It's time we talked about pickup trucks

[fattyflattie 4,638]

5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Iirc those straight 6s were beasts. 

They are. Need to find that article of the guy that put a million miles on one is some stupid short amount of time.  Some route between central and west Texas iirc.  I remember it was enough miles to require several oil changes and tire rotations a week. Something like new tires every month.   Shit, will do some digging if I get time today.  
 

On 1/27/2023 at 5:19 PM, HamsterHookah said:

Olivia Heller

How America’s pickups are changing

The Ford F-150 has been America’s bestselling car for 41 years. Last year, an F-Series Truck was sold every 49 seconds, and pickups accounted for the top three bestselling cars nationwide. Interestingly — despite stunts like this one, where an F-150 tows a double-decker freight train filled with 42 other F-150s — data shows a third of pickup owners rarely or never use their truck for hauling, while two-thirds rarely or never use it for towing, per Axios. Instead, 87% of pickup owners frequently use their truck for shopping, and 70% say they do so for pleasure driving. To accommodate for this, today’s F-150s are 63% cab and 37% bed, a near-total opposite from early generations’ 36% cab, 64% bed design. So what? Since 1990, the average mass of US vehicles has increased 25%. Pickups are already a safety concern, with twice the pedestrian strike fatality rate as smaller vehicles. They’re getting heavier, too, as the industry electrifies them with enormous batteries. Ford’s F-150 Lightning, for instance, at ~6.5k pounds, weighs 35% more than its gasoline twin.

I've seen this same graphic for a Japanese sedan and Porsche 911.  Hint - they are both tremendously larger than their earlier iterations.  

[fattyflattie 4,638]

2 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

May be my age but this is my favorite vintage Ford truck. Hated the look of the next generation.

The OBS diesel 3/4 and 1-tons in good shape are selling for more than they did new.  Between 30 and 40k.   

[Brian Fantana 6,690]

14 minutes ago, Longhornstampede said:

1996 F150 4.9 Inline 6, I use every day. My commute is only 11 miles and none of it on the highway if I so choose. Bought it used in 2000. I haven't had a new vehicle for myself in forever. I do absolutely everything and anything I need. Haul stuff in the bed and occasionally pull a small 12 foot flatbed trailer for some larger things. It has made at least 30 trips to south Texas but I haven't taken it in a long while because I'm afraid it'll get stolen so close to the border. I'm constantly being asked if I'm interested in selling it. Nope.

I keep it because the annual maintenance costs on it are a small fraction of what a monthly payment would be for a new one and I can do almost all of it myself. I've only paid two people to repair something on it in all this time. One to rebuild the 5 speed transmission and the clutch ($1200) 3 years ago and last summer I had the seat, headliner and sun visors reupholstered ($550). Today I'm replacing the pressure hose in the power steering, 35 bucks at AutoZone.

 

This is a good truck. New trucks are bad trucks.

[Longhornstampede 3,186]

Right there with you Celery. I had an 84 in college but I hated the look from 86 to 91 because of that brick front edge of the  hood. 92 to 96 were the best.

[elguapo 4,586]

16 minutes ago, Longhornstampede said:

1996 F150 4.9 Inline 6, I use every day. My commute is only 11 miles and none of it on the highway if I so choose. Bought it used in 2000. I haven't had a new vehicle for myself in forever. I do absolutely everything and anything I need. Haul stuff in the bed and occasionally pull a small 12 foot flatbed trailer for some larger things. It has made at least 30 trips to south Texas but I haven't taken it in a long while because I'm afraid it'll get stolen so close to the border. I'm constantly being asked if I'm interested in selling it. Nope.

I keep it because the annual maintenance costs on it are a small fraction of what a monthly payment would be for a new one and I can do almost all of it myself. I've only paid two people to repair something on it in all this time. One to rebuild the 5 speed transmission and the clutch ($1200) 3 years ago and last summer I had the seat, headliner and sun visors reupholstered ($550). Today I'm replacing the pressure hose in the power steering, 35 bucks at AutoZone.

