Before I go anywhere with today’s Ask, let me say loud and clear that the amount of truck you need does not have to correlate even a little with how much truck you want, or have. If you need exactly “zero truck” and your daily is an F-350 King Ranch, good. Drive whatever you like.
There, with that out of the way, let’s talk truck-need. And to be certain, virtually everyone needs a truck. At least sometimes, to some degree. Most of my truck-need is well covered by my Toyota RAV4, which swallows all the mulch I ever require and hauls the vast majority of things that I would throw into the bed of a truck, if I had a truck. When I do need a truck, which is approximately once every one to two years, it’s usually to bring something home that’s simply too big to fit in the RAV4, like a king-size mattress or a piano. I have the former, the latter is just an example (I do own a Casio keyboard, though).
Thankfully, I do have a truck for these occasions. It’s parked at Home Depot.
Your mileage may vary, but at my Home Depot, the rentals are always clean and well-maintained, and taking one out for an hour or two is super cheap. It’s invariably a lot more truck than I need for the task at hand, but Home Depot doesn’t rent Mavericks. Which, if I owned a truck, would also be more truck than I need. But I’d love to have one, because cool little truck. See also the Volkswagen Pickup in the topshot. That’s plenty of truck for me.
Antti dropped a nice reply in Slack, let’s see what he’s got to say:
The perfect amount of truck for me is the Skoda Felicia Fun. Kind of like a cross between the Caddy/Rabbit Sportruck and a Subaru Baja, the Felicia Fun is basically a ’90s Skoda with a strange sense of humour. Think yellow steering wheel and frog-themed yellow seats. Its party trick is a sliding rear wall that has folding jump seats, meaning you can have your passengers sitting out in the rain if they complain about your music choices. Bet my kid would love it, though.
Well gee, that does look like fun!
How much truck do you need? See you in the comments.
Top graphic image: Volkswagen
The truck I have is a 98 Ram 2500 Cummins which does everything I need it to. I don’t need the full towing capacity, but I have an 8 foot Alaskan camper to put in the bed and I realistically couldn’t get that into a half ton. A lot of the time is just a noisy, kinda inefficient going to town rig, but pretty frequently I put that diesel to work and it’s always happy to oblige.
Also my grandfather owned the truck from 2000-2024 so I’m definitely never going to be able to sell it
Many pig up drivers use the truck to intimidate and push you out of the way. Macho – because they are 5′ 9″. Most people could get on in life with a Rav4 and the 3 days a year you need to pull a load, use a trailer.
I’ve got a Honda Acty which is called Lilbit. Because I don’t need alotta truck, I just need a Lilbit.
I wish the Ranger (though they’re all insanely tall, the bed is so high) had existed when I bought the F-150 (2014 bought in 2019), and I wish even more the Maverick had been out by the time I got to pining for a Ranger. I do use it at capacity several times a year and as a truck proper several times a month, but I’d rather play dumb games with ratchet straps the few times I’ve needed to than have 40% too much truck all the time.
The ever rising state of bed floors is one of my bigger pet peeves about modern trucks, especially compared to 90s and earlier 2wds. I’m just waiting for a commercial:
Several people with modern pickups outside a home center, burly working types, struggling to put things or climb into their high truck beds: all the sudden lady walks out to her new truck, drops the tailgate, and easily loads 10 bags of dirt into it.
“The new Flibberdigipper G15, with the lowest bed floor in its class. Work Smarter.”
They’ll sell a million.
All I’d need (and seriously considered buying) is a 5-10 y/o VW Saveiro, double cab, or a similar Fiat Strada. That’s all I’d need for my automotive needs. Don’t need more.
How much truck do I need? Maybe a rental box truck from Uhaul once every 5-10 years.
Outside of that, I don’t have any need for a truck.
I need a truck to pull a trailer maybe a few times a month on average. Need a bed to put heavy, loose, dirty, odorous things, few times a week on average. I don’t need a back seat especially ones with big dedicated doors for any of that, almost all the time.
I think the better question is how much car do I need.
