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
Here in upside-down-land, diesel mid-size pick-up are de regueur. I submit my VW Amarok V6 diesel. Affordable, goes, stops, turns, hauls and tows – and is handsome. #onegoodcar
I’m not a truck guy, but I’ve owned one for 45 years at what I believe is the lowest common denominator. I bought a new 1991 Toyota pick up rear wheel drive that I had for 34 years. It went from being my main vehicle to a second car to a third but was still driven a few thousand miles a year. It moved me out of two marriages and more trips to the home center than I could count. I was able to furnish a home from what I picked up curbside. I sold it two years ago and bought a hybrid Maverick. Although I don’t do the heavy lifting as I have in the past, when you own a truck, you don’t have to plan ahead.
I need to be able to rent a full size, single cab, long bed, non-HD work truck every 9-12 months. The local U-Haul fits my bill perfectly when I need it.
That hasn’t stopped me from owning a truck in the past, although I don’t presently (and have no plans to).
I need this much truck:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tzLWkiVZ1X35LoFn8
Holds 1250lbs, which is more than a typical F-One Fiddy can once a couple of corn fed ‘Muricans are in the cab, has an 8ft bed, and it’s load height is about two feet lower to the ground. Has side rails, they just weren’t on it in this picture. $800 new (some assembly required), no insurance cost, minimal maintenance cost, and registration was $40 for two years. Once the new Garag Mahal is done, I will fold it up and stick it in a corner when not using it. Just used it today to help a friend move a large donated chest freezer to the charity he volunteers for. My good deed for the week.
Anything more than will fit on this I have delivered. Just brought all the flooring for my new house home the other day on it. Probably overloaded by a good bit, but it’s not far to Floor ‘n Decor. Seven interior doors to pickup at some point this week from Big Orange. But the 99% of the time I am not hauling crap around, the BMW is a hell of a lot more fun than a truck.
We’re a two truck household out of necessity. Mine is the heavy hauler for the hay and farm tools, and my wife’s is lighter duty to take the bulky but less damaging stuff around that we do on the daily. Honestly my wife’s truck could be a little one, except that between my fat hawaiian behind, my wife being 5’10”, and my two teenaged sons both being over 6 foot, we have to have the cab space of a full size. Most days I really miss my old mazda b4000 though, it was ugly, and it was silly with the 8 inch lift the previous owner put on it, but it worked and did what I needed before we had horses to feed.
I guess I’m zero-zero-truck, based purely on the number of times I’ve rented a truck. Our two Golf Sportwagen TDI’s each swallow up a string bass and a contrabassoon, so what more could anyone need? Interestingly, our next vehicle is most likely a Scout, should it ever actually go on sale.
Having a 1989 K2500 long bed sitting on the pad next to the house is great. It will haul anything that we or the friends need around town. It gets lots of use for jobs where people’s daily trucks are too nice, such as hauling a load of rock. The winch on the front has pulled out stuck vehicles, as well as bushes from yards. The one ton crane that folds out of the rear bumper has not been used enough, but I am still looking for opportunities.
Well since it is possible to rent a truck I’d say I don’t need to own a truck at all. I have a truck (two actually, but one is a project) but I don’t need a truck for work, I only use it for house projects, camping, mild off roading, hauling the occasional dirt bike, and towing the occasional car/truck, and driving it to work every other week or so, to keep it from sitting. Also, since it is a crew cab with a front bench, it’s the only vehicle in the household that seats 6 legally, which has come in handy a few times. It’s nice not having to rent a truck a few times a month when I do house projects, and having a truck has allowed me to be able to do some of the things I use it for. But I don’t need to camp, off-road, dirt bike or tow crappy project cars, or I could do those things a different way. The only vehicle I really need is a small, safe, reliable, efficient car to get me to work.
That Skoda is cute as F! 😀
I’ve always liked/wanted a Rabiit pickup, but never had one. It’d be enough for me, as would that bright yellow Skoda.