 

[texashorne 1,178]

21 minutes ago, Longhornstampede said:

1996 F150 4.9 Inline 6, I use every day. My commute is only 11 miles and none of it on the highway if I so choose. Bought it used in 2000. I haven't had a new vehicle for myself in forever. I do absolutely everything and anything I need. Haul stuff in the bed and occasionally pull a small 12 foot flatbed trailer for some larger things. It has made at least 30 trips to south Texas but I haven't taken it in a long while because I'm afraid it'll get stolen so close to the border. I'm constantly being asked if I'm interested in selling it. Nope.

I keep it because the annual maintenance costs on it are a small fraction of what a monthly payment would be for a new one and I can do almost all of it myself. I've only paid two people to repair something on it in all this time. One to rebuild the 5 speed transmission and the clutch ($1200) 3 years ago and last summer I had the seat, headliner and sun visors reupholstered ($550). Today I'm replacing the pressure hose in the power steering, 35 bucks at AutoZone.

 

You're sticking way out the back of that parking space! it's time you swapped this out for civic!

[Longhornstampede 3,186]

7 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

The OBS diesel 3/4 and 1-tons in good shape are selling for more than they did new.  Between 30 and 40k.   

Ford kept that square body style on the 250s and 350s for a couple of years after changing the 150s in 96. Yeah those things sell easily if it's in decent shape. I see lots of them still on the road.

[PTINS 3,476]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:19 PM, HamsterHookah said:

How America’s pickups are changing

The Ford F-150 has been America’s bestselling car for 41 years. Last year, an F-Series Truck was sold every 49 seconds, and pickups accounted for the top three bestselling cars nationwide. Interestingly — despite stunts like this one, where an F-150 tows a double-decker freight train filled with 42 other F-150s — data shows a third of pickup owners rarely or never use their truck for hauling, while two-thirds rarely or never use it for towing, per Axios. Instead, 87% of pickup owners frequently use their truck for shopping, and 70% say they do so for pleasure driving. To accommodate for this, today’s F-150s are 63% cab and 37% bed, a near-total opposite from early generations’ 36% cab, 64% bed design.

These are probably true statements.

If you frequent any area ~ 30 miles west of I-35, you'll see the extreme opposite of the statistics. I would think +70% of vehicles in the Hill Country are trucks and the majority are used "off road" and for hauling stuff on a regular basis. 

Never using the trucks for hauling and frequently using the trucks for shopping are not mutually exclusive, as shopping for and hauling a 1000 lb of corn & protein is a pretty frequent occurrence.

Though some truck drivers ... Saw this 2021 F250 while waiting for service, a cool $119,357 + TT&L. The little dick douche that bought this is the left-lane hogging, over-the-line parking, never on a dirt road, tailgating, SOB we all have to deal with.

[Pato del Muerto 52,555]

I’m certainly not seeing 43k worth of aftermarket shit on that list. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,139]

My dad has two Dodge Ram 3500 and my brother has one as well.  They are partners in a business where they are pulling huge pieces of equipment and 18-20 hay bales on trailers.  My mom has a Hyundai Santa Fe, and they use that for errands.  I haven’t owned a car since 2019, but I like sports cars.  I find driving a large SUV to be a pain in the ass.

[utee94 15,842]

3 hours ago, Longhornstampede said:

Right there with you Celery. I had an 84 in college but I hated the look from 86 to 91 because of that brick front edge of the  hood. 92 to 96 were the best.

Man, I absolutely loved this truck:

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by utee94

[Deej 76,882]

5 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Minivan might be the smartest vehicle for the biggest majority of people, including me.

The Kia Carnival is kind of the best of a minivan and SUV.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/carnival-mpv

[Pato del Muerto 52,555]

Scrolling through photos:  lots of trucks like these in WY:

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Pato del Muerto

[Longhornstampede 3,186]

27 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Man, I absolutely loved this truck:

 

 

 

What year is that? Before 87?

