Even then, my minivan can pack some pretty long and pretty large things inside. Meanwhile it's got a better turning radius than most trucks, it has way better visibility, it's far less pedestrian unfriendly, it's got an easier loading height, sliding doors make it easier to fit the back five passengers in and out, the stuff I'm hauling doesn't have to risk getting wet or affected by the outside environment. Seems like the minivan is way superior than a bed for suburban life if one needs such a large vehicle.
I've needed to move homes requiring the need for a 24' box truck more than I've needed to haul a stack of drywall around. Should I daily drive a uhaul truck?
A utility trailer could do a lot of that too, if you have a suitable tow vehicle. Sometimes the extra space taken by a trailer is inconvenient.
I've mostly just had that delivered when doing a big job, but I have just laid a tarp before. It's not that big of a deal really. And I don't even bother with a tarp for the smaller jobs, it's already bagged. Just don't grab bags with holes in it, and use the vacuum later. It's fine.
> Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush?
I live in a suburb. The trash service picks up brush. If it's more than what I can fit in a few bags I just put in a bulky trash request and the send a truck with crane to pick up the pile. Welcome to living in a society, it's quite nice.
> Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash
Once again, large furniture moves have been easily handled with cheap rentals. One-off pieces have usually been easily partially disassembled to load even into a hatchback. I've had no issues putting my lawn mower even into my old Accord, they're not that big when you fold the bar down. Spend a couple of minutes unscrewing things and suddenly you no longer need a truck. Not that I need to move my lawn mower much, I'm not in the lawn service industry. I'm also not in the piano moving industry. But maybe most Americans do move pianos on a quarterly basis.
And once again, a small tarp and I've carried plenty of firewood for my fireplace. But once again like the majority of Americans I live in an "urban" area and don't rely on multiple chords of firewood to make it through a winter. But the family I had that did live in a rural area that did mostly heat by firewood just had it delivered. You might as well argue one needs a trailer rated to carry fuel oil or large quantities of liquid propane.
You know what's inconvenient? Navigating urban spaces every day with a giant oversized monstrosity that my kids can't even easily climb into on their own. A vehicle where I can barely open the doors on an average parking spot. A vehicle that gets less than 20mpg compared to 35+ (or even way more than that with my EV). A vehicle where each tire costs $200+ compared to $100. A vehicle where a brake job costs way more than it needs to.
Don't get me wrong, some people definitely have a legit need for a truck. I've eyed them as I've been contemplating the pros/cons of a camper trailer vs. an RV. Some people own businesses that actually need it. But most people don't have a camper trailer or horses or work a small construction company out of their home and yet trucks are most vehicles bought these days.
It's a good idea to use anti-sway bars on, say, a Hayman-Reese hitch when things get technical and loads want to skid sideways.
Rig your trailer right and you can have a removable gull wing hutch for sleeping in / tool security, etc.
IMHO there's more room on a dedicated heavy load trailer than an SUV "truck" bed and there's usually better tie down with a custom trailer as the rope rails run full length for hitching.
You may get away with it but it is not suitable. It doesn't have the brakes or the weight to safely pull a large trailer, and you'll likely burn up the transmission as well. Now, if you're talking about a body-on-frame GM sedan from the 1970s, with a 350 or larger V8 engine, maybe. A 4-cylinder typical family sedan of 2025? Not a chance.
We work in agricultural and mining and have done, in my fathers case, since 1935.
Admittedly he started with horses, bullocks, and kerosene fueled tractors, but hey, we understand engines, how to keep them running, and a host of tangential factors that roll alongside; recovery, survival, first aid, fire fighting, bush mechanics, etc.
Vehicles are maintained, used within their limits, regularly checked before long trips, and routinely clock up 750,000 - 1,300,000 km before being replaced.
To date no transmissions have been burnt out. Multiple long distance trips on sealed and unsealed roads have been taken across the length and breadth of Western Australia - it's reasonably tough country.
As a pro-tip, if you're burning out transmissions pulling loads on a regular basis, I'd suggest parking up to take load facing downhill (and chock the wheels to be safe). That way, when you start up under load you have the advantage of a downhill rolling start. That'll help to prevent spinning tyres, getting bogged, and undue strain on the transmission. If you're not doing it already consider starting off in a low gear rather than relying on an automatic transmission to select for you.
You do understand, I trust, that there's a perfectly usable 6-cylinder class between a stupidly oversized rarely needed V-8 and the woefully under powered 4 cylinder?
We have trucks, we've just spent the last month on district harvest, and we're dropping a modular house in place later this afternoon (GMT+8) - by trucks we mean prime movers + trailer trains (usually two, sometimes three), nine tonne tippers, ex-military scrabblers that can carry 5-tonne of water up bush tracks (fire control) and the like.
And if your answer is "well you'd go to the workshop and do that"...well there's your answer on where to park the trailer.
My neighbors are doing extensive renovations to their home. Half the people show up in pretty fancy trucks most days. Nothing in the bed, the trucks look pristine with their company branding. Most of the actual people working hard in the house show up in beater Corollas or Civics. When material shows up, it comes in the back of a flatbed truck by the distributor dropping off pallets of drywall or mud or whatever or in some box van. These people driving trucks to their construction jobs rarely actually need pickup trucks for their construction work. Its like arguing chefs need to carry their own gas ranges to the kitchen. The real work often gets done with the company's equipment, not their own personal luxury toys.
When roofers came to redo the roof on my home a few years ago it was the same story. All the sales people drove big fancy pickup trucks to talk and show off proposals on an iPad. I didn't realize a pickup was absolutely necessary for an iPad, but hey I guess that's what it takes. After all others in this comment area think you need a few tons of towing capacity to move a 50lb canoe. A big box truck came to drop off the pallets of shingles and decking to my roof. The workers showed up in beater cars, the supervisors showed up in pristine fancy pickup trucks. Once again, they can easily write off that big truck cost immediately, but a passenger car would take years to write off the depreciation. I wonder why they chose the big pickup instead of the smaller car.
I've got family working commercial construction as well. He also drives a fancy big truck. When asked if he uses it for work, his words were "fuck no, why would I fuck up my truck for them?" He uses it to drive to job sites on well-paved roads, goes to Twin Peaks for UFC nights, and sometimes get groceries.
Residential construction jobs also existed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and yet pickup trucks weren't the top sellers in any of those decades. Meanwhile in the 2000s onwards pickups and large SUVs hold a good chunk of the top selling spots. I guess we just all work in residential construction?
Ultimately if you're serious about contracting work of any kind, or even just craft glass blowing / wood working, etc, you get a workshop in a light industrial area or a rural block with space for sheds, drive ways, loading ramps, car sized LNG tanks, etc.
We have pickups and the minivan and I often prefer to haul with the van. Better fuel efficiency and lower load floor are nice.
What you do is get a regular car that's great for everyday stuff and buy a trailer. You get a flatbed that's what, 4x the size of the one on your truck? And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time.
You won't use it much anyway, because a regular car fits more than you think.
> And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time.
You can also hook a trailer up to a truck, giving yourself even more capacity. Many people do this. However, people in urban or suburban areas may not have trailer storage areas.
I think that’s more down to choice than possibility. I’ve hauled all those things home from the diy store in my boring Volvo with its roof rack. Had 600-odd pounds of sand in the back just last week.
4x8 plywood isn’t particularly heavy, and little consumer “150 pounds max” roof racks can hold a lot more than they claim.