If anyone is thinking of buying a truck, I highly recommend you think long and hard about how useless this configuration is. Smaller interior space than an SUV. Smaller carrying capacity than an...
But you can only buy one with a short cargo bed and a four-door cab.
If anyone is thinking of buying a truck, I highly recommend you think long and hard about how useless this configuration is. Smaller interior space than an SUV. Smaller carrying capacity than an SUV. A short bed is nearly useless. No car camping in this thing! Whereas even the smallest "SUV" (Subaru Crosstrek, hell, even a Honda Fit) has more length for sleeping / carrying wood, etc.
If you need to carry DIRTY things (literal dirt? firewood?) trucks are handy. But you can also rent a trailer for those two times, and tow it behind any car.
They may be “rated” for 0 pounds in the U.S., but they can still tow. My mom’s Prius is rated for nothing here, but 1,600 lbs in Europe. We’ve towed a u-Haul just fine. There’s some differences in...
They may be “rated” for 0 pounds in the U.S., but they can still tow. My mom’s Prius is rated for nothing here, but 1,600 lbs in Europe. We’ve towed a u-Haul just fine. There’s some differences in the regulations (particularly speed, trailered vehicles are more limited in most of Europe) that drive this. I suspect these days it also helps drive sales of higher-margin pickups, and avoids paying out on warranty maintenance.
Just because your car can accelerate with a trailer doesn't mean it can stop it. Brakes are a huge part of tow ratings. You don't want find out only at the top of a hill that your car can't...
Just because your car can accelerate with a trailer doesn't mean it can stop it. Brakes are a huge part of tow ratings. You don't want find out only at the top of a hill that your car can't reliably stop with the load you just pulled up it.
Europe has different kinds of trailers than the US. In Europe, the axles on trailers are closer to the center and loads are balanced across the axle to reduce the weight applied to the car's...
Europe has different kinds of trailers than the US.
In Europe, the axles on trailers are closer to the center and loads are balanced across the axle to reduce the weight applied to the car's trailer hitch. This makes it easy for small cars with weak rear springs to pull heavier loads, but it reduces high speed stability of the trailer. This is fine for European roads with lower speed limits and the smaller distances Europeans typically drive.
In the US, the axles are further towards the rear of the trailer. More weight is placed in front of the axle which increases the weight applied to a trailer hitch. This is why trucks have stiff rear springs. They are designed to handle properly with a lot of weight on the rear suspension. Trucks are also fairly long, so a lot of weight on the rear of the frame won't lift the front wheels off the ground. A short wheelbase car with a lot of weight on a towing hitch would raise the front up and reduce a car's ability to steer or brake. The benefit of more weight forward of the trailer's axle is much better high speed stability. You can pull a trailer at 75mph in the US and not lose control like a European trailer could.
It's a more useful configuration if the truck is unibody instead of body on frame. The Honda Ridgeline has a huge interior because it doesn't have to make room for a ladder frame underneath the...
It's a more useful configuration if the truck is unibody instead of body on frame. The Honda Ridgeline has a huge interior because it doesn't have to make room for a ladder frame underneath the cabin.
In reality, the US needs to start classifying pickup trucks above a certain size as a commercial vehicle that requires a special license and extra taxes. If you have a trailer you tow, you should probably have some amount of training on how to properly balance a trailer, how to properly connect a trailer, and how a trailer changes driving dynamics. This will probably make truck buyers think twice about what capabilities they actually need from a vehicle.
I don't hate trucks, but they are specialized tools that make many tradeoffs in order to perform well in certain scenarios. We should have some incentives in place to make vehicle shoppers really consider what capabilities they need from their vehicles.
I agree with the overall point of your message (think before you buy), but I happen to have a truck with a short cargo bed and a four-door cab (Toyota Tacoma), and I wouldn't trade it for...
I agree with the overall point of your message (think before you buy), but I happen to have a truck with a short cargo bed and a four-door cab (Toyota Tacoma), and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Depends a lot on your intended use. Like the camping space means nothing to someone like me who doesn't go camping.
