In memory of my 95 extended cab
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Ya. It makes sense this is what the majority of people in the US are buying.
The small car market only constitutes like 2% of the entire market.
The other 98% are suvs and pick up trucks which means most people aren’t buying a truck because they need it for work or some kind of utility reason. They don’t need 8ft beds. They need back seats because they don’t want to buy a sedan.
But since the customer is almost never right outside of matters of taste what they all really want is a sadan that looks like a pick up. So here we are.
Trucks are third now I think. compact SUV’s started taking over the market roughly last year
https://www.autoblog.com/news/study-says-these-four-segments-make-up-half-of-us-car-sales
2 things:
- The new truck has 4 doors. That’s a crew cab.
- Part of the reason for today’s massive trucks is a change in CAFE regs starting in 2012 that bases fuel economy standards on vehicle footprint. It’s easier to make a larger footprint than a more efficient vehicle.
It’s
easiermore profitable to makea larger footprintthe consumer buy a larger vehicle than a more efficient vehicle.Minor fixes, spot on otherwise.
I can see how 2 can be gamed by car makers, but I don’t know how I would fix it. Seems intuitive larger cars will use more fuel, e.g. can’t use the same standards on 18 wheelers and sedans.
Are there good alternatives? Is my intuition dead wrong
The issue is they used to base it on vehicle classification AND size, but the manufacturers just classified everything as a light truck to getbaround hlthe regulations. So they got rid of that loophole, but now a Toyota Corolla has less-strict fuel economy standards than an old-style Ford Ranger. So they essentially outlawed small trucks.
It’s not just trucks, either. The small cargo van no longer exists. The Ford Transit Connect, Ram Promaster City, and Nissan NV200 were all discontinued around 2021 because they can no longer meet CAFE regulations at that size.
The Gord Maverick is a small truck, but it comes standard as a hybrid and has very little towing or hauling capacity as a result.
Tax carbon, by raising gas tax. Let the market figure out the details. This lets the market optimize for efficiency instead of optimize towards defeating the entire point of regulation.
hmmmm, this feels wrong, but off the top of my head i don’t have many critics. but, like, what if the car makers just make very inefficient, but also very cheap cars? won’t people buy that instead?
Very inefficient cars would burn a ton of fuel and then consumers would be paying a fortune in fuel taxes.
Depends on how high you make the tax, lower priced car might offset that.
And gas tax also disproportionately affect the poorer population, for many of them cars are mandatory because of commuting, etc. And those who are well-off might just not care about the tax.
Shift the tax to vehicle weight with a separate scale for electric cars but don’t have exceptions for commercial vehicles that could be used as private vehicles. For example, exempt cement trucks but not f350 dualies. It sucks that anyone with a legit business need for a f350 will get hit but that’ll just be the cost of doing business.
That’s the case with all Pigouvian taxes.
Pigouvian taxes
oh i didn’t even know there is a word for this class of taxes, thanks. i guess that’s why it felt intuitively wrong to me even though i can’t quite put my finger on it. maybe i just have a general aversion towards Pigouvian taxes.
A “regular bed” has always been an 8ft bed for the last 60-odd years. Look at any full-sized Ford, GMC, AMC, or Chevrolet pickup from the 70s, 80s, or 90s – it’s nearly impossible to find one with anything but an 8ft bed. If you wanted anything shorter you went with a “toy truck” like the Mazda B2000 to B2600i, or a Toyota Tacoma.
It’s just the utter lack of 8ft beds in full-sized modern (last 10-15 years) trucks that has had the industry reclassifying uselessly lobotomized truck beds as “regular” and normal-length beds as “extended”
They’re projecting, as has always been the case for giant truck owners
If you’re going to downvote my objectively correct statement of fact, at least have the courtesy to answer this: if you think a “regular bed” on a 70s/80s/90s full-size pickup is 8’, just how long do you think a “long bed” is?
if you think a “regular bed” on a 70s/80s/90s full-size pickup is 8’, just how long do you think a “long bed” is?
It’s the 9ft bed you could get as an option on full-sized trucks above the base model. So for Ford, the F-150 was stuck with either the regular 8ft bed - which was the default - or could go down to a 6.5ft short bed, but for the F-250, F-350 and higher, you could go for a 9ft long bed.
In some model years, the F-250 & 350 even had its rear axle shifted further towards the rear by a few inches when choosing the long bed in order to get better balance for loads.
