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Comment by warmwaffles | Hacker News Reader

> nobody actually needs or uses them

These make me chuckle. Those people have never done home improvement projects or just projects that require picking up 8ft sheets of plywood or 20 bags of mulch.

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Home Depot rents a big truck for $20-$40 for the 2 hours I'd need it. I could rent this truck every weekend for 30 years for the same price as a giant truck. And I wouldn't have to worry about its maintenance either.

Once you do this math it becomes very difficult to justify truck ownership without also being responsible for something that needs hauling/towing on a regular basis. The truth is that in 2023 a truck is a lifestyle purchase for many people as evidenced by the average cost of a new F-150 and the inability to buy buy a no-frills Regular Cab pickup outside of fleet sales.

If you'd have told me 15 years ago that people would be buying pickup trucks brand new for $60k with regularity I wouldn't have believed you but here we are...

I don’t disagree with your main point, but you can definitely still get regular cab no frills trucks. (Sadly that’s just not what most people buy)

...and so many dealers don't stock them. I honestly don't remember the last time that I saw a new one on a lot, let alone the road. Of course n=1 and all of that but I used to own one and live in a rural area so I don't think I'm far off.

Depends on use case. I do more than what I originally posted. I do pull a trailer with a small tractor on it frequently and move a lot more stuff than normal people do. Renting a truck would be more of a hassle for this type of work than for me to just pay the premium and own the thing out right.

> I could rent this truck every weekend for 30 years for the same price as a giant truck.

That assumes the price never increases for 30 years.

> > I could rent this truck every weekend for 30 years for the same price as a giant truck.

> That assumes the price never increases for 30 years.

While the average truck owner is paying interest, I'll be earning interest, so let's call it even.

My wife and I completely gutted and renovated a 2 bedroom home built in 1905 with a used 2007 Dodge Magnum and a roof rack. We initially bought it for a road trip around the US because it saved us thousands of dollars in fuel economy (it was a 3.5l V6) over the month-long trip compared to any van or truck. I initially bought it with the intent of selling it right after the road trip, but it ended up being a really well-rounded vehicle.

I grew up in south central Pennsylvania, and while we still have a fair amount of farmers in that region, most people buy trucks because they're marketed to, not because they're the right vehicle to own.

I clicked through here because I've seen a couple of Kei trucks in Philadelphia lately.

Is the price premium worth occasional use? Every DIY store I've ever been to has truck rental outside, and it's a lot less than a new truck.

My corolla takes 10' long boards. Never maxed out the bags of mulch, but it's >10 for sure.

Have been thinking about a roof rack for sheet goods. Can't see why it wouldn't work.

Usually cars of this class can only support about 100lbs on the roof. We have Prius and RAV4 Hybrid with that limitation. The roof racks are still very useful, but I wouldn’t put 4x8 sheets of anything on them.

I moved a bunch of sheet goods with my Civic coupe, by which I mean I moved sheet goods on a bunch of occasions, one or two each time. The problem comes out to be weight, and ease of loading/driving.

The real solution for moving larger things is a trailer. UHaul rents trailers for the occasional use ~$20/day, no mileage charge. I say occasional use because it takes effort to go and get it, and UHaul builds them like brick shithouses. So you can get a lighter one that's nicer to tow if you buy one for a few kilobucks.

I inherited a light crossover SUV that's more than capable of towing a 5x10 trailer with a modest amount of weight around town. It does highways too, but keeping ~65 rather than ~80. If I were still limited to the Civic and needed to move stuff on the regular, I'd buy an even lighter trailer.

And a trailer has very little maintenance compared to getting another motor vehicle. I've started bringing a pallet or two and putting them down under whatever I get so I can just fork stuff off at home (and then in the case of stuff from big box stores, fork the rejects right back on to get returned).

These Kei trucks look neat, but I don't think they would actually solve many problems I have. A dump bed would be fantastic, but if I really needed that I could just bite the supply shortage bullet and get a dump trailer.

I put 20 bags of mulch in an SUV last weekend, one that almost certainly could carry less than TFA's mini-truck-thing. What gives?

As someone who lives in an old house on a fair bit of land, I sort of agree. A sedan wouldn't really work for me but an SUV with a roof rack is mostly just as good as a truck. (And I suppose I could always buy a trailer if it were really an issue.) The enclosed space is more generally useful than a truck bed.

That's the expensive route if you do it too often. I can buy 2 yards of mulch scooped into the back of my truck for quite a bit less than the cost of 20 bags. And then there's things like gravel, which you really don't want to try and get in bags at all. I could probably get by with a smaller truck if I didn't tow a big trailer with it, but I'd still choose an actual open-bed truck over an SUV or minivan.

Different strokes for different folks. It's going to depend a lot on what you routinely haul.

Sure. To your point above: do you think that trucks are the best-selling car in the US because Americans are routinely hauling loose gravel, or could it be something else? I suspect it's something else.

I suspect it's because a modern crew cab half-ton pickup is pretty close to the perfect vehicle for a big swath of Americans. Huge interior room for the family, enough bed & payload to be useful for everything from hauling appliances to gravel, dirt, lumber, whatever.

Just about the only thing it doesn't do well is fuel economy and driving in downtown urban areas. A large number of people rank those issues low on the list.

I mostly do outdoor activities that benefit from more interior space. I'd probably buy a trailer if mulch, gravel, etc. hauling became an issue. You're right that it depends on what you need space that's more than a sedan or a hatchback for.

I have a long wheelbase van with room racks, plus a trailer.

But pick up the overwhelm majority of items in the Celica, a two door hatch.

Anyways, suppliers deliver.

I think vans are a great choice, but from what I can find they’re not any cheaper than trucks. ie, getting one for less than 40k seems to be out of the question.

To be fair to those people, they also don’t think you need your plywood and mulch because you should live in a nice little apartment with a surely altruistic landlord who takes care of every need that the plywood and mulch could satisfy.

Someone who does home improvements probably own a house. Shouldn't they be able to, you know, buy an apartment, if "the mising middle" apartments were available in the US and not banned by a million laws (freedom! :-) ).

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