I currently have a SUV (a ’04 Volvo XC90) and a wagon (a ’89 Volvo 245) and I have/do carried LOTS of stuff in them, though not as much lately given my undependable L3,4,5 vertebrae. They both have a folding third row of seats that I’ve never used and probably never will, and they’re both long enough for me and my dog to sleep in comfortably if need be.
I wanted an early Maverick hybrid, but you know the whole thing with the dealer markups. 🙁 At $21K it was desirable, but at $30K not as much… plus, they got rid of the two best colors (Area 51 blue-grey and that gentle pumpkin pearl color).
If I had to buy a new truck (not SUV) now, it’d probably be the Ridgeline, but I can’t imagine spending that much on it.
A half ton with the biggest engine and the towing package, or a 3/4 ton. I have the former now.
Minivan is all the truck I need except for the isolated cases where I will rent a pickup.
I have a 26 Silverado, my first truck. I haul a dirt bike with it once a week and pull a big trailer a few times a year. I’m excited to use it for camping this year as I’ll be able to inflate all the kayaks and paddle boards at camp and easily haul them to the lake a half mile away. If that isn’t some hardcore truck use I don’t know what is!
The last time I moved a king sized mattress it was in a Suzuki Swift Sport. I strapped the mattress inside the car, and tied the hatch down on to the chunk of mattress that was sticking out of the back of the car.
So I guess I need zero truck.
I do occasionally need a van though. I’m a different guy When I’m driving a van.
That must have been a very small king sized mattress.
On my Mk 1 VW Cabriolet after the rear window fell out I just ripped the entire top off and drove it like that for two years. There was never an instance where I needed a truck to do truck things that I couldn’t be served by folding the rear seat down and put the truck things in the back of it. The space behind where I typically had the front seat and the rear of the original cargo area was pushing 5 feet long and 3 feet wide (so long as you could maneuver it whatever big thing under the original package shelf)
55″ TV fit perfectly. I carried around trees, dead branches, wheels, tires. It was my go to for taking trips to pick and pulls. It was great and I miss that car so much; and I’m glad I got as many pictures of it being used (one of which is basically a spitting image of the header image in the article) in such a goofy way as I did.
The best ute at being a ute is an 00s 2WD turbo diesel single cab with a tray back. We have an ’06 Ranger trayback like that, and it’s just the best. The tray is aluminium so there’s no paint to scratch, the sides fold down as well as the back, it will haul over a tonne just fine, it sips fuel, and the tray is 8′ x 6′ so you can fit heaps in there. Also, being 2WD, the tray is not stupid high. It’s peak urban truck.
Not much.
With the fact that you can rent a proper pickup from U-Haul I can’t say I absolutely need a truck at all, that said I have 2 a F-250 crew cab 8′ 4×4 and a F-150 Super Cab 6.5′ 4×4. Now the F-150 wasn’t something I had particularly planned on buying but when my son went off to college the house we purchased was at the bottom of a steep hill in an area that does see snow a few times per year. Part way through the year I ended sending him home with our SUV because he couldn’t make it up the hill w/chains. That summer I purchased the F-150 at auction that had been a county truck so he had a 4×4 and I had a pickup for any work around the house. Once he graduated it came home with me and it certainly is enough truck for much of my truck duty and the one I most frequently take.
Now the Maverick is on my short list of potential daily drivers and if so the F-150 would go away.
My 2002 F150 Super Cab long bed is sometimes too much and sometimes just right. The extended cab is always just right because it’s a place to keep tools, groceries and luggage plus an occasional passenger. The 8′ bed is some of each. It’s great for lumber, furniture and kayaks but but at 20′ long it’s hard to park. On the other hand hand the long wheelbase and soft springs make it comfortable and very stable when towing. Most of the time we could get by with a smaller truck but it was cheap and not making payments covers the lousy gas mileage