This 9ft long bed was even marketed as a “large camper bed” for those oversized slide-in campers that were too long to allow a standard 8ft bed to raise its tailgate. This was a problem with 8ft beds, because a permanently-lowered tailgate could obstruct the license plate, necessitating its removal so the plate was more visible. The long bed didn’t have this problem, and the tailgate could stay on.
What? The “regular bed” in a full-size truck was always 6.5’, even back in the ‘90s and earlier. That is longer than the “regular bed” in a compact truck (let alone the vestigial bullshit they sell you today), but it’s not 8’.
Yeah I really don’t get it.
I drive an old pickup truck with a standard sized bed. Every time I’ve needed the bed of the truck, I’ve needed it to be as big as it is. If it was as short as modern truck beds I’d be making more trips or hiring a U-Haul or something.
I get a normal, functional bed AND it’s still a normally sized vehicle that’s easy to drive and park. When this vehicle eats shit, whoever makes a normal sized pickup is getting my money.
I thought the bed size was chosen as standard so it would fit a standard 4x8 sheet of plywood. What’s the point of it can’t fit that?
I’d be pissed if I bought a pickup that can’t fit a damn couch
It’s because they’re emotional support vehicles for suburban dudes who have an incredibly fragile ego. What they need is a van or a “sensible” SUV or even just y’know a fuckin car but these men are too sensitive and scared to drive one of those so they buy a truck as a family car instead.
It’s kind of pathetic honestly.
When this vehicle eats shit, whoever makes a normal sized pickup is getting my money.
So… either you’ll be buying used or not a truck.
Chevy still makes a regular cab, 8’ bed version of the Silverado in the entry-level “WT” (work truck) trim, which at least theoretically is available to non-fleet buyers. Good luck finding one though.
Is your username a reference to the Greydon Clark movie?
I really want a Kei Truck, and I can’t be the only one.
OMG, there are two people in my neighborhood with them and I want one soooo bad. Only problem is I need to haul stuff to the landfill and that requires getting on the interstate which I don’t think they’re rated for in my state.
98 Ranger XLT extended cab. I’ve added trailer brake control for livestock hauling and a modern stereo with bluetooth, handsfree calling, and a sealed 10" sub cause I’m a metalhead.
It’s got the pushrod V6 that will last forever, in 99 they switched over to those awful self-destructing cassette timed V6s.
It throws no codes. Redid intake manifold and valve gaskets about 18 months ago, but I’ve got increased Idle RPM and minor oil leak again. So, I have to redo it, looking for a more permanent fix.
My truck does 10x the work most of those oversized pavement princess trucks do. It’s a little truck for our little play farm.
that’s one sexy looking truck! practical and it has a nice color!
I see F350 work trucks all the time but they rarely have stock beds, most of them run a full dedicated tool box usually with ladder racks or a custom bed made of diamond sheet. Same deal for the 550 and 650 if they aren’t box trucks.
Your truck reminds me of the garage kept spare cars I see on farms. Sometimes they just live outside near the house but they get driven. Often to pull the bigger trucks out of mud somehow
Yup. I have a play farm, not a real farm. Real farming is an industrial process that requires duallys and such. However, those are also real trucks. Beat to shit, tools in the bed, not lifted so much you can’t load them, etc. They look the part. I do also have a 98 Chevy 3500 box truck. Drinks way too much gas to use it for anything other than its purpose, don’t even have it registered right now, bad cats.
I know some play farmers with dualies. One is for building a fence, one is for towing a 5th wheel and a toy hauler. The fence builder is similarly unregistered because it’s “expensive enough to maintain”
My current daily driver, which I won’t upload my own photo of because it’s literally enough to dox me (by people who know me IRL), is one of these:
It’s not an SUV, but air suspension allows it to rise taller than some crossover SUVs, providing decent clearance. And on the road you can lower and stiffen it for better handling (or keep it in the comfort position for normal height and soft suspension). Both axles are always being driven, with front and rear diff locks being electronic, based on the ESP system.
It doesn’t do as much work as your truck, but then I don’t live on a farm. If I did, I’d have a truck too. It does however do significantly more work than any of those pavement princesses. In particular, it’s been used for towing trailers, I’ve had the entire trunk, with rear seats folded down, filled when I moved most of my furniture. I’ve gone off road in it because I needed to go to the woods. Everything was muddy afterwards.