There's a lot of freedom that comes with being able to just throw shit in the back without really caring about how dirty or how large it is. For reference, I have a Honda Fit as well. Both are incredible in their own ways and I would absolutely recommend them to everyone. The Fit, like you say, can fit soooooooo much inside of it that it seriously surprises people that have never been in one. More usable and well-thought-out cargo space than even some small SUVs. I've moved across my state once with my Fit and literally the only two things I couldn't fit inside of it were my mattress and my TV. Everything else fit inside of it with some finagling and maybe disassembling.
But since getting the Tacoma a few years back (for towing reasons, the Fit is wonderful but it can't tow the stuff that I needed to tow), I have come to love the freedom of having that open bed. Here are just some examples:
going to the beach? throw all your sandy gear in the back and hose it off when you get home
going fishing? throw all the rods, bait, coolers of fish, etc, in the back and never worry about any of it spilling inside your car
bought a new appliance? maybe a large TV or a new open-box fridge? no problem, load it carefully into the back and strap it down, no need to wait (or sometimes pay) for delivery
see a cool-looking table on the side of the road that someone doesn't want? plop it onto the back and take it home where you can properly clean it up or fix it
going kayaking? no need for additional roof racks and mounting systems, just throw them in the bed and strap em down
bought a large swingset for your kids off of FB marketplace? stick the whole thing in the back in one or two pieces rather than having to disassemble (and then reassemble) the whole thing
doing some landscaping/gardening? throw some dirt, sod, soil, mulch, plants, or whatever in the back, just hose it off after
building something? buy some larger lumber to save money, 10 12-ft boards might be cheaper than 20 6-ft boards, just strap em down and flag em
buying pressure treated lumber? no need to worry sniffing all those those chemicals on your ride home
Some of these things could have definitely been done with a trailer or SUV, but when these types of things are weekly occurrences, it's more practical to just have the truck.
I think your use case is very common, but couldn't that be done with something like a hybrid Ford Maverick? The bed size is almost identical and I believe the Maverick actually is rated for more...
I think your use case is very common, but couldn't that be done with something like a hybrid Ford Maverick? The bed size is almost identical and I believe the Maverick actually is rated for more weight in the bed than the Tacoma.
I think that crew cab short bed trucks are pretty much exactly what most truck buyers need which is why it's what most truck buyers purchase. The issue is that if you want a paved and dirt road going crew cab with a short bed and don't want to tow, the current mid-size offerings are bigger and less efficient than they could be.
It's not really truck buyers' faults that auto makers aren't building the trucks that people actually need, but I think we can all agree that for your use case, a better option could be built.
Good points. I actually did consider the Maverick, but it was still very new and unavailable when I got my Tacoma, so I couldn't actually find one anywhere to test out or even look at. But having...
Good points. I actually did consider the Maverick, but it was still very new and unavailable when I got my Tacoma, so I couldn't actually find one anywhere to test out or even look at. But having seen them now I'll say that they appear to be quite a bit smaller than the Tacoma. Which may not always be a bad thing, of course, tons of people wanted a small truck, hence the newly-released Maverick and Santa Cruz. The bed size is a bit misleading since the height and width of the bed actually factors in quite a lot in daily usage. For example the tailgate being taller means that the bed gets even longer when the tailgate is down, which helps with longer things like lumber. And the extra width comes in handy with a ton of different things, like kayaks, furniture, sheets of plywood/osb, and more. So the difference is more significant than the 4.5ft vs 5ft beds would imply.
I agree with you that the main problem is the lack of options in a smaller size. There are tons of options if you want a full-size truck, but many people yearn for the days when a full-size pickup was a practical size and not a massive apartment on wheels. I also appreciate the Maverick offering a hybrid option, hopefully other manufacturers take note of its success and offer similar alternatives in the near future. When I got my Tacoma, the only options for a 'small' truck were the Maverick (which was still not really out yet), and the Santa Cruz, which was like 10 grand more and too small for my usage. All the other options (Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier, Honda Ridgeline, Jeep Gladiator) were either the same size or way more expensive than the Tacoma.
All excellent reason to drive a truck, yeah. Don't get me wrong. I love pickups. I just know that the weird loss of space caused by the division of cab & bed is something most people who've never...
All excellent reason to drive a truck, yeah. Don't get me wrong. I love pickups. I just know that the weird loss of space caused by the division of cab & bed is something most people who've never owned one won't have considered.
