As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year, you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on the road.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me some advice.
Get an SUV with a trailer hitch.
worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup.
For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride - you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You can even load them the night before.
dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one)
and suv carries lots of people - which has worked out many many times more than I predicted.
(it is a gas guzzler, but was cheaper because of that, and didn't compete with higher-priced pickup market)
Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups are much less popular here in the UK, many more people use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.
Indeed. It's because of the fashion preferences of American SUV and pickup buyers.
I can attest to the fact that minivans are much more comfortable. I picked up my Pacifica hybrid minivan in early 2021 before the price hike and it was a steal compared to SUVs and pickups. When I was doing paperwork for the vehicle at the Chrysler dealership, I was chatting with some sales guys and discovered the shocking fact they had recently sold a luxuriously loaded-down pickup for over $100K. I was fortunate to easily haggle with them over my minivan because they don't make much money on minivans so they focus on pickups, Jeeps, etc.
A couple decades ago, I had started looking to replace an old hand-me-down car from my grandma, and had been mulling over whether I could ever justify spending $30K on an Infiniti at that time. My boss at work got a new pickup, and he was rather proud of it, and I innocently asked if it cost $25K because plenty of my Texan relatives had driven them over the years and I assumed they were a no-frills working man's practical vehicle. After a brief pause, he answered, "It was a little over 40 thousand." That was over 20 years ago.
Vans don't project manliness. Most people don't use pickup trucks for pickup truck things. They'd be fine with a station wagon, but they have self-confidence issues.
This is the main thing. The US is very, very weird in terms of how it genders every possible lifestyle choice, and polices those gender norms. The rise of SUVs in the US was partly driven by things like inconsistent emissions standards, but also by the need to make a more "masculine" alternative to the minivan or station wagon.
I paint my fingernails so I'm not exactly concerned with projecting masculine energy. I just don't like the roof over the cargo area. It feels limiting. Also my primary use case of hauling lawn debris would aggravate my asthma way too much.
Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in mountainous terrain.
Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks.
SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.
Having grown up in the mountains, and currently living in a hilly snowy area, no thanks I'll keep my SUV. My in laws have a mini van, and it's not great.
I deal and have dealt with enough deep snow that would eat a van.
I still might get a Sienna Hybrid for daily commuter
I can't take this comment seriously unless you are buying snow tires. If you have snow tires, and you still can't get where you want in the winter, sure get 4wd.
I had a RWD pickup with snow tires and went anywhere I wanted to through two utah winters and many vermont ones too.
Yanks never got cool vans. Vans also became synonymous with Chester the Molester. Yanks also had Chevy Astro as an option. I grew up with the family owning a full sized custom van with 2 rows of captain chairs and the third row bench folding out into a bed.
From all of the bitching in the driveway, vans were not pleasant to work on the engine. Some of them had to remove a cover from inside the van to gain access, and that cover tended to not be well insulated and was the source of a lot of heat. Not much of a firewall as a car with the engine fully separated from the passenger compartment.
There were a lot of things people did not like about vans available in the land of Yanks. The Limey vans are not the same, so do not equate your experience as being the same.
Vans had tones of popularity. They are an iconic part of 60s culture(minibus) and 80s as well(A Team van)
There are two current reasons
- Millennials grew up in minivans and its viewed as a mom mobile and they don't want that look (despite the fact that most family SUVs are basically mini vans with out the sliders
I love a van, but they're a pain to work on compared to a full size truck. Like a popular minivan that has a 5 hour book time to do a simple tuneup. Reaching the plugs between the firewall is most of that time. Same with compact PCs, it's a puzzle to get everything in your 7L case.
Anecdotally, a lot more people in the US tow. And pickup trucks are the indisputable king of towing.
There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to take the top off a van than it is to add a top to the bed of a pickup. If I sometimes moved manure and had a van... I'd probably rent a trailer.