I’ll use yank units for the fun of it, so it’s got around 250k miles on it. It’s a remapped 3.0 diesel, so it does over 40 mpg very easily unloaded, and can keep up with pretty much anything on the road because of the ridiculous amount of torque it puts out. I paid less than 2k EUR for it (paid pretty much exactly 2000 USD given current exchange rates actually). With all the torque it has, you could also easily tow way more than the legal limit of such a vehicle - which I’ve never needed to.
It’s also rusty, scratched up, dented, etc. Some of the unnecessary extras don’t work (park distance control? lol no, it’s shorted out) It’s not the best car I’ve owned, but it’s the best one I’ve had for getting shit done. 3 months and 6000 miles so far, I’ve spent ~500 to replace some safety-critical neglected parts (brake, suspension) some of which will last the next 100k miles and some hopefully indefinitely (updated to a newer, more reliable ABS module).
It wasn’t cheap for the first person who bought it, but neither are modern trucks. It was cheap to buy used though, unlike trucks. Parts are cheaper too, but that’s partly because I’m in Europe.
I wish I had AWD/4WD sometimes. That’s really the only thing I don’t like about the truck.
Before this truck, I had a Malibu, kept folding the seats down, toting 2x4’s and such. Ripped sheets plywood in the parking lot with a battery powered saw to fit it in before.
Parts are still pretty cheap for this truck here. They made so many of them. I only gave $3500 for it, but that was before prices on used little trucks jumped so high.
I’m hoping I don’t ever have to replace this truck, but if I do, I would be looking at a V6 minivan, especially if I could get in AWD. Gut one of those, and it’s basically a little truck. I think it would do everything I needed, better on fuel costs, etc. I’m not much for lifitimg suspensions, but a truck-minivan with AWD I might lift a little to get into standard truck ground clearance range.
Trucks/utility vehicles are tools and should be used and maintained like a good tool. If it doesn’t have a few scratches and dents, it’s not a real tool.
Nice. Mine was Cayman Green, a couple of shades lighter than yours and a 4-banger, but similar otherwise.
This is actually my fourth vehicle, lifetime. My second was a 97 ranger with the 5 speed and 4 banger. I sold it and missed it so bad I got this one after I lost the car in a flood.
I live in Worst Carolina, and I know the feeling when you can just say you lost something in “the flood” and people just nod their heads like, “yep, I know”.
It’s not like people with trucks haul anything nowadays. Just a status symbol.
I got an 87 F150 that hauls trash and kayaks… what’s my status?
Someone who isn’t trying to compensate for masculinity, or aerodynamics.
A perfect 5/7
You’re cool. You pass.
My 08 hauls so many kayaks and has enabled so many cool adventures.
Depends, 300 302 or 351?
300, it will probably outlive all of us
Banjos music intensification!
Bluegrass is underappreciated
Live happy. Look up WNCW.
I’ll ask again, any data to actually support this. Been asking 6 years now and rarely get a response. And when I do it’s t9 secondary sources that all link back to a private industry report with no methodology or a MSNBC report with some of the shittiest questions for a poll I’ve seen
Source: go outside. Hell, even in a home depot parking lot, with heavy samplibg bias in your favor.
So truthyness and your gut feeling.
It’s insane, you’ve got people screeching nobody needs this because of biased perceptions.
I’m my observation most truck users use then quite a bit. I’m on the light side and two 2k a year and maybe 10 home depot trips , and all my peers are using them even more 🤷♂️. Maybe not as scientific as a rough survey of a parking lot and making assumptions about clean vehicles not being used properly!
So you don’t actually have anything that says otherwise. Im sorry; your entire argument is invalid and rules of the code d’ebatemebro say you get ten minutes in the shame corner or ritual suicide. The shame corner is live streamed.
ThatsThePoint.gif 🤣
./woosh
There’s 2 F series trucks for every square mile of this country. Do you think they are all out there hauling loads and trailers, off roading and actualling being used for truck stuff, or do you think that the vast majority of them are single occupant highway battering rams built to make small men feel big and important?
Remember, 2 per square mile, and that just one series of trucks, from 1 manufacturer, going back just 10 years.
In the absence of hard statistics, I think a gut check on the sheer scale of trucks being sold in the US will suffice.
Everyone I know uses them pretty consistently to tow. I know of one or two people who don’t use it well. I think a portion of them probably could get away with a ranger.
