Australians are driving bigger, heavier, dirtier cars and it’s alarming both climate and road safety experts.
A decade ago, sedans and hatchbacks were the most popular cars in Australia. Today, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and American-style utes dominate new car sales and advertising.
Yeah, well, sedans and hatchbacks don’t tow my caravan into the Victorian High Country.
I’ll gladly switch to an EV offroader once I know it’s capable of getting my family and I to where we’re going, and home again.
How is that ignorant. Thinking a sedan can’t pull a caravan is just stupid.
This, or something similar, is what many people think. I wonder how many days in a year these vehicles are actually seeing that intended use, though. So many people seem to buy these large, inefficient vehicles with the intent of using them off-road and/or on family holidays, but what they actually end up using them for 99.9% of the time is just daily suburban commutes. It makes zero sense.
I can’t speak for others, but I definitely do use mine for off-roading as much as I can.
Is it as much as I’d like? No - I have to earn the money to afford the hobby. But it’s absolutely worth it, especially when I get to show my daughter some of the awesome things we have to offer.
The reality is that we’re a rough, tough country, and getting to see lots of it requires special vehicles.
The reason this seems so recent is because, previously, 4WD vehicles were either purpose-built, or expensive if they were tricked out to be daily drivers. That made them uncomfortable or expensive.
With the death of our local car market, it’s opened up a much wider, cheaper, more refined set of offerings, so more people can afford to get into the hobby.
How often is “as much as you can”, honestly? We don’t care that it’s your hobby. Pick a different hobby or move to a rural area. Big cars kill people at far higher rates.
Please, watch this video, it summarises nicely the argument against bigger and bigger vehicles and likely addresses most of the excuses you’ll come up with:
It’s about the US, but a lot of it is applicable to Australia also.
Saw an ad on Facebook for a ranger the other day, 2 years old 21k km, description read never been off-road, mainly used to go from home to the office. Was selling to upgrade to the new model.
Also I don’t believe these fancier utes are very suitable for actual work, to much precious body work and paint around the bed of the truck. We have some single cab utes at work, and what gets put on the tray I wouldn’t want to be doing on anything I cared about the looks of. Also the height to get to some of the trays is ridiculous.
The bed of mine was factory sprayed with a thick rubber/plastic layer - it’s very hard wearing. Pretty sure I could hit it with the blade of my extra heavy 11kg crowbar and barely leave a scratch and you can buy aerosol cans of the stuff at SuperCheap for 40 bucks. It’s easy to repair.
Single cab isn’t an option, I have kids in the back seats all the time. Also the family complains when our camp bedding gets covered in mud/dust/etc.
The bed of my tray is 900mm off the ground and I prefer that height to anything lower. For example it’s a lot more comfortable to unload load bags of cement or shovel sand/gravel out of the tray when it’s already at waist height. I do need some sort of step (esky/etc) to stand on while roll my motorcycle up with a ramp… but that’s no big deal.
As for being environmentally friendly, that’s what my eBike is for. Pretty much only drive the dual cab when I need to.
I literally see everyday these idiots with their giant “trucks” pulling their caravans up the east coast. The funny part is they can’t even seem to tow them with any degree of confidence or at a suitable speed most of the time. I then see someone in a more humble vehicle that is towing a similar caravan with speed and confidence. It is more a mental issue of size,size,size makes me better.
The fuck is in your caravan, there are electric fords that can literally tow a freight train.
It’s an off-road caravan, which I take off-road. Ergo, I need an off-road tow vehicle.
I tow a fully off road van in an old style (ie not American mega truck) Nissan. I have great visibility. Plenty of power and clearance.
I drove a rental Ford Everest sport or something like that today. The blind spots are insane. The height and width are unnecessary. It’s dangerous. It’s shit. It should require a special license (with warnings all over it)
We don’t need American style, embarrassing, emotional support machines to tow our vans.
All we need is appropriate clearance and suspension and enough torque.
My ‘little’ Nissan has those things in buckets. I’ve done plenty of tracks. The old telegraph track. The Cape. On and on.
I can’t wait for this embarrassing, large body panel fashion to pass.
As mine ages, I’ll buy another tow vehicle once this time has passed, and we’re back at sensible sized capable tow vehicles.
Pardon my curiosity…
From Melbourne?
Are you able to get away just for a weekend, or a longer stay? How often?
Also, what’s your favourite spot in the Vic high country?
Ta
Yep, from Melbourne. I generally get away once a month, sometimes twice. If there’s a long weekend in there, then definitely as long as that, and will often tack an extra day or two onto it. I also do a two week trip each year with the family, as well as a one week 4WD trip with mates (move each day).
So many favourite spots:
- Mt Lovick, camp right near the hut
- Just about any of the campsites north of Dargo are really nice places, especially in summer (just sit in the river)
- Pineapple Flat is a definite top three (north of Mt Buller)
- Wonnangatta Station - always fun getting in or out via one of the spurs
Of course, where we go depends on what we want to do. If we feel like tackling Billy Goat’s Bluff (for example), we’ll usually use Eaglevale as base camp, and head out on day trips to check out the sights.
I was at a shopping center and the car park was almost full. Then i saw this dumb bitch in her big ford Raptor , trying to get into the parking lot which is already busy. Looking at her driving skill and face , I knew she’ll do something dumb so I took out my phone and started recording. 5 minutes in she side swiped another car. The guy who was driving a VW golf got out and yelled at her in some asian language. I recorded the full thing, its really fun to watch
A failure to properly regulate the import of yank tanks. Stop letter them in, simple.
How about we allow them in, but make them work in our interests through high taxes and other ownership requirements that more than offset the damage they do.
The problem is the tax writeoffs are for businesses. You can’t close that loophole unless the govt gets into the weeds of defining exactly what a “work truck” is. Those people who claim tax writeoffs on these yank tanks actually do use them for work or appear to. Even if the use is just driving to work.
Sound good. Maybe something like make them have an extra child to make up for the one the will inevitably run down? Lol
A cautionary tale of what we don’t want to become (and are on our way to becoming): These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us
A few years ago when the Pulsar was getting a little small for the kids and all their kit, I was looking for a wagon. Something like a Falcon wagon.
For a vehicle class that I thought of as ubiquitous, the options for a simple wagon were surprisingly few. Further, the SUVs were surprisingly economic to run. We’re talking a few years back, I forget the exact figures, but the Outlander that I ended up buying was in the same ballpark as a Falcon wagon.
So, I am a part of this statistic, but a bit of the blame needs to fall on manufacturers who pivoted away from medium cars and to SUVs. Electric cars were not on the cards at all. Well out of my budget, and the range of models out today didn’t exist, yet.