This is why I ended up buying an F-250. The F-150 in a 4-seat configuration only came with a 5.5 bed which was borderline useless for what I use it for. At the time, the F-250 wasn't that much...
This is why I ended up buying an F-250. The F-150 in a 4-seat configuration only came with a 5.5 bed which was borderline useless for what I use it for. At the time, the F-250 wasn't that much more expensive. I don't love the mileage, but 75% of the miles I put on it involve hauling stuff (tools, lumber, hardware, etc) around.
Yet another truck ruined by the endless march to get larger and fancier. My '01 Ranger that I had when younger would be an equivalent of $29k new today after factoring inflation. A $40k+ Ranger is...
Yet another truck ruined by the endless march to get larger and fancier. My '01 Ranger that I had when younger would be an equivalent of $29k new today after factoring inflation. A $40k+ Ranger is obscene, and the Maverick, while neat and the size I want, is still FWD if you want the hybrid and built on a car platform, not a true body-on-frame truck one.
Give me a small, RWD/4WD pickup with a manual transmission option, or failing the manual, a true hybrid or EV one that isn't a full-size truck. Screw the giant tablet dash too, while we're at it-- that is one of the worst trends in modern cars, IMO.
It's funny how the giant tablet dashboard has become a "luxury" feature when it's actually cheaper than physical buttons for auto makers. We should get a discount for a tablet dashboard if...
It's funny how the giant tablet dashboard has become a "luxury" feature when it's actually cheaper than physical buttons for auto makers. We should get a discount for a tablet dashboard if anything, but the government should probably regulate that certain core functions must have physical buttons to reduce distracted driving.
I was curious about this and literally came across this article from yesterday about how Texas (and other states) are refusing to register them. We can't have anything nice...
For the residents of Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and now Texas, that answer is becoming unclear. Most of these states are targeting Japan’s smallest class of cars, Kei-jidōsha, and specifically Kei trucks. However, some of these states are canceling the registrations of any Kei vehicle and one of them will seemingly cancel the registration of any imported vehicle.
That was my joke LOL I realize now, text format mediums like Tildes that might be lost on some. My bad. But yes, it's kind of illegal here in Ohio, but I've seen and read about some BMV giving...
That was my joke LOL
I realize now, text format mediums like Tildes that might be lost on some. My bad. But yes, it's kind of illegal here in Ohio, but I've seen and read about some BMV giving people real tags so it's a toss I guess.
Unless the footprint regulations are revised, you are out of luck. Small pickups require higher fuel economy than medium or large ones. This was one of the contributing factors to the original...
Unless the footprint regulations are revised, you are out of luck. Small pickups require higher fuel economy than medium or large ones. This was one of the contributing factors to the original Ranger’s demise.
How much higher? My 20-year-old Ranger (with a 4L V6 and a 5-speed manual transmission) averages 20 MPG on the highway, only 4 less than this new model. If I slapped one of these 10-speed...
How much higher? My 20-year-old Ranger (with a 4L V6 and a 5-speed manual transmission) averages 20 MPG on the highway, only 4 less than this new model. If I slapped one of these 10-speed automatic 2.3L EcoBoosts in there I can't imagine it would get less than 25. Smaller, lighter vehicles are inherently more efficient.
I had one of the old rangers as well (it was basically unchanged). Reworking that existing 4L would probably have been enough. IIRC my Ranger still had a crankshaft driven fan, that's a HUGE waste...
I had one of the old rangers as well (it was basically unchanged). Reworking that existing 4L would probably have been enough. IIRC my Ranger still had a crankshaft driven fan, that's a HUGE waste of fuel vs an electric fan.
Chicken tax strikes again. I love my current vehicle, but it’s a real shame small trucks are not an option anymore. No the tacoma (since c 2001) doesn’t count.
Chicken tax strikes again. I love my current vehicle, but it’s a real shame small trucks are not an option anymore. No the tacoma (since c 2001) doesn’t count.
I'd like to know that too. There are trucks with far better utility out there and they're more efficient too, but instead trucks seem to be designed for people who don't really need a truck. How...
I'd like to know that too. There are trucks with far better utility out there and they're more efficient too, but instead trucks seem to be designed for people who don't really need a truck. How much of a truck's weight is just there to cater to such people?