Some "yanks" align their identity with their vehicle. There are songs about trucks but yes a van or mini-van are more flexible.
There are many that buy trucks for off road capabilities but probably 70% or more of truck owners don't go off road more than once a year. Many pick up truck models, like stock versions with crew cabs, are too long and not equipped for serious off-road use. Shallow sand/snow they can handle but so can SUVs.
The powertrain packaging for vans is much tighter than for trucks. Who amongst us remembers removing the interior to change sparkplugs 6 and 8 in a GMC Vandura?
Even if you're not going to do the knuckle-skinning work yourself, the packaging negatively influences book rates when you take it to a shop
I wouldn't want to haul 3 yards of dirt/mulch in a van, or yard refuse. I wouldn't want to try and move a full-sized fridge in a van, or a queen bed box spring, neither will fit.
I can't fit an ATV in a van, and I really don't want to put a dead deer in the back of a van after I hunt one.
I wouldn't trust a van to haul 75 8x8x16 concrete bricks (over 2000 lbs/1100kg) because the suspension wasn't designed to do that, nor was the transmission, and the van will quickly deteriorate.
How about moving a couch? Fits in the truck, not in a van.
I did all of those things in the past 12 months.
All that being said, vans are great, especially with kids. They absolutely do not replace trucks... if you use the truck and don't mind getting it dirty. Shiny trucks with 5.5ft beds are fucking stupid. My kids all laugh at "trucks with a baby bed" these days.
Or, downthread, people just assume everyone with a truck is insecure, projecting wealth, and generally ignorant. Which ironically, is a very ignorant take.
The larger vans used by tradespeople in the UK, like a full size Ford Transit, would be fine with those loads (though I agree I wouldn't stick a dead deer in one as they're harder to hose out than a pickup bed). 10ft long loadspace, 1400kg payload, plenty of room for couches, beds and things. They're quite different beasts than the smaller kind like a minivan with removable seats. Plus it rains so much here that having a roof on is generally an advantage.
There are some pickups here, having said that: more rural utilities people, or landscapers who move lots of dirt, or farmers, might have one. They tend to be smaller than an F-150, but then everything's smaller in Britain including the roads...
Most of what you said is not true, at least for a full sized van. Sure you may not want to get it dirty inside, that makes sense. But they have more space than an 8' pickup bed. You can absolutely carry 2000lbs in a 1 ton van. An ATV or a couch will fit in one better than a pickup.
Yeah yeah, and 30-50 feral hogs could burst into your yard any moment.
For moving yards of mulch, topsoil or concrete blocks, almost anyone in my country, including people in construction would just have that delivered to the site, next day, by the seller.
No clue what van you're imagining, but weather alone makes many things much worse in an open bed. Moving a couch is a very common use of vans, people rent them specifically to move furniture all the time.
It’s 10 bucks for me to haul mulch and topsoil from a place down the road.
It’s hundreds of dollars to have the same literal dirt, delivered and dumped on my property. So now, instead of driving the truck full of dirt around my property and using it as desired, I now need to do it one wheelbarrow full at a time.
Fuck that.
As for weather, they make removable flat and domed “roofs” for truck beds, the weather argument is a nonstarter.
I own a station wagon, a van and a pickup (none of which are nice or new) vehicle and three trailers (to be fair one is special purpose) and I'll put up to ~1000lb on the roof of the car before I drag a trailer around.
Trailer is kind of obnoxious pain in the ass and has a bunch more shit to go wrong with it's use compared to a vehicle that "just does what you need".
It might not be the literal cheapest but a truck with the desired cab to bed ratio is the right call for the casual user who just wants to do homeowner things and doesn't wanna think about it.
I just plain don't have room to store a trailer, but I do have room for a second car - hence I own a ute (pickup or whatever in American parlance).
Which is really the thing: it's very useful to have a second car, but a trailer can't be a second car.