In the absence of any real data, trying to roughly include my small suburban town just outside of rural (more used and working class users) anecdotally it wouldn’t surprise me to see anywhere between 20-35% of owners not having any sort of real use for their truck. I’d wager that most of those owners are new owners as well.
That’s not to say there aren’t dumb idiots living in downtown NYC being morons. I just don’t think it’s remotely as crazy as the fuck cars community would have you believe.
Everyone I know uses them pretty consistently to tow.
Is even softer data than what I posted, and softer than the old survey you were complaining about.
Yep. But I’m not out hating people over it. I’d actually like to know.
Yeah, because you’re in a big truck, and not a sensibly sized car getting pinched between a brodozer and a concrete barrier everyday.
No I’m mostly in my Miata or my bike. Again, y’all just invent things.
Do you think there is some dataset that says that people make poor choices due to emotional immaturity?
Maybe there is a dataset that shows the rate of unladen trucks per mile?
You won’t get it because it doesn’t exist, asking for it is an absurd notion because you know it cannot be produced.
Not like the smol pp crew is busy logging miles to the grocery store and office.
So you’re just making shit up and projecting. Well, at least your honest about what your doing. Makes me feel quite a bit less gaslit even I hear all these screeches about not using a truck properly. Makes total sense how is so out of line with reality.
You can feel any way you like. That is your irrevocable right. I have neither the ability nor desire to deprive you or anyone else of it.
However if you drive a big truck with a tiny bed, you are a silly little man!
👌👍 nerd
I may not haul things every day, but when I do need to haul things, it’s worth it despite people like you being condescending about it. 🤷♂️
Pavement princess found
If only there was another way to acquire a vehicle created with the intention of moving large items. That way You-haul it for way less then owning maintaining and the price difference in gas. They should also make these available at every big box home improvement store. The cyber truck was created for you have a nice day.
It’ll never be cheaper for me to own a car and rent a truck every other weekend and two 10 day weeks a year for my vacations than owning my truck. I’m not hauling kayaks and bikes and stuff in a car. I’ve done it, no. Go drive to the UP in a Home Depot rental truck. Yah ok boss.
Hey dumb dumb you ain’t the guy we are talking about sounds like you would use the truck. But I’m sure you are going up north to secluded location where there isn’t any pavement or launches definitely no way you could just rent a kayak/canoe, ain’t no business like that you could probably make a fortune. If only there was some contraption to attach your bike to say a roof or a trunk another million dollar idea. Good luck with your denial.
Rolling up north with a sedan that has kayaks on top and two bikes on the back and filled with camping gear sucks.
And no, where I go you can’t rent and the places you can rent are expensive and not set up for fishing. You keep pretending renting this stuff is cheap and convenient. It is not.
“Ope want to go scumbag launch my small boat off the riverbank better spend an hour securing a truck at Home Depot.” Yeah no
So you admit you need a truck out of convience and not necessity.
Yeah no shit. Everything but subsistence farming and eating gruel is a convenience. You’re not making a good case for your argument if you’re listing convenience as a con. Try again.
Thank you for proving my point.
Thanks for making driving on the road with you awful.
OK you’re an objectively bad driver if you would prefer people with normal licenses driving box trucks. You have made the classic mistake of solving a problem by creating a new one.
Ever considered a trailer?
Does a trailer tow by itself? I’m hauling cars.
How else do you expect to fit two morbidly obese American parents and their morbidly obese children?
Having a tiny bed is totally OK because the people that drive these silly things dont put anything back there anyway. They even have locking hard covers on them.
These aren’t trucks, they are lifestyle accessory vehicles for people who feel the need to prove that they are a big boy.
People that work in trades, construction or other manual work drive a van or they rock an old Chevy cruze to the jobsite. Why would they waste their own money on a truck when it doesn’t make them any more money?
Gender affirming care mobiles for small, weak men
As someone who has an extended bed standard cab 2001 Tacoma I can assure you I do many things with my truck bed. Just as the 4 metal Jerry cans from the 1960s! They are doing something called looking cool, also the bed has gotten used for the most random crap because my life is just that way, I smuggled a couple trees from Idaho through Death Valley with it.
Extended bed is the only bed.
I see plenty of these modern roided out status symbols on actual construction sites, probably used as commuters.