Wow, the IMV 0 looks like the sides can be dropped, why the heck don't our pickups do that?! That and a more modular back end (why is it not more popular in the USA to trick out the bed??). Plus it's only 10k?!! It looks awesome, I've been driving a 2000 ford exploder and need a new vehicle, but all options are expensive shit. Looks like there will be an SUV model IMV, I want one now! Q_Q
Oh wow, that is a really important note. It can only tow up to 3k pounds, that's sad for a truck. Luckily I don't really tow anything so that wouldn't be an issue as long as the carrying capacity...
Oh wow, that is a really important note. It can only tow up to 3k pounds, that's sad for a truck.
Luckily I don't really tow anything so that wouldn't be an issue as long as the carrying capacity is good and I think I read it can carry as much as an F150.
I’ve been saying for a while how much I miss the light trucks they were making in the 80s and 90s. That being said, that truck you linked to might have the ugliest body I’ve ever seen.
I’ve been saying for a while how much I miss the light trucks they were making in the 80s and 90s.
That being said, that truck you linked to might have the ugliest body I’ve ever seen.
Honestly, I kind of love the aesthetics of it. It just looks like a bare bones truck and that is all I want. Throw a light EV engine in that puppy and I would be shelling out.
Honestly, I kind of love the aesthetics of it. It just looks like a bare bones truck and that is all I want. Throw a light EV engine in that puppy and I would be shelling out.
If anyone is thinking of buying a truck, I highly recommend you think long and hard about how useless this configuration is. Smaller interior space than an SUV. Smaller carrying capacity than an SUV. A short bed is nearly useless. No car camping in this thing! Whereas even the smallest "SUV" (Subaru Crosstrek, hell, even a Honda Fit) has more length for sleeping / carrying wood, etc.
If you need to carry DIRTY things (literal dirt? firewood?) trucks are handy. But you can also rent a trailer for those two times, and tow it behind any car.
They may be “rated” for 0 pounds in the U.S., but they can still tow. My mom’s Prius is rated for nothing here, but 1,600 lbs in Europe. We’ve towed a u-Haul just fine. There’s some differences in the regulations (particularly speed, trailered vehicles are more limited in most of Europe) that drive this. I suspect these days it also helps drive sales of higher-margin pickups, and avoids paying out on warranty maintenance.
Just because your car can accelerate with a trailer doesn't mean it can stop it. Brakes are a huge part of tow ratings. You don't want find out only at the top of a hill that your car can't reliably stop with the load you just pulled up it.
Europe has different kinds of trailers than the US.
In Europe, the axles on trailers are closer to the center and loads are balanced across the axle to reduce the weight applied to the car's trailer hitch. This makes it easy for small cars with weak rear springs to pull heavier loads, but it reduces high speed stability of the trailer. This is fine for European roads with lower speed limits and the smaller distances Europeans typically drive.
In the US, the axles are further towards the rear of the trailer. More weight is placed in front of the axle which increases the weight applied to a trailer hitch. This is why trucks have stiff rear springs. They are designed to handle properly with a lot of weight on the rear suspension. Trucks are also fairly long, so a lot of weight on the rear of the frame won't lift the front wheels off the ground. A short wheelbase car with a lot of weight on a towing hitch would raise the front up and reduce a car's ability to steer or brake. The benefit of more weight forward of the trailer's axle is much better high speed stability. You can pull a trailer at 75mph in the US and not lose control like a European trailer could.
This sounds crazy to me, all I saw all around the UK when visiting was those whale penis ball hitches on small cars.
Wow, I had no idea there was so much red tape for those. Thanks for the details.
It's a more useful configuration if the truck is unibody instead of body on frame. The Honda Ridgeline has a huge interior because it doesn't have to make room for a ladder frame underneath the cabin.
In reality, the US needs to start classifying pickup trucks above a certain size as a commercial vehicle that requires a special license and extra taxes. If you have a trailer you tow, you should probably have some amount of training on how to properly balance a trailer, how to properly connect a trailer, and how a trailer changes driving dynamics. This will probably make truck buyers think twice about what capabilities they actually need from a vehicle.