What's really desperately missing is useful payload capacity: a standard ute can't carry 1 ton in the tray confidently (and it's downright impossible to find accurate info on what you should do to get that outside of "add a tag axle").
I appreciate the suggestion! It's crossed my mind, but unfortunately a trailer doesn't really work for my living situation. It'd require off-site storage which just sounds like more of a headache (and expense) than I care to take on.
Not even. When I lived in the boonies trash service was ~$75 a quarter, the local hardware store would deliver pallets of mulch for free, and furniture stores offered free delivery above certain purchase amounts. My buddy's dad would haul your boat between the marina and your house for a flat fee. Hell, I was able to cram a full PA with floor monitors and a few guitars into my Corolla for weekend band gigs.
I started looking into getting a trailer or hitch hauler but it didn't seem to make much sense. I could usually pay somebody on-demand to move stuff around and it always worked out to be cheaper than owning and maintaining a truck. I presently work from home and don't even own a car anymore; the math is quite similar with rideshare and motorcycle maintenance coming in significantly cheaper.
Do you not have services in the US to do this for you?
The problem: I have a pile of construction waste, household junk, garden waste etc. is solved by many businesses who'll come pick it up for a small fee.
If your local government doesn't offer this, there are many commercial operators that do this in the UK. Seems bizarre to buy a whole giant, inefficient, vehicle just for 'hauling' occasionally.
Scheduling a "bulk trash" pick up at my current home is only accomplished by calling my landlord, who then calls the trash company, who then calls back with some arbitrary date and time a month or more in the future. When I have crap I want to get rid of it, I don't want to deal with any of that. I'll take the "inefficiency" of storing and maintaining a second vehicle -- which my family would easily make use of other than hauling duties -- over dealing with the bureaucratic nuisance.
There are private options, of course, but the fees are nowhere near "small" for this service.
Consider a trailer if you have even a mildly acceptable tow vehicle that can take a 2 inch receiver. Use what UHaul will rent you as a rough limit for what your vehicle can handle, and then if you want to save some weight get your own because it will be lighter than UHaul's brick shithouses.
Having said that, I'm still in the market for a larger vehicle with a better tow weight rating as I use the trailer more than a handful of times per year, and my current tow vehicle is getting a bit long in the tooth.
These are quite expensive for what you get and are slooooooow. It's fine if you want an expensive, quirky neighborhood runabout, but you'll be made very aware that this is a product not at all designed for the US market (there's a good reason most examples do ~1000 miles a year). The ACTYs I found online were in the $7-20k range, for a ~30 year old model - more for a nice van.
The best used work truck is actually a van. They lack the coolness factor of trucks, but are far more versatile. You can pick up a <10 year old Transit with under 100k miles for like 10-15k. That price point will get you a >10 year old F150 in the 100-150k mile range.
Plus, there are good options if you want something smaller can car-based, like NV2000s and Transit connects. Which don't really exist for trucks outside of newer (maverick) or niche (Ridgeline) options.
Bonus points, a nice Transit is a great daily driver too.
Harsh did a tipper conversion for the Daihatsu Hijet, which had an 850cc triple with a lot more poke than the Acty's 660cc twin, and had a "true 4WD" variant.
In the UK, Truck and Driver Magazine featured one so equipped in a head-to-head AWD tipper test (AWD in the sense of all wheels driven regardless of number of axles, not Subaru AWD/Audi Quattro type AWD), alongside a variety of extremely large trucks. Proper trucks, not F150s, we're talking 18-tonne Scanias and stuff here.
Everyone wanted one of the little Hijets to take home.
Renting a vehicle invites bureaucratic nonsense. For my personal situation, I need it ready to go at virtually a moments notice or I'll simply just avoid the chore.
For me personally, it's too much hassle. Between the paperwork, rental fees, getting a ride to and from, etc. I just start to lose motivation, and end up deciding to do the chore the "next weekend" which never comes. I need as few barriers between me and accomplishing a chore if I ever want to have any hope of completing it.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.