[Brian Fantana 6,690]

I love those trucks, I'd love to have one.

[MontereyMX 869]

3 hours ago, PTINS said:

These are probably true statements.

If you frequent any area ~ 30 miles west of I-35, you'll see the extreme opposite of the statistics. I would think +70% of vehicles in the Hill Country are trucks and the majority are used "off road" and for hauling stuff on a regular basis. 

Never using the trucks for hauling and frequently using the trucks for shopping are not mutually exclusive, as shopping for and hauling a 1000 lb of corn & protein is a pretty frequent occurrence.

Though some truck drivers ... Saw this 2021 F250 while waiting for service, a cool $119,357 + TT&L. The little dick douche that bought this is the left-lane hogging, over-the-line parking, never on a dirt road, tailgating, SOB we all have to deal with.

damn you got a face made for radio.  lol

[RDCanecutter 26,462]

Today I had my vision blocked by a GMC Sierra so this thread hits home. Totally had to lay it on the Lord while backing out, hoping I didn't pull out in the blind spot of another behemoth.

Been checking out local traffic composition (Birmingham Metro), and huge clean trucks, while they exist, aren't quite as overwhelming as y'all describe in Texas. Here, the moneyed set (yes, like all self-respecting 3rd world nations, we do have some) keep it more low-key with high-end sedans and SUVs, and attempt to ape the reserve of Old Money even if their grandaddy drove a Golden Flake truck. Not like Atlanta, where they go into hock for Lamborghinis and hair gel.

But there is a BHam suburb, Hoover, which is Dallas-y in several ways, and sure enough, that's where I saw more truckasauruses including that damn house of a GMC Sierra that I couldn't see around. Oh, and while exiting Whataburger I saw some damn crew-cab abomination gung-gung-gungin its way through the geometry puzzle of the drive-through like a Deuce-and-a-Half trying to mate with a Jeep.

[HamsterHookah 112]

49 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Today I had my vision blocked by a GMC Sierra so this thread hits home. Totally had to lay it on the Lord while backing out, hoping I didn't pull out in the blind spot of another behemoth.

Been checking out local traffic composition (Birmingham Metro), and huge clean trucks, while they exist, aren't quite as overwhelming as y'all describe in Texas. Here, the moneyed set (yes, like all self-respecting 3rd world nations, we do have some) keep it more low-key with high-end sedans and SUVs, and attempt to ape the reserve of Old Money even if their grandaddy drove a Golden Flake truck. Not like Atlanta, where they go into hock for Lamborghinis and hair gel.

But there is a BHam suburb, Hoover, which is Dallas-y in several ways, and sure enough, that's where I saw more truckasauruses including that damn house of a GMC Sierra that I couldn't see around. Oh, and while exiting Whataburger I saw some damn crew-cab abomination gung-gung-gungin its way through the geometry puzzle of the drive-through like a Deuce-and-a-Half trying to mate with a Jeep.

And what, praytell, do you drive again Mr. Judgy McJudgerson. Any answer other than a hearse is a disappointment to the image of you I have in my head.

[RMac5 1,551]

7 hours ago, Longhornstampede said:

Right there with you Celery. I had an 84 in college but I hated the look from 86 to 91 because of that brick front edge of the  hood. 92 to 96 were the best.

Square body chevy pick ups were the best, 73-87.

[utee94 15,842]

3 hours ago, Longhornstampede said:

What year is that? Before 87?

Yup, '85.

I also liked this one:

 

[Celery Man 20,991]

There's a great section in... I think it was in "Fargo Rock City" where Chuck Klosterman talks about being a metalhead in 1980s North Dakota, and how there is no greater sonic chamber than a standard cab pickup with your older brother's "Shout at the Devil" tape in the deck.