The Truck I have on order is the best compromise of a Truck and a Family hauler I’ve found, and it’s still massive and will be a massive PITA to park, said truck being a crew cab long bed Ram 1500
If it didn’t need to tow horses I could probably get by well with something Maverick sized or smaller, extended cab, 6ft+ bed, needs 4WD or AWD with at least one locker.
If you want to go with the absolutely smallest truck I could use as a thought exercise it would be an articulated FWD utility vehicle where the bed is a whole separate trailer and the driven bit is just the cab
I’m curious, did you consider an extended cab Ram? My dad has a new-model crew cab and the amount of legroom in the back would seem to rival a Mercedes SEL (I’m 6’3″, I think I have license to say that). Not that I can complain about having copious legroom, but I would think that it might be sensible to trade some of it for another foot of bed space, especially as it’s usually just used by him to commute to work.
Not really, but I also have an 180lb Irish Wolfhound and a 90lb Black Lab Look-alike (Mastiff, Husky, & GSD), so if there’s any hope of them riding in the cab comfy it’s with a crew cab.
Had to go with a Big Horn trim as it was the only one where I could get a 6 seat interior (front bench) and 4 corner height adjustable air suspension.
The original plan was to get a bed cap and make the cozy for the Irish Wolfhound (there’s a sliding rear windown to let the AC and heat in), but if the back seat is big enough to fit him and the baby, and the front bench is big enough for me, my lady, and the Knockoff Black Lab then I’ll probably skip getting the bed cap and instead get a tonneau cover.
I need/want a small truck, really small like the VW in the top shot. Too bad they don’t make those anymore.
I need zero truck.
What I need is a small station wagon/shooting brake to be a companion to my convertible for those rare hauling duties that my back seat is too small for.
I don’t need a truck, for 99.99% of my life’s tasks.
Most of my large-item tasks can be performed with my Matrix. Box of unbuilt grill from Costco. 8ft-long fluorescent tubes from Home Depot and burnt-out ones to the hazardous trash site. 6ft high wine refrigerator.
I did borrow a truck from a friend to take a bed, mattress, and box spring from one place to another. I filled it up afterward, even though it was only a 50-mile drive.
I have rented the Home Depot truck to haul 4’x8′ boards so I could put an upper floor in my garage.
I do not need something getting 20mpgs as my daily.
I am comfortable with the size of my penis.
If i was buying a truck, wich i seriously was considering doing this december: Quadcab 6 foot bed 7k tow rating would be more than enough. Doesn’t have to have a huge engine but it would be nice.
However i compromised by buying a 2019 dodge grand caravan. 4k tow rating (yay factory tow package) Looks like the cheapest used full size pickup i could find with “reasonable” miles (under 100k) was just over 20k. I got the Grand caravan for 13 with 70k miles on the clock and the interior was PERFECT and well taken care of the exterior was pretty nice too! I can fit 4×8 sheets of plywood in the back thanks to stow and go seats! I plan on getting a 5×10 or 5×12 tandem axle utility trailer eventually for carrying any larger items. Maybe my next vehicle will be a pickup but for right now the van will do.
The underrated and undersold Hyundai Santa Cruz meets all of my needs.
It’s essentially an AWD SUV with an open dirty trunk and towing capability. You get a nice interior, excellent tech, and fun turbo-powered performance. It’s admittedly niche, and its styling isn’t for traditional owners. It stands out in a region dominated by brutal bricks and Jeeps. It was either the Santa Cruz or (1) a baby brick with Playskool interior, (2) a minivan disguised as a truck, or (3) a ‘real’ truck that wouldn’t fit in my garage.
Right now?
None. I have a mini van.
My wife sometimes gets used furniture. We have fit a full sized sofa and a love seat in the van.
We once had to replace all the pickets on our privacy fence. We fit 125 pickets plus some 4x4s and 2x4s in the van.
We once re-did the floor in our bathroom, all the way to pulling up the subfloor. We put 4 full sheets of 1/2″ marine grade plywood in the van.