I don't hate trucks, but they are specialized tools that make many tradeoffs in order to perform well in certain scenarios. We should have some incentives in place to make vehicle shoppers really consider what capabilities they need from their vehicles.
I agree with the overall point of your message (think before you buy), but I happen to have a truck with a short cargo bed and a four-door cab (Toyota Tacoma), and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Depends a lot on your intended use. Like the camping space means nothing to someone like me who doesn't go camping.
There's a lot of freedom that comes with being able to just throw shit in the back without really caring about how dirty or how large it is. For reference, I have a Honda Fit as well. Both are incredible in their own ways and I would absolutely recommend them to everyone. The Fit, like you say, can fit soooooooo much inside of it that it seriously surprises people that have never been in one. More usable and well-thought-out cargo space than even some small SUVs. I've moved across my state once with my Fit and literally the only two things I couldn't fit inside of it were my mattress and my TV. Everything else fit inside of it with some finagling and maybe disassembling.
But since getting the Tacoma a few years back (for towing reasons, the Fit is wonderful but it can't tow the stuff that I needed to tow), I have come to love the freedom of having that open bed. Here are just some examples:
going to the beach? throw all your sandy gear in the back and hose it off when you get home
going fishing? throw all the rods, bait, coolers of fish, etc, in the back and never worry about any of it spilling inside your car
bought a new appliance? maybe a large TV or a new open-box fridge? no problem, load it carefully into the back and strap it down, no need to wait (or sometimes pay) for delivery
see a cool-looking table on the side of the road that someone doesn't want? plop it onto the back and take it home where you can properly clean it up or fix it
going kayaking? no need for additional roof racks and mounting systems, just throw them in the bed and strap em down
bought a large swingset for your kids off of FB marketplace? stick the whole thing in the back in one or two pieces rather than having to disassemble (and then reassemble) the whole thing
doing some landscaping/gardening? throw some dirt, sod, soil, mulch, plants, or whatever in the back, just hose it off after
building something? buy some larger lumber to save money, 10 12-ft boards might be cheaper than 20 6-ft boards, just strap em down and flag em
buying pressure treated lumber? no need to worry sniffing all those those chemicals on your ride home
Some of these things could have definitely been done with a trailer or SUV, but when these types of things are weekly occurrences, it's more practical to just have the truck.
I think your use case is very common, but couldn't that be done with something like a hybrid Ford Maverick? The bed size is almost identical and I believe the Maverick actually is rated for more weight in the bed than the Tacoma.
I think that crew cab short bed trucks are pretty much exactly what most truck buyers need which is why it's what most truck buyers purchase. The issue is that if you want a paved and dirt road going crew cab with a short bed and don't want to tow, the current mid-size offerings are bigger and less efficient than they could be.
It's not really truck buyers' faults that auto makers aren't building the trucks that people actually need, but I think we can all agree that for your use case, a better option could be built.
Good points. I actually did consider the Maverick, but it was still very new and unavailable when I got my Tacoma, so I couldn't actually find one anywhere to test out or even look at. But having seen them now I'll say that they appear to be quite a bit smaller than the Tacoma. Which may not always be a bad thing, of course, tons of people wanted a small truck, hence the newly-released Maverick and Santa Cruz. The bed size is a bit misleading since the height and width of the bed actually factors in quite a lot in daily usage. For example the tailgate being taller means that the bed gets even longer when the tailgate is down, which helps with longer things like lumber. And the extra width comes in handy with a ton of different things, like kayaks, furniture, sheets of plywood/osb, and more. So the difference is more significant than the 4.5ft vs 5ft beds would imply.
I agree with you that the main problem is the lack of options in a smaller size. There are tons of options if you want a full-size truck, but many people yearn for the days when a full-size pickup was a practical size and not a massive apartment on wheels. I also appreciate the Maverick offering a hybrid option, hopefully other manufacturers take note of its success and offer similar alternatives in the near future. When I got my Tacoma, the only options for a 'small' truck were the Maverick (which was still not really out yet), and the Santa Cruz, which was like 10 grand more and too small for my usage. All the other options (Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier, Honda Ridgeline, Jeep Gladiator) were either the same size or way more expensive than the Tacoma.
All excellent reason to drive a truck, yeah. Don't get me wrong. I love pickups. I just know that the weird loss of space caused by the division of cab & bed is something most people who've never owned one won't have considered.