[RDCanecutter 26,462]

34 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

And what, praytell, do you drive again Mr. Judgy McJudgerson. Any answer other than a hearse is a disappointment to the image of you I have in my head.

Me personally I drive a ratted-out '95 Geo Tracker that I encourage my groundcrew to get 400,000 miles out of. Every few years we change water pumps or timing belts or somesuch. I'd drive it into Mexico, carefully.

But I wasn't in that vehicle during my monster truck sightings. That was my wife's 2012 VW Tiguan. She insists that you know that it is a 6-speed manual. I hear and obey.

[Aqua Buddha 14,600]

 

[Longhornstampede 3,186]

6 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Scrolling through photos:  lots of trucks like these in WY:

 

So much chrome.... So much awesomeness

[GoPokes83 2,240]

Jerry Reed is a legend.

Even by 1970’s standards the larger of the two Honey’s can’t dance for shit! I finally have to trade in my old Ram this week. Picking up a new Rocky Ridge edition on Wednesday after they install the bed liner and floor mats. I actually use the 4 wheel drive pretty much every week from spring til fall because the boat ramp I prefer is steep as hell and slick. My small local dealer actually has a lot of inventory to choose from after only having 5-6 pickups on the lot forever. Paying way more than I ever thought I would for a 1500, but I use the crap out of it every day and keep them forever so why not.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,976]

14 hours ago, Deej said:

The Kia Carnival is kind of the best of a minivan and SUV.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/carnival-mpv

Ain't nothing sports utility about 6.8 inches of ground clearance.

[Nivek 16,959]

19 hours ago, Longhornstampede said:

1996 F150 4.9 Inline 6, I use every day. My commute is only 11 miles and none of it on the highway if I so choose. Bought it used in 2000. I haven't had a new vehicle for myself in forever. I do absolutely everything and anything I need. Haul stuff in the bed and occasionally pull a small 12 foot flatbed trailer for some larger things. It has made at least 30 trips to south Texas but I haven't taken it in a long while because I'm afraid it'll get stolen so close to the border. I'm constantly being asked if I'm interested in selling it. Nope.

I keep it because the annual maintenance costs on it are a small fraction of what a monthly payment would be for a new one and I can do almost all of it myself. I've only paid two people to repair something on it in all this time. One to rebuild the 5 speed transmission and the clutch ($1200) 3 years ago and last summer I had the seat, headliner and sun visors reupholstered ($550). Today I'm replacing the pressure hose in the power steering, 35 bucks at AutoZone.

 

My BIL had the same model but in a washed-out sandy orange-ish color and used it throughout college at Texas.   I drove it through the flooding in San Marcos in the late 90s with zero problems.   My wife's parents still have it.   Still has the most annoying buzz when the door is open.

[Brothahorn 10,087]

 

2 weeks from now she will be calling one of those manly F150 drivers to haul the armoire that won't fit in her subaru up 3 flights of stairs.

[YGIFS 19,452]

On 1/29/2023 at 1:26 PM, Pato del Muerto said:

I’m certainly not seeing 43k worth of aftermarket shit on that list. 

Yeah, it's mainly shit like tint, paint, and what's that?...a speedometer?  did David Putty sell him that truck?

 

[F250 28,809]

On 1/29/2023 at 3:58 PM, Pato del Muerto said:

Scrolling through photos:  lots of trucks like these in WY:

 

 

That looks like my dad's truck minus the tires. My son has been trying to get his grandpa to switch it out for his 2016 F150.

 

[Frank Drebin 5,657]

Just bought a new F150.  Ordered it in September and picked it up two days before Christmas. Man, I love it.  I buy a new truck every ten years, and the new tech is pretty awesome.  Mine is a hybrid with the 7500 watt generator.  I get about 18 miles to the gallon so far. I love this truck.  So many new features and electronics have come online in the last 10 years since I bought one.

I drive a truck because I like them and need something to pull my boat and my 16 foot trailer I use when I go hunting.  It is the best of all worlds to me.  With the