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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

Story from when we moved to Montana 20 years ago:

We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.

I ask "Well, how do people get big things like freezers home".

Costco person says "Easy, just put it in your pickup, we'll help you load".

"Hmm...we don't own a pickup".

Costco employee looks somewhat confused.

Then says "Easy, just get your neighbor's pickup".

The next week we bought a pickup.

View on HN

Yeah, I moved out to the country(ish) recently after living in SF and swore off ever getting a truck. Within a year of being out here, finally caved and got one and haven't looked back. I still have the smaller honda for longer trips, but the truck has opened up an entire world (getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc). So much of the stuff I used to think "I can't do that myself" now just takes a weekend or two. Re-siding? Sure. Retaining wall? Done. The list keeps going, and I couldn't do it without the truck.

Having a truck in a big city if you're a in tech or some other desk job is probably kind of pointless. But if you're not in the city and plan on saving thousands and thousands of dollars doing some of the work on your property yourself, you can't really live without it. Seriously, the thing has paid for itself already (bought it used) and haven't even had it a year.

I just scuba dive and a truck is a lot better for hundreds of pounds of wet smelly gear than anything else. Plus you can go to the dump, or pick stuff up from Lowe's, etc.

But its only an old Ford Ranger and not a F950 that is raised enough to crawl over boulders on Mars.

Yeah, honestly, I couldn't justify the utility of a truck buying new. The price tags are nuts. I got an old T100. They run forever, cost less than $10K (even in CA where the truck market is crazy), and are very capable for all the stuff I throw at it. I love the thing.

Here in upper US East Coast - most of the older Japanese Trucks that are perfect as a cheap hauler are piles of rust. Really unfortunate.

Looks like it has infected the Japanese trucks and the Australian Ute market. Even the latest Hilux is starting to look very American in its girth.

Why not use a small trailer instead? I have a small hybrid, have driven 2200km since last time I filled the 40 liter tank, when I want some plywood, lumber or dump run I connect my trailer which I can load 1000 kg on. I do live in a country where petrol isn't almost free so am not only saving the environment but also lots of money from not driving a lorry

My honda can't really haul anything but a few people and some surfboards. If I attached a trailer with 2000lb of base rock in it, it would probably kill the engine but more importantly would be super dangerous to drive since there's no real hitch or brake controller.

So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense.

I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.

Do you really haul 2000lb loads weekly?

Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.

Weekly? No. But it has happened enough times (20+) in the last eight months to justify a vehicle that can do it, among all the other things the truck can do that my honda cannot. Also, depending on the weight of the loads you're hauling in your trailer (lumber is obviously fine), you could be putting a lot of people on or around the road in danger. The brakes on a WRX are not designed for towing.

I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?

Pure interest: would you mind listing the things you transported in more detail? Maybe not so much the raw materials but the end purpose.

I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile.

So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.

I think it's easy to underestimate just how large and undeveloped the majority of the USA is.

England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres.

The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density.

The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things.

1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land.

2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development.

3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped.

This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have.

One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.

Sure. A 3000LB (dry weight) travel trailer, a few larger deliveries where the driver didn't want to come to the house but instead wanted meet on a main artery, I mentioned the base rock (several days, multiple loads) to fill in a retaining wall, a decent number of loads of firewood (1 cord per load, generally) since we are primarily wood-stove heat in the winter, a lot of construction debris from renovations (not sure on the weight, but certainly more than a honda could pull on a tailer) and green debris from clearing the property (fire season, yay) sent to the dumps, etc. When building the retaining wall, I could have tamped the base rock down by renting a tamper and spending an afternoon...OR...drive the 4000lb truck back and forth over it for 15 minutes until it's completely packed in (the honda would have gotten stuck likely).

There have also been a number of mudslides in the neighborhood that block the only exit road in the past, and having a 4x4 vehicle would be the only manner of escape. Similarly, it's in the forest, so a when a tree falls across the road (and they do), freedom is only a truck, some straps, and a chainsaw away.

So how much of this could have been done with an SUV? Maybe 60%. And SUV and a trailer? 90%, and a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with. So why get an SUV and a trailer when the workload specifically calls for regularly hauling oddly-shaped or bulk items? That's exactly what a truck is designed for. If I already had a vehicle capable of towing a heavy trailer, the truck would have made much less sense. But given the needs, another vehicle was warranted, and mid-size 90s 4x4 truck checked all the boxes.

Interesting, thanks! It seems the difference is indeed that rural US is a lot more rural than rural UK (England for sure).

Around here (semi-rural WI, US) it's not so much the terrain where you're going as what you need to haul. 4'x8' sheets of building materials are one that get me a lot; I recently had to cut a sheet of styrofoam in half in the parking lot of the home improvement store to get it to fit into my car. There's also pieces of equipment that won't fit in the trunk (boot), like lawn aerators, rototillers, sod cutters, and stump grinders. (They might fit in a van or CUV, but then you have to deal with gas fumes and dirtying/damaging the interior.) Dirt and compost could fit but would be a pain even with a tarp.

I see a lot of fashion trucks but most of them also get used for towing or hauling on the weekend, and a lot of that stuff wouldn't fit in a car and would be unsafe on a trailer. A lot of people around here also have motorboats that would be too big to safely pull with a car.

