One of these has definitely hauled more than the other, and i guarantee you it’s not the ford.
The sad thing is that they’re not even that roomy. Something like a skoda superb beats this ford truck hands down when it comes to leg room.
So:
- not that great off-road (too heavy, too wide, too long, not enough weight on rear wheels)
- not great at transporting stuff, because the load bed is open.
- not fuel efficient (and low range)
- less safe (higher chance of roll over, takes longer to stop, lower safety standards compared to regular cars)
- poor visibility (too high, don’t see pedestrians + low obstacles)
- not that roomy
- not that comfortable
- poor handling
A common argument is ‘it can tow stuff’, which is also silly because you can do that with a far smaller car too.
So it’s a fashion statement or virtue signaler. I mean, obviously we all hate it, but the people that buy these kind of trucks usually get off on that. They’re virtue signaling to their (internet) friends.
I would love to see the smaller car that can tow a 35 foot 5th wheel trailer.
Or the van that can haul 12 foot logs stacked 6 feet deep.
Or carry two 1000liter water totes and allow them to be filled from the overhead hose that is provided by the municipality.
Or pull a trailer with a rented excavator.
The point here isn’t to argue. But I do get pretty tired of these threads just shitting on trucks for fun. They don’t make sense for non tradespeople living in a city. But I could not do with one vehicle if that vehicle wasn’t a pickup.
I’m building a homestead from scratch where I had to cut the trees of the forest down in order to make room to put my trailer to live in. Without the truck I could not haul the trailer all the way to the mill, all the milled wood back, and carry all of the things that I need to build the house. While still giving me 4 seats so that my nephews have a seat when I pick them up.
Edit to add: Mine is also dirty, dented, scratched, and abused. I don’t have time to make a work machine shiny, I have work to do.
As someone else pointed out already, yes, there are people who need a truck. They don’t need an oversized death machine. There is little to no reason for a truck to have that much bulk, the bulk doesn’t add power.
However, most “need a truck” is either shit that could be done in much less vehicle, or done so infrequently that it makes 0 sense to OWN said truck. I sometimes need a truck… so far thrice in my life. I rented said truck. My wagon covers almost all of my hauling needs, rental covers the few outliers.
I don’t understand this need to tell people what they need or what they should drive. Can’t we just let people enjoy the things they like without getting all Judge Judy? I own a full ton diesel and I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t need it. How else am I going to tow my 32 foot RV? It’s how the wife and I vacation. Should I be flying to my vacation vs driving there because people hate trucks but someone give planes a pass??
I can see people being more upset at sportscars vs. trucks but that doesn’t happen. They are less fuel efficient than most trucks and can a lot less. An Infiniti Q37 with a V6 engine does 20MPG combined when my truck gets closer to 25MPG combined.
People need to stop judging others just because they do something you don’t.
You have a point. It’s also clear that the Ford pickup in OP’s picture hasn’t done anything remotely close to any of the things you mentioned and likely won’t be, even once a year.
Frequent campers, contractors, farmers, builders/carpenters, junk and scrap haulers, landscapers all have a use for a pickup truck. Most others don’t.
You can tow an excavator, etc etc, with a Ford Transit. Hell, they can still drive ok if you stuff enough crushed cars in the back to get a curb weight of 3 tons.
Meanwhile a 1/2 ton pickup looks like it’s struggling with half a ton in the tiny tiny bed.
You are going to want to check your numbers on that transit van.
My 250 has three times the towing capacity of the transit, and the transit can’t pull a 5th wheel.
And an E45 bobcat (which is small relative to some machines I pull )is twice as heavy as the tow capacity of the transit, without considering tongue weight or the bulky trailer needed to haul such a thing.
I get it. Most people don’t need it. I do.
Those are things that the vast majority of truck owners never get near doing. There are a ton of truck owners that have never hooked up a trailer before in their life and only have used the bed for something like transporting an appliance once. It isn’t something they actively use as designed even once a month.
Yeah but people are specifically criticizing the people who buy trucks to show off in the city, not people who actually use them for what they were made to do
I get that. I really do. But a lot of these threads devolve into “there is no reason to own one of these.” So I replied to someone saying similar stuff to remind this person that there are reasons.
The comment they replied to is literally someone criticizing people for using them for what they were made to do… so no that isn’t what “people are specifically criticizing”.
Pickups suck at literally everything they try to do. They are the worst of all worlds.
Tbf using a Skoda for comparison is cheating, they’re notorious for being very roomy. 😛
I have a Hyundai I40CW and I am 197cm tall, I can easily put the driver’s seat to my comfortable position and then sit behind the driver seat at the back.
The front passenger seat if I put it all the way back and put the seat down I can comfortably straighten my legs out and sleep.
They are still useful in some situations although they are almost always just a fashion statement. https://lemmy.ml/comment/1660615 Someone who actually needs one for their job commented on this post and explained why. Someone also replied and said they could haul more with a van, and their response was that they can easily drop things into the bed with a crane. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
edit: they deleted it, not sure why but the point stands