We once brought home a yard of dirt. We got 5 gallon buckets and fille them with dirt with a shovel and stacked them into the van.
I can keep going.
A modern truck with a crew cab is limited by the small bed. A minivan is limited by the suspension. I carry more bulky items than heavy items, so I will take the bigger room of the minivan.
Most 1500 pickups you can get a 6.5 foot bed but dealers rarely stock those because they are 2-5k$ extra charge. if you want an 8 foot bed you have to get a heavy duty pickup.
Know what? A minivan with the rear seats removed is > an ancient pick-up as an answer to loading hobby related loads without having to get them over a 5′ bed wall. I amended my previous answer.
In this context I’m going to define how much truck I need as the minimum to live my current life without making substantial changes in my actives or how I approach things. So to start out, do I need a truck or could I just rent one, we’ll in the summer months I trailer a boat to the lake nearly every weekend and that boat and trailer combo likely weighs a little over 4000lbs. The frequency and timing of these makes renting impractical and cumbersome. Other than that most hauling can be done by a small SUV or something like that, but I’ve moved enough bulky items that I’ll say having the open bed is a requirement. Putting this all together my need would be for a midsize regular cab or extended cab 2wd pickup at a minimum. To fill this requirement I have a 85 C10 regular cab short box. It did everything I need, to satisfy my wants, I swapped in a big modern v8 and the truck has been lowered.
In the past, I have owned various El Caminos. They have served my truck needs flawlessly.
Today, my truck needs are served by a convertible that needs reupholstering. Maybe not ideal, but the stares from people how think I’ve gone mad amuses me.
I need exactly zero truck. And my car is a hybrid supermini.
The truck I need is probably Maverick sized. Back when I moved frequently a full size helped so much, but I’m done with that for the mid term at least. I go pick up wood and dry wall 3-4 times a year. A Ranger would be a bit better due to the extra space between the wheel wells so those sheets can lay flat on the bed, but other than that the Maverick would do and with better fuel economy to boot.
My 2019 Subaru Crosstrek is how much I need. Fits my 50gal Husky bin full of stormtrooper costume with room to spare. My 60# pitbull likes the roomy space, even if I have to lift his 12yr old butt into it now. It’s come in handy for moves and bulk purchases, and still works well as a commuter.
If I need more, Home Depot and U-Haul are both 2 miles away, and fairly cheap.
Shame the crosstrek does not have more rear dog headroom. The back is too slopped for tall dogs.
Geo Metro with the seats missing swallows 99% of my hauling needs. UHaul the 1%. Finally got the Subi Brat going and started using that as truck duty, but stuff has to be tied down. I’m not a truck guy so using those strap things kinda sucks, and I’m bad at it. Took a load of cans to recycle and some wind came by. Of course it was the miller lite cans that blew all over the road. Not a good look. In the future I’ll get a van.
Wal Mart sells a bungie bed net for $30-ish. Sandwich a few unfolded trash bags between it and the cans and you’ll be good to go.
Thanks, I’ll check it out! Open bed just seems to be more of a pain than tossing stuff in the hatchback. Probably going to try to sell the Brat this summer.
Let’s raise the stakes and ask: “Do you truly need 4-wheel drive?” Same rule applies—distinguish between “need” and “want”.
A lady I worked with once told me she needed 4 wheel drive to get 4 wheel brakes because of snow. Putting those stretched street? tires on the big wide wheels on a 4×4 truck, I want to know the logic behind that.
My short-wheelbase Raptor is the perfect truck. A little high-up but the tailgate step does the trick.
Subaru Sambar is big enough for 98% of my needs. The rest can be dealt with by renting a Silverado at Menards for a few hours as required.
The Baja has been all the truck I’ve needed. I got an 8 foot couch into it once, tailgate up. I bring home 4×8 sheets of plywood too.
My truck need is David’s Comanche. It’s big enough for lumber, dump runs, bicycles, and Vespas. I wonder how much it would cost to ship it over to the UK . . .
Would it pass the MOT?