You don't need a truck to tow a larger trailer. My Audi A3 is rated to tow 1600kg. I did tow my 1000kg race car many times using a normal car without any problems and it was both safe and legal when I was racing. Trucks, and SUVs, are bad for the environment and are more unsafe for both the driver and for others.

You don't need a vehicle to do anything. You can just walk or bike. If you need to move a large load, lift some weights or ask your friends to help you. People in egypt built the pyramids without vehicles. Vehicles in general are bad for the environment and are just plain unsafe for the driver and for others.

Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.

Most pickup trucks are not going to be cheaper than the A3. A3's are not especially expensive if you factor out maintenance costs, and pickup trucks are inordinately expensive due to high demand in the US, plus dealers refusing to carry very many of the cheapest trim models for sales (unless doing a bulk deal for work fleet sales). Yes, in theory, an F-150 starts at 28K MSRP vs 32k for an A3...but good luck finding a new F-150 for 28k out the door.

That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.

I got my truck for <$7000. If towing/hauling are the goal, I'd trust a 90s pickup over any sedan regardless of manufacturer claims. And I do tow more than the A3's limits, so either way it's out the window.

Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.

Ah, yeah the used market is a completely different beast. Hard to compare across vehicle classes and models. I was thinking in terms of 'new' truck sales, which is currently bonkers for pickups and have been for some time in North America.

> healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load

Not only that, but in some applications the stated limit is irrelevant. Utility trailers aren't usually a big problem, but a lot of people mistakenly think they can tow a 7500lb RV with a half-ton truck just because the manufacturer says the tow rating is some ridiculous number like 11,300 lb.

Interesting, up until now I would have trusted most tow ratings. How can you tell if a manufacturer is fudging the numbers or not? It it mostly a matter of engine/truck size?

It's not that they are lying, per se. The pull rating is idealized. A trailer needs 10-15% total weight on the tongue to pull safely, and a travel trailer in particular is sensitive to being balanced correctly. So if you have only the driver in the truck and no cargo, you might get to the pull rating.

But realistically, payload is what you hit first, especially a family towing a travel trailer. A very typical half-ton pickup will have around 1500 lbs of payload capacity [0]. This includes driver, passengers, cargo, everything but fuel. The authoritative number is particular to the truck and is given on a sticker on the door jamb. So if you have a trailer with a 7500 GVWR, you need to plan on around 1050 lbs on the tongue, which leaves you ~450 for everything else. Two adults could easily put you over. Add kids, dog, coolers, firewood for the campsite, etc, and suddenly a half-ton isn't looking like a good choice for a trailer this size (7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at).

There are other factors that also come into play, like wheelbase vs trailer length, but in general I think most people don't have much to worry about if they respect the payload rating on the truck. Many people ignore it (on purpose, or not) however. I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer. On anything other than flat, level highway with no crosswind and little traffic I think that would be dangerous.

[0] Technically Ford will sell you a particular F150 configuration with a 3270 payload, higher than many F250s, but IMO it's still not as comfortable towing as a bog standard F250. But if you don't tow very often the compromise may be worth it since the F150 is significantly more comfortable for daily driving.

Ok, that makes sense. My T100 is rated to tow 5000 (including the load in the truck itself) and I definitely try try to respect that limit (poor little feller). That said, those things are known to be unbreakable. We'll see I guess.

> 7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at [...] I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer.

I see what you mean now. I cannot imagine towing a 30+ft trailer with a half ton. I feel iffy pulling our 16ft TT with the T100. It's well within capacity, but I definitely feel the truck working. And yeah, flat ground is smooth sailing, but the first hill you hit and the pedal is down all the way and if I don't hit it just right I've got to tell the auto to shift to 2nd.

Probably could have gone one size up, but I'm honestly really happy with the T100.

That rating is for a braked trailer. Hope your was that type.

I have a little trailer and an older small SUV. I also have a house built in 1920. I would _really_ love a pickup. The trailer is a pain when you do as many runs for supplies as I do.

Yeah, people seem to forget the "pain in the ass" factor.

And then there was the time I discovered that you cannot get 10' rebar into a Corvette. 6'? 8'? Sure. 10'? Not without shattering that fancy curved rear window.

I had the SUV/trailer combo for years, and it was handy but there are lots of things it's just not worth the hassle for. Now I have a pickup and making a daily trip to the town compost pile (to eventually get rid of the large pile of stuff that accrued over the trailer years) is super easy. I still have the trailer but haven't touched it once, I'd rather just make two trips with the truck.

P.S. Trucks are just more fun! P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.

Does your car have an official towing capacity?

In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.

>>Does your car have an official towing capacity?

Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it

> It is an American thing

... to tow RVs. Different game entirely than towing a utility trailer, which is more commonly all that you find Europeans towing behind a sedan.

1600kg is not a lot of tow capacity - only 3500 lbs. A base model Mustang for instance comes in at 3600 lbs. Most campers are going to exceed it as well especially when you add in supplies, etc. And that is not using a trailer.

Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.

Towing with a car is normal, you need to let your insurance know if you fit a towbar to a car that didn’t have one. You are limited to a max trailer weight of 750kg without an upgraded driving license. Also many normal sized cars have a max towing capacity which is about 750kgs anyway.

As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people. It's really quite affordable and easy to rent one as needed too. However, there are definitely situations where a truck is vastly superior.

I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.