Is it ok to wiggle your little finger at men with tiny beds
Lmfao
This is all a result of the absurdly idiotic chicken tax + American automobile companies refusing to build small trucks
refusing to build small trucks
It’s taxes, yes, if they build larger trucks then the metrics they use to calculate taxes drops.
And more children die nowadays for the sake of… what? Small egos?
For the sake of bigger profits.
Most new trucks are basically just luxury SUVs for men who stomp their feet and say they want the boyyyy car, not the mom one.
Note to any offended truck owners: I said most! Some of my best friends are truck owners! :>
Actually true! And the best part is that my truck-owning friends are petite women. But they both do actual farm work in addition to their day jobs, so their trucks are beat up and dirty workhorses.
They insist on lending me a truck any time I need to do a big lumber run to home depot. You know that old saying about instead of owning X you want multiple generous friends who own X, lol.
In addition, I have been busy this summer and I have literally spent a couple grand on lumber for what is hopefully a once in a lifetime project. Believe it or not, I’m still driving an old Mazda3 and didn’t have to buy a truck! (Granted, my initial purchase was so big that I would have paid the delivery fee even if I daily drove a Canyonero with a trailer)
And those people who do buy trucks would often be happy with a much smaller one. They don’t exist. No, not even the Maverick. That’s “well, there’s spam egg sausage and spam, that’s not got much spam in it” for trucks.
I honestly doubt it they would even look at a smaller vehicle now. Most of the people I run into vastly overestimate their needs in a vehicle. They get a diesel 3/4 ton to tow their 4000lb boat because they “need” the towing capacity to do it. They would not believe that if they got the right model the Maverick, it could easily handle their needs.
I get an insane amount of comments about my work setup when I am fully loaded. “You need a bigger truck.” No I fucking don’t. It’s a F150 with a 16’ 10K trailer. The truck’s legal towing max is 10,200lbs. It’s engine is rated for 13,000lbs. Since I am using it for commercial use I have a maximum towing of 10,000lbs. Any more would require a DOT registration and pay fees crossing state borders etc. It’s a well balanced setup that I do around 100 deliveries with per year.
I could go up to a larger setup but the cost/benefit analysis doesn’t add up. I would save approximately 5 trips per year (around 20 hours) having a larger capacity but it would cost me $15K more per year in expenses for a 3/4 ton diesel truck and 17K trailer.
My wife and I are in the preorder group for the Tello, and I think that might be where you’re headed.
It’s the size of a 4-door Mini. Because of the packing advantages of batteries and electric motors, it easily puts everything you’d want in a basic truck and then some. It fits a 4x8 sheet flat on its bed (with some hangover out the back) just fine because it doesn’t have large wheel well intrusion. The wheels can be small because everything else is small, and that means there’s plenty of bed space.
It can also tow 6,600 lbs. So maybe not enough for you, but 6,600 lbs is hardly small. If I wanted to make my Miata into a dedicated track car and trailer it around, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have much issue.
Chapman’s “simplify and add lightness” works for trucks, too.
Yeah absolutely. And I believe we have some really stupid laws that help that effect along. Consumers are also to blame as well, but they always are.
So today’s ‘trucks’ have just slightly more storage space than my old Mini Cooper did. Neat. Like can you legit fit like a bike or 4-wheeler in that?
I needed a new vehicle this year and knew I wanted a small truck to help with my forever ongoing home renovation needs. A Ranger was definitely what I was targeting before ultimately falling in love with an 88 Jeep Comanche long bed. Perfect size truck that looks Comically small when parked next to any modern day truck
They’re a vanishing breed. I was searching Autotrader for a compact pickup, and the only thing I found was a Mazda B2300 … from 1986. I can’t use that - I’d be too worried about damaging it. It’s a collector’s item.
I definitely feel that! I bought it knowing that I will have to do all my own maintenance and repairs, which is terrifying but doable. I had to promise myself that if it ever gets wrecked, I’ll have to restore it at any cost, because there simply aren’t that many left out there.
And now the Orange Turd wants these shits in Europe.
They are already here, usually driven by dudes who can barely see over the top of the steering wheel.
The dude that drives one of the oversized ones where I live looks exactly like all the people who do selfies in their truck. Balding, those glasses and weraing a cap. His truck has the fucking punisher logo too. And to round it off it also had a sticker of an AI character company on it.
Not likely to happen. Both by culture and directly street/parking/garage size.
They literally don’t fit on European streets.
