This includes driver, passengers, cargo, everything but fuel. The authoritative number is particular to the truck and is given on a sticker on the door jamb. So if you have a trailer with a 7500 GVWR, you need to plan on around 1050 lbs on the tongue, which leaves you ~450 for everything else. Two adults could easily put you over. Add kids, dog, coolers, firewood for the campsite, etc, and suddenly a half-ton isn't looking like a good choice for a trailer this size (7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at).
There are other factors that also come into play, like wheelbase vs trailer length, but in general I think most people don't have much to worry about if they respect the payload rating on the truck. Many people ignore it (on purpose, or not) however. I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer. On anything other than flat, level highway with no crosswind and little traffic I think that would be dangerous.
[0] Technically Ford will sell you a particular F150 configuration with a 3270 payload, higher than many F250s, but IMO it's still not as comfortable towing as a bog standard F250. But if you don't tow very often the compromise may be worth it since the F150 is significantly more comfortable for daily driving.
Ok, that makes sense. My T100 is rated to tow 5000 (including the load in the truck itself) and I definitely try try to respect that limit (poor little feller). That said, those things are known to be unbreakable. We'll see I guess.
> 7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at [...] I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer.
I see what you mean now. I cannot imagine towing a 30+ft trailer with a half ton. I feel iffy pulling our 16ft TT with the T100. It's well within capacity, but I definitely feel the truck working. And yeah, flat ground is smooth sailing, but the first hill you hit and the pedal is down all the way and if I don't hit it just right I've got to tell the auto to shift to 2nd.
Probably could have gone one size up, but I'm honestly really happy with the T100.
Ah, yeah the used market is a completely different beast. Hard to compare across vehicle classes and models. I was thinking in terms of 'new' truck sales, which is currently bonkers for pickups and have been for some time in North America.
In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.
Towing with a car is normal, you need to let your insurance know if you fit a towbar to a car that didn’t have one. You are limited to a max trailer weight of 750kg without an upgraded driving license. Also many normal sized cars have a max towing capacity which is about 750kgs anyway.
Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
1600kg is not a lot of tow capacity - only 3500 lbs. A base model Mustang for instance comes in at 3600 lbs. Most campers are going to exceed it as well especially when you add in supplies, etc. And that is not using a trailer.
Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people. It's really quite affordable and easy to rent one as needed too. However, there are definitely situations where a truck is vastly superior.
I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.
A lot of cars (rather than trucks) sold in the US either aren't rated to tow at all, or are rated to tow much less than the same car sold in other countries. For instance, a 2005 Subaru Forester is rated to tow 2400 lbs (1088 kg) in the US, but 1800 kg in Europe.
The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars.
The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers.