> As someone that owns a truck, I actually recommend this to a lot of people

So they don't constantly ask to borrow you and your truck? ;)

Lol! No, I just genuinely think its a very pragmatic approach.

A lot of cars (rather than trucks) sold in the US either aren't rated to tow at all, or are rated to tow much less than the same car sold in other countries. For instance, a 2005 Subaru Forester is rated to tow 2400 lbs (1088 kg) in the US, but 1800 kg in Europe.

The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars.

The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers.

See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelo...

Also worth mentioning that U-haul trailers are very handy for this. There's at least 3 U-haul dealers that I can think of within a 5-minute drive of me. The one I prefer is probably 2 minutes away, I can rent a trailer for a day for like $15, they're never out of stock, and the owner of the U-haul dealership is the most chill person on the planet. I get all the benefits of a pickup truck, but don't have to pay for one. Win-win.

You're of course welcome to own a pickup truck if you want, nothing wrong with that. And I'm sure plenty of people don't live in suburbia with U-haul dealers everywhere. But if you do, it's stupid simple and you can save a ton of money.

I agree with you and the U-Haul idea makes loads of sense, but dear heavens are those unpleasant places. I wish there was a business that was like.... U-Haul, except nice although I'm sure it would cost 3x as much.

I'm sure the experience varies somewhat by location but it usually involves some combination of:

- very long lines, particularly on weekends. understandable, but adds hours and stress

- the vehicle you "reserved" online last week so you could do that job today? yeah, it's not really reserved. it may or may not be available; they "overbook" because they expect a certain number of cancellations. again this is understandable and something you see in a lot of industries, but yuck.

- lots of bogus-ish fees like "cleaning fees".

That all said, I own a home and have never felt the need for a pickup truck. I do fine with a hatchback and a roof rack.

IMO for people who don't want to own a pickup, the Home Depot rentals may be a more convenient option. Especially since you're as likely as not buying whatever it is you need to haul from there.

It's a pretty painless process, but I save that option for the "big" hauls. If I didn't have the minivan and renting the Home Depot trucks was my only option, I'd probably organize my life around hauling less stuff.

A friend of mine just owns a trailer that he occasionally hooks to his minivan.

The main disadvantage is that you're driving something larger and more unwieldy, like backing up.

But the advantages are numerous. Still lots of seating in the minivan. Much lower deck to roll/drive/ride things on (I can't recall if the trailer tilts).

It's basically a portable pickup truck bed, maybe it's even bigger.

I drive a 1999 F-150 for all the reasons you describe. The sheer amount of _stuff_ that needs to be moved around the countryside was so surprising to me when I first moved out here. I remember thinking how insanely huge a 2 cubic foot back of potting soil used to feel. Now I routinely buy two yards (54 cubic feet) at a time.

It all still feels a little weird to me. There was a time not long ago where I never thought I'd own a car, much less a big pickup! I'll admit that this lifestyle feels very inefficient.

Though, I wonder if my carbon footprint is actually smaller, since I spend most of my vacation time working on stuff at home (rather than flying places).

Here in Seattle, I have one close friend with a pickup, everyone else drives Subarus (no exception).

But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if someone can borrow his truck, it's insane how far this "ask" stretches itself. It drives him a little bonkers, but he's also a pretty nice guy so he says yes more than he should.

Anyways, I'd probably buy a smaller pickup because of how often my partner buys and sells used furniture as a hobby, but I don't want to be the friend with the truck in the city.

Many Tacoma owners in Seattle (fun fact, Tacoma is the native name for Mt. Rainier). I'm one of them. I've owned it for 7 years, 3 in Seattle, and I've never once been asked by someone to borrow it. Guess I must be a loner. You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble.

Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.

"You can rent a cargo van from UHaul without much trouble."

Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.

I rented one last fall, and they have a mostly electronic pick up and return process now. The biggest delay was getting the keys when I went to the gas station to get the van. I waited ~5 minutes in line for the cashier, and then she had to call somebody from the back.

The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.

This obviously depends on how forward-looking the manager is at a particular location.

UHaul rentals are painful, but Home Depot has a truck rental program that is relatively painless if you can deal with the no reservations policy. I've done some fairly substantial remodel projects without owning a truck.

I live 5 minutes from a HD and it is still a giant PITA to rent their truck. Usually there is a line and the transactions are relatively slow. Then you have to gas it up. Then you have to make an extra trip, even more if you're not using it to bring home a Home Depot purchase. Then you only have it for 75 minutes.

I just check online and see which store has the truck I want. I haven't had any issues with lines and there is no limit on how long I can keep it where I live. I'm in a major metro area though so ymmv.

I have a Harbor Freight trailer I tow with a Honda fit. It's 8 feet long, and I built sides on it about 4 feet tall. It's got a 1500lb capacity, and my hitch on my car is rated to 2000lbs. The trailer was $300, the hitch for my car was $150. Spent a few bucks on wood for the floor and sides of the trailer. Been using this thing for about 20 years. Never needed a truck. Most truck beds anymore are less than 6 feet long, because everybody needs a 4 door. A trailer is $35,000 cheaper than a truck, and when you unhook it from your car, you can still use the car to take a trip and get 35-40mpg. I tow motorcycles, dirt, trash to the dump. I tore off my old roof and hauled it all to the dump in my trailer. I have used it to bring home 16 foot boards, plywood, sheetrock. It's light enough that I can move it around when it's unhooked. It takes about 30 seconds to hook up.