It seems to me that it’s always been an obsession of American carmakers to make vehicles that are big on the outside and small on the inside.
This is why I ended up buying an F-250. The F-150 in a 4-seat configuration only came with a 5.5 bed which was borderline useless for what I use it for. At the time, the F-250 wasn't that much more expensive. I don't love the mileage, but 75% of the miles I put on it involve hauling stuff (tools, lumber, hardware, etc) around.
Yet another truck ruined by the endless march to get larger and fancier. My '01 Ranger that I had when younger would be an equivalent of $29k new today after factoring inflation. A $40k+ Ranger is obscene, and the Maverick, while neat and the size I want, is still FWD if you want the hybrid and built on a car platform, not a true body-on-frame truck one.
Give me a small, RWD/4WD pickup with a manual transmission option, or failing the manual, a true hybrid or EV one that isn't a full-size truck. Screw the giant tablet dash too, while we're at it-- that is one of the worst trends in modern cars, IMO.
It's funny how the giant tablet dashboard has become a "luxury" feature when it's actually cheaper than physical buttons for auto makers. We should get a discount for a tablet dashboard if anything, but the government should probably regulate that certain core functions must have physical buttons to reduce distracted driving.
I would commit a felony to have an Electric Kei truck be available conveniently in my state.
The felony is driving a kei truck with proper registration, depending on your state...
I was curious about this and literally came across this article from yesterday about how Texas (and other states) are refusing to register them.
We can't have anything nice...
Is it actually illegal in some places?
Edit: assuming you imported it correctly and all that.
Yes, several states have prohibited registering even 25-year old kei trucks for road use.
Wow that's crazy, we see them all over the place here in New Hampshire.
That was my joke LOL
I realize now, text format mediums like Tildes that might be lost on some. My bad. But yes, it's kind of illegal here in Ohio, but I've seen and read about some BMV giving people real tags so it's a toss I guess.
Unless the footprint regulations are revised, you are out of luck. Small pickups require higher fuel economy than medium or large ones. This was one of the contributing factors to the original Ranger’s demise.
How much higher? My 20-year-old Ranger (with a 4L V6 and a 5-speed manual transmission) averages 20 MPG on the highway, only 4 less than this new model. If I slapped one of these 10-speed automatic 2.3L EcoBoosts in there I can't imagine it would get less than 25. Smaller, lighter vehicles are inherently more efficient.
I had one of the old rangers as well (it was basically unchanged). Reworking that existing 4L would probably have been enough. IIRC my Ranger still had a crankshaft driven fan, that's a HUGE waste of fuel vs an electric fan.
Chicken tax strikes again. I love my current vehicle, but it’s a real shame small trucks are not an option anymore. No the tacoma (since c 2001) doesn’t count.
Sounds like you’re describing a Tacoma. I have a Tacoma and love it!
My partner has an '06 Tacoma, even that one is larger than what I'm looking for. Something the size of the late 90s Taco is about as big as I'd go.
Can't we get access to the small, capable trucks that already exist?
I'd like to know that too. There are trucks with far better utility out there and they're more efficient too, but instead trucks seem to be designed for people who don't really need a truck. How much of a truck's weight is just there to cater to such people?
Wow, the IMV 0 looks like the sides can be dropped, why the heck don't our pickups do that?! That and a more modular back end (why is it not more popular in the USA to trick out the bed??). Plus it's only 10k?!! It looks awesome, I've been driving a 2000 ford exploder and need a new vehicle, but all options are expensive shit. Looks like there will be an SUV model IMV, I want one now! Q_Q
Oh wow, that is a really important note. It can only tow up to 3k pounds, that's sad for a truck.
Luckily I don't really tow anything so that wouldn't be an issue as long as the carrying capacity is good and I think I read it can carry as much as an F150.
I’ve been saying for a while how much I miss the light trucks they were making in the 80s and 90s.
That being said, that truck you linked to might have the ugliest body I’ve ever seen.
Honestly, I kind of love the aesthetics of it. It just looks like a bare bones truck and that is all I want. Throw a light EV engine in that puppy and I would be shelling out.
It feels very Japanese-utilitarian. I like the looks and I like the concept of it.