My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer.

These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.

I've been considering a trailer. Problem is it's annoying to store; I don't have a lot of space and hate it out in the open.

Mind you I don't have a pickup truck either, I have a Honda Fit-sized car. (See re: no space). Just considering it for when this car wears out.

In Seattle, there's a good chance it takes an hour to go pick up your friend's pickup.

So bad--it boggles my mind. We joke that their company moto is: "U-Haul: It's Always Somthing".

So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck."

Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.

Not only that, but their arbitrary safety rules get really annoying. "No you can't hook that onto the bumper hitch, even though its rated for 4500lbs. The rules say you need a receiver." The receiver is still rated for 4500lbs but that's okay.

But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.

Fair, it's been a few years since I rented one. It still works better than a truck in most cases since it protects your stuff from rain, car exhaust, mud splashes etc.

I needed to pick up a bunk bed I bought on Facebook Marketplace, so I rented a small U-Haul in my neighborhood last year to make the whole process simpler. I downloaded the U-Haul app to schedule the rental, used the truck for about an hour and was pleased that the return process took about five minutes. There may be lots of horror stories about renting a U-Haul in a big city, but the process of renting a U-Haul in the suburbs — the place where the truck got lots of its stigma over MAGA owners rolling coal down Main Street — has only been incredibly easy for me, so much so that owning a truck seems rather pointless. I've also rented a U-Haul for most of the times I've moved, either across-city or interstate, and each of those processes have been simple and not time-consuming.

Zipcar used to have cargo vans. Not sure if they still do (don't use them anymore).

But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)

I used to own a pickup. I resolved to never own another one because it resulted in requests to help haul stuff or help someone move at least twice per month.

I'm actually the opposite here, I love being asked to help people. I feel that it strengthens my relationships with them and makes me feel important.

My too. This is literally why I bought a pick-up truck 20 years ago. (Which I still drive today. The Tacoma will outlive me.)

I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.

Some people count on that to take advantage of you. One of the easiest strategies is to start asking for small favors, and then move on to bigger ones. Because the person has already granted you a small favor, it’s harder for many to say no to the bigger ones even if they want to.

But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!

That sounds like the natural progression of a relationship/friendship to me. I'd ask my better-known friends larger tasks than people I don't know as well, too.

Yes, of course, if it’s a two way relationship. But I’ve seen plenty where the “mark” is unaware or cognitively dissonant that they are being taken advantage of.

Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation.

Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.

> Pride is always a liability

That statement seems so broad that it can't possible be true in every circumstance. Always?

The saying is “pride comes before the fall”.

It is more of a general principle of keeping one’s emotions at bay to prevent your biases from clouding the data and your judgment.

I am sure there are evolutionary reasons for pride (i.e. ego) such as helping you fight with intensity for scarce resources or for maintaining tribal bonds. But in the modern world, it those circumstances are rarer and someone can use it against you pretty easily.

I agree that pride _can_ be a liability. The idiom “pride comes before the fall” itself doesn’t imply that pride is _always_ bad, but rather that it has the potential to be bad.

I think pride has all kinds of positive and negative features in the modern world. When I take pride in my work, I think about it more carefully and try and deliver a higher quality work. “Pride” and “Craftsmanship” seem very linked to me. That pride helps me deliver high quality work, which keeps clients around and earns referrals, which keeps me paid and food on the table.

When I don’t take pride in the work I do, the standards and quality can slip. I’m much happier if I can deliver work to a client that I can stand behind and be proud of. I think that’s in many ways an asset.

I certainly don’t disagree with you, though, that there are many scenarios where pride , hubris, and ego end up being problematic.

You make a good point, I guess it’s not an easy one liner!

I'm not particularly worried about being taken advantage of. "No" is a well-established part of my vocabulary.

Ah, the privilege escalation attack.

If you want the utility of a pickup truck without the stigma, go for a minivan and a trailer.

Of course a minivan has other associated stigma, but you can haul things around without being asked to haul other things.

I once read an article by a crane operator that mentioned something like 40% of his jobs were for people who saw him craning something and asked if they could hire him to crane something else nearby.

It costs $19 to rent a truck for 75 minutes from Home Depot and $20 an hour after that, or is what I would tell people if I owned a pickup.

Yeah, and it’s a pain in the ass because you realize the renting overhead equates to about 4 hours of wasted time to and fro. Then you’re rushing your project because you hear the clock tick and then need it again on Sunday. Will never do a truck rental again.

I owned a pickup in the city. I absolutely hate moving. I do, however, love free beer and pizza.

...I helped a lot of friends move.

A lot of acquaintances have asked me for help fixing their computers, or advice on buying a computer, or help setting up their smart TV, or email on their smart phone. Some have asked me to build apps or websites for them. All expecting help for free.

Some people have asked to use my truck, or asked for help loading a moving van.

I have asked for free legal advice, tax advice, help installing flooring, help loading a moving van. I have borrowed a neighbor's truck.

I have asked for tons of help debugging code or learning some new concept.

Sometimes I have turned people down who asked for help. I am grateful to the hundreds of people who have helped me in ways big and small. I understand when people can't. For the most part, I am happy to lend out my truck on occasion. While it is getting used, I'm probably using a browser for free on an operating system for free.

A while back I was using a park "for free" when I noticed a family I know working together to pick up all the trash. I know they weren't being paid. They're just super cool like that.

Sometimes it just feels great to be super cool in some small way. Some people go out of their way to feel like that at least twice per month.

Just need to learn how to politely say no. If they're friends, they won't take advantage of you, and if they're not friends, it's really easy to say no.

Hasn't been a problem for me, but I recognize that this is probably because all my friends have some kind of pickup of their own.

In the 90s we lived in SF SOMA and I had a 4WD pickup. It was excellent for hauling antique furniture and oddball arty type things (store couldn't possibly deliver). And it was perfect for exploring the Lost Coast, Trinity Alps, Owens & Saline Valley etc. Manual steering, so || parking was a nice upper body workout. The apartment garage space was $100/month, well worth it.

But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea.

I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.

Being a giant pickup truck, how long do you think it'll be before there's a variety of petrol range extenders that go in the frunk and/or bed?

I fully expect that to be something the local u-haul rents out for cross-country road-trips.

I still can't believe a diesel-electric, "train-locomotive-on-tires" hybrid concept has never been attempted stateside.

Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.

Mail delivery trucks. All delivery trucks? Regenerative braking is a beautiful thing.

A 2016 Prius gets ~40++ mpg on a 10 gal tank all day at 90mph. That is, >> 400 mile range per fueling stop. I heard this on the internets, of course, I wouldn't know, personally ;-). Fueling stops imply human fuel as well.

I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option.

wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe?

Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.

I had an employee once who told me his pickup provided him job security. Every company he worked for wanted him to use the truck for errands. He was able to get $2-3/hr more than everyone else.

There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.

Wouldn't just buying a truck for the company be cheaper than a whole employee?

I would imagine someone without a truck was let go instead. It's just the delta between a him and a truck-less employee, not a whole employee.

If the company owns the truck, they then have to get insurance for it, and to get reasonably priced insurance, they will likely need to run background checks on everyone allowed to drive it.

It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.

There are liability and insurance concerns with having your employees use their own vehicles for company work as well.

That does not go away.

I mean, the employee presumably isn't adding zero value. Maybe he's not as great as someone else, but his truck tips the scales just over the line in his favor?

Lots of reasons that I didn't at that time. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of purchasing and maintaining a truck and didn't have a place to park it. I wasn't going to park it at my house and didn't want to use one of my two parking spots at my warehouse.

We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.

Uhaul rents pickups for $20 a day plus mileage in Seattle. Let your friend know so he can point everyone there.

I moved to Idaho a several years ago and went through the same experience. I showed up in my Toyota Corolla and everyone kept saying it was a "cute car". This was just a normal car in Seattle. But here everyone was like, "oh how cute... a little Corolla". I also got comments from co-workers that were like "oh does your wife drive your truck?"

Here every family basically owns a pickup. Idaho has a lot of BLM land, (second in size only to Alaska). So sports like boating, RVing, and ATVing are very popular here. As we got more ingrained into the culture here, that is very outdoor activity oriented, we decided that with a truck we could own an RV. We have always been huge mountain bike riders and the convenience that a truck offers for mountain biking is incredible. We also drove in friend's trucks and realized that with the Platinum trim from F-150 for example, you get a very luxurious experience inside. Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things, a hitch to tow incredible amounts 10,000lbs+ and 4wheel drive that can take you anywhere. There is a lot to love about modern trucks. Even the gas mileage isn't much different than SUVs (mid-20s mpg).

Yeah, we ended up buying a truck within 6 months of moving out here. Our family was shocked because "they never saw me as a pickup truck driver". Every time I told someone back home that I bought a truck it was always pure shock as they reconciled the stereotype of a pickup owner with what they knew about me.

When my parents visited they were absolutely fascinated by the endless sea of pickups. When you parked at a restaurant for dinner, the parking lots are almost entirely pickups, with only a handful of cars scattered throughout.

When my mom first drove in my pickup, she was shocked at how nice it was. It offered great views of the road. It has heated, cooled, and massaging seats. Panoramic sunroof. A huge interior. A huge mulimedia touchscreen. And they drive like any modern SUV in comfort. She eventually said "Yeah I see the appeal to pickup trucks now".

Eventually I convinced them to move out here during COVID. They have been really happy with life out here. But now my dad is getting the itch and now he too is shopping for a new pickup. He never considered owning a truck before in his life.

I don't fit that stereotype for a pickup driver. And whenever I meet people through work or whatever that find out I drive a pickup, they are always taken back. Everyone has a certain type of person in mind for a pickup, especially people in the city. But pickup trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. Much of middle America lives and dies by their truck and they are standard purchases for a lot of families.

Edit: Ok so I'm seeing from a lot of the comments now that everyone is quick to say "You don't NEED a pickup", "You can rent one when you need one", or "I go mountain biking all the time with my Prius/Tesla". So just to be clear. I am not saying that you can't go mountain biking unless you have a truck. I mountain biked for 10 years in a VW Passatt and Toyota Corolla. But the truck offers a lot of convenience and is nice to have. I love having it and thats why I bought it. I'm sure I could jigsaw stuff I am hauling into the back seat. I did exactly that for several decades. But I love tossing stuff in the truck bed and not worrying about it scratching the leather, making a mess, or making it fit. Just toss it in the bed and drive off. Wash the bed out with a hose when you are done. Go anywhere in the truck. Tow anything. It's Comfortable and safe. Try fitting a kayak and/or paddleboard in your car. Yes, again you can buy racks to put it on the roof, and I used to own those. They are a royal pain. Now rent a pickup and throw it in the bed and drive off. You'll be at the lake before the Prius has finished safely attaching their kayak to their roof. I enjoy it and that's why I bought it.

I hope you workin Ford's advertising department...

It's okay to advocate for things you , especially when people are confused about why you would like it! I like my Tacoma as well, no, I do not work for Toyota.

re: your username

Adult Bobby buying his first pickup truck but it being a Toyota Tacoma feels like a real episode of a KoH sequel

Pilot Synopsis:

Robert starts his new remote office job and buys a new truck for its utility as a non-commuter vehicle. Hank desperately tries to hide the fact that his son would buy a foreign-made truck. The Gribble boys unravel it all.

This episode brought to you by Toyota.

Just a small point:

> Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things

Generally, the huger the cab, the smaller the bed. It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.

>It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.

Most people buying pickups don't use the beds for anything other than groceries. Buying a pickup is just a form of social signalling that you belong to a certain in-group. Those people buying trucks with 6-foot beds don't care that lumber doesn't fit in them because they use their trucks exactly like I use my Volkswagen. On the rare occasion they need to put lumber in the bed they'll let it hang out the back, just like I put it on my roof bars.

I call my truck my, "moving living room"

I love it

I don't think people realize how expensive pickup trucks are. The 2021 F-150 Platinum Trim you mentioned starts at $59,110 - these are luxury vehicles.

That's just cap cost. Pickups do very well on depreciation, much better than a similarly prized luxury car. The TCO is pretty respectable by comparison.

But I'm a bit of a cheapskate and I only ever get the XLT, not the Platinum. Only luxury I really care to pay for is CarPlay. But to each their own!

Or just rent a pickup when you need it for $50 a day? Fancy-boy pickups easily cost upwards of $50k.

Depends. If you're using it a handful of times a year, sure, rent it. If you're using it every weekend or two, coordinating picking up and returning a rental adds a lot of work to an already (generally) busy day.

Also, don't get a fancy-boy pickup. You can get a capable truck under $10K if you look around for a bit, and it will pay for itself in no time if you do a lot of your own work around the house.

Who actually does stuff that needs a pickup more than 10 times a year that doesn't work in a field that obviously requires a pickup?

Home repair and gardening / recreational farming come to mind as hobbies where a flat bed would be useful. BMX or dirt biking too.

I don't drive that much. Why would I buy a sedan and give myself the hurdle of arranging to rent a pickup any time I need one? If I must own a vehicle, why not make it one that provides utility?

Because the fuel efficiency on pickup trucks is terrible. You could double your fuel costs by driving a truck all the time.

So if you're going on a long trip, just rent a car.

Or arrange to use my wife's car or my brother's van. So many options.

No. Sell your truck and get a car. You're not allowed to have a truck.

That's an argument for not owning a car at all, actually.

If only someone would come out with an electric truck...

> Because the fuel efficiency on pickup trucks is terrible.

>> I don't drive that much.

People who live in the country, which is OPs point here.

Or anything like suburbia. I live in Gainesville, Florida, very near the center of town. It's a 130K city limits burg, and our property still has a yard, and good use for trucklike patterns. I solve that with a Cheep Jeep at the moment.

I do. I'm a software engineer, living in a city, but slowly renovating a house on the weekends. I routinely need a few sheets of plywood and dozen 2x4s, or drywall, or bags of concrete, or something to that effect.

https://www.homedepot.com/c/Delivery_Services

Not the same. Deliveries are often late, incorrect, or don't show up at all. It can wreck an entire day of work. Read that page...you have to pay extra to get even a 4-hour delivery window. This is great if you want to sit around with your thumb up your ass instead of building. "Just deliver the day before." Oh yeah, I'll take every Friday off of work to wait around to receive a delivery that I could have picked up in an hour with a capable vehicle.

I used that, once, during the early stages of the pandemic to avoid going into the store.

They showed up outside of the expected delivery window, left a stack of drywall in my front yard in the rain, and didn't ring the bell or notify me in any way. I found it several hours later.

While I understand they were likely overworked due to Covid in this instance, this kind of thing happens often enough I can only use it when I have space to securely store materials delivered several days before I need them.

To their credit, Home Depot did refund me; but I still had no dry wall when I needed it.

Also, you can't get immediate delivery when you're in the middle of a project and mess up a cut on your last sheet of plywood. There's no ctrl+z with a saw.

This is a thing, but there are a million edge cases that you can’t rely on this for. Sometimes you underestimate the amount of material you need, sometimes you need to make sure that the sheets of drywall you’re getting aren’t damaged, sometimes you need to pick individual pieces of lumber from the pile because there is a ton of variation in the grain etc etc

If you’re doing a project you very much need to be able to run to Home Depot that same day and pick up additional bulky items.

More expensive than owning a truck.

Why do you need a truck for that? What's wrong with trailers? Even my 2-door coupe can tow a 1800 kg trailer with brakes (750 kg for trailers without brakes).

Me, for home and property renovations.

Oh, the hill is starting to give way. Cool, build a retaining wall (including getting the base rock to fill it). Oh, we ran out of firewood this winter. Cool, build a bigger wood shed (BTW, firewood is a lot cheaper if you pick it up yourself). Oh, the siding on the house is rotting. Cool, grab some plywood, tar paper, and siding and fix it myself. Oh, the weeds on the property have overgrown again? Rip them all out and haul them to the dumps.

I've saved probably tens of thousands of dollars including the price of my truck by doing these things in-house instead of hiring. All thanks to my truck.

When you don't have one, you don't do these things (because hiring people is expensive). But once you get one, it opens a completely different world of "wow I can do this myself." I found rentals don't cover that gap. I resisted getting a truck for so long, but once I got one I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.

My friend with a pickup gets a lot of his building materials delivered still.

Tell him I said hi.

Millions of people own RV's. Most people that tow them with their SUV are way, way over the limits for the vehicles they use. (the salesperson will ALWAYS say your vehicle can pull it)

I know a guy who for several years towed a 30' travel trailer (7500 GVWR) with a Jeep Grand Cherokee. That's one of those "well, technically, it could work in a narrow set of circumstances" situations. He swore it only had a tongue weight of 500# because that's what he got told by the salesman.

Not someone you want to share the road with. He was a big guy, married with two teenage boys and a dog. He was so far over the payload limit on that Jeep...

I do maintenance on an office building and use it all the time.

Good luck when you get into an accident with your teardrop trailer, rv camper or even motorcycle trailer and you find out your insurance company won't pay it because you were over your tow capacity (if you even had any) with or without e-breaks.

Short of doing something criminal, you will always get covered by your insurance policy in this situation. But they will drop you like a hot potato the moment they cut the check. Insurance covers stupidity at least once.

They will cover your liability to others but there is a good chance they won't cover your losses other than medical unless mandated by the State's Department of Insurance regs. I am only talking about the US based P&C here.

If you are into home improvement it is very easy if you are getting materials, hauling garbage, bringing tools from one place to another. You could substitute a trailer for a lot of stuff, but then you need to park that. Parking the truck instead of an SUV/car is easier than parking the SUV/car + a trailer.

I tow my travel trailer once every two weeks on average for about 8 months of the year, and in between those trips I routinely haul stuff for my projects around the house and some hobbies.

As a desk-bound software engineer, nearly every weekend I'll use my pickup to go get stuff I couldn't (or would be very inconvenient or dirty to) bring in a car. Lumber, concrete, rock, soil, large pots & plants, etc.

I don't drive the pickup during the week though (I mean pre-covid when I drove places), too inconveniently large for that.

New F150 XLT Supercrew (4-door) in 2014 for me was off the lot at $29k.

2013 XLT Supercab (the suicide mini doors), $26k used in early 2015. But I wanted the 3.5l Ecoboost. (20-21mpg, i.e. in the same ballpark as the WRX upthread.)

For those in a similar situation, note that most home-improvement stores rent a pickup for something like $20 for 75 minutes, usually enough to get a load home.

And one step up from that, full truckload delivery is often $75-150, and sometimes even comes with a forklift. Often you can get it thrown in free if the order is large enough.

The rental is fine for one offs, but if you're constantly doing home improvement projects or have a hobby that requires this sort of trip, then you're doubling the trips you make to the supply store.

Also, HD is not the only place I buy supplies. Sometimes I drive an hour one way to get supplies at a rate _far_ better than HD.

You are funny. A "new" truck can easily run you 70k.

Yep, here in the UK for very rare occasions we need to move something big (like, once every 1-2 years), we just hire a pickup or van for £50-70 depending on size. Even a small lorry with a tail lift is only £100 for 24h.

Seems like madness to buy something as big as a pickup and drag round that weight (with the poor MPG that comes with it) and deal with parking such a behemoth, all for something you do so rarely *

* obviously if you're a farmer or running a business or something, that's different - but that's not what this thread is about.

Combination washer dryer in our prius https://ibb.co/Dp8YxM0

We've moved 5 times in the past 6 years and I spend a lot of time with outdoors hobbies (mountain biking, surfing -- pickups are hugely popular for both). But not owning a truck has never been an issue.

Now do a 4'x8' sheet of plywood.

Should be fine with a roof rack (or without if you don't care about the paint)

When I buy sheet steel I use a station wagon because it's easier to plop it down on a roof rack and get it off later then it is to stick it in a truck or van.

It's actually devilishly hard to strap plywood to a roof rack in a way that it won't take off in the wind (you're essentially turning your car into a giant kite) but also won't warp. It can be done.. but it's hard.

Once I needed a good amount of plywood for some cabinets. At 8 sheets and other assorted lumber I started feeling really uncomfortable mounting that much weight on my roofrack - I know the rack has a limited capacity like 100-200lbs. Would have had no issues with a proper pickup truck.

I can just barely do that in my Mazda 3. Dimensional lumber is much easier since you can angle it more.

Easily fit in a Minivan ^_^

No joke, minivans are actually great for a lot of things people think they need a truck for.

But then you’re driving a minivan.

I've renovated four houses with my minivan.

We use our minivan for a lot of these things, but I’d love to buy bulk mulch / topsoil instead of the bags. But loose mulch doesn’t play well with the van.

I’ve always considered myself a GM//Chevy guy, but I’m strongly considering this truck.

And I love that it doubles as a Powerwall...

Eliminates the need for a generator (I work from home so if the power is out I can just take the ICE for errands and have the truck power the house — you don’t have to be a truck person to find that pretty nifty!)

> And I love that it doubles as a Powerwall...

That is a really cool feature. I think for extended outages (which we do have) a propane generator fed by a big tank is great. But most outages are a day or less, so having that all ready to go in your truck is really cool.

  Miata
  Is
  Always
  The
  Answer

Same, I pack two bikes inside our regular Prius all of the time. I moved across country with it packed full, and regularly do furniture moves, skis, climbing gear with 4x people, etc.

Be careful, just because you can fill your car with stuff, doesn’t mean you should, I learned that the hard way when I damaged my car’s suspension.

Be aware of the weight limitations of your car.

Firewood in the boot will do this I’m sure. There are a lot of big trees near me that like to fall over. Putting large sections in the boot to process at home can easily overload the car so much that the wheels at the front start to lift. You turn and nothing happens.

I own multiple station wagons fully agree with you. But what you're missing is that it's not about the ability to do things, it's about the image projected when doing them.

Over-specing vehicles is one of the ways the well to do advertise their well-to-do-ness. It's like a marble countertop but for the roads.

Sure you can put three kids in the back row of a Sentra, it has three seatbelts there after all. Sure you can haul plywood on anything with a roof-rack, that's what it's there for. Sure you can shove a washer in a Prius. All those things work great. Bust for most of HN to do them regularly would be "behavior below one's pay-grade" so to speak.

>We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.

I every one owns a pickup, why don't you simply rent one (à la Airbnb, e.g with GetAround) for just a day?

I've never owned a vehicle (other than a bicycle, but I live in Paris) but can easily rent any kind of car/truck/van anywhere in Europe. It saves me a lot.

Generally it's the hassle of getting it because in car-centric American cities, the rent-for-a-day renting process isn't streamlined. Rental companies aren't convenient (or possible) to walk/bus to so you need to get there somehow. Which means you need a main car already, or you have to bug a neighbour/friend and do it on their schedule and not yours. The ability to be like "oh, I've got a spare hour here, I'm gonna go grab that lumber I need next weekend" isn't possible anymore.

So at the end of the day, you need a car, period. I live in a midsize American city after living in a major Canadian downtown and wish we didn't need the car (we both bike a lot), but I really do. And personally, an electric pick-up is gonna be mighty appealing for my next car in however-many years because it removes the main reason I've never gotten one before: gas. I can only imagine how big a win the lack of gas is gonna be outside of America where gas is hilariously cheap.

> can easily rent any kind of car/truck/van

This works when you're the outlier. If we are ever successful in making cars the exception rather than the rule, it will be far more difficult to just go rent one on demand.

When we bought our couch at the Salvation Army, they also didn't deliver. We rented a pickup truck at Home Depot for an hour, which cost about forty bucks. Overall, I think that worked great and I'd do it again.

When I lived in Texas I didn't need a truck all the time. But when I did, it was critical.

I found that since I didn't need it most of the time the Home Depot Truck Rental for a couple of hours shifting freezers, flooring and other bulky items worked out well for me.

Saved on gas all the rest of the time.

But it really requires a Home Depot within 30 mins so not for everyone and if this had been an option, I probably would have just gone for the truck.

Around here, Home Depot rents out little trucks that could probably take a freezer. They are flat-bed, not pick-up. They charge by the hour.

... why not just rent one for the day ?

If OP is out in montana, most fun things are going to need a pickup.

Offroading, boating, horseback riding, dealing with snow, hauling firewood. Sure, you can get a 4x4 SUV like a 4runner but just get a dang truck. lol

Renting is a hassle, and its cheaper to buy if you need to rent more than a couple times a month.

>Renting is a hassle, and its cheaper to buy if you need to rent more than a couple times a month.

What kind of activity requires so much transportation?

What do you mean? Like boating, boondocking, 4-wheeling, house work, fishing, going to the dump, landscaping, etc?

You may live in a city, and never need to move anything, but for lots of people they use a pickup every weekend.

Rural home ownership. When you own 10 acres and want to make use of it, there's always a project to do. I've owned my current 10 acres for almost 3 years, and lived up here full time since last October. Prior to moving, I spent every other weekend up here (other family lives here full time).

There has hardly been a weekend since I bought the place in that time where I don't have some project that involved some amount of construction material. Even just a weekly shopping trip can fill up a full sized truck when you live 30 miles from town and do all of your shopping at once. Also, I have 4 horses on the property (not at all uncommon here), so that alone justifies the truck since I have to go get a few thousand pounds of hay every so often.

> Renting is a hassle, and its cheaper to buy if you need to rent more than a couple times a month.

... how expensive is renting a vehicle there ? here in france it's like 40-50€ for a day

That's about right. So if you rent 3+ times a month, thats 150 euros ($180) a month. That's easily a car payment on a used truck. Not to mention the amount of time you spend dealing with the rental place, and doing the extra return journey. Considering the hourly rate of the average HN user, that's firmly in range of a truck payment.

Also consider that you get to eventually sell / trade in the truck. Vehicles depreciate, but you get some value out. Rental payments all disappear.

okay, I have to rent at most 4-5 times a year so definitely not the same experience

or, you know, rentals, no need to drop 20 grands on a pickup to get a fridge home

Better 20 grand for a truck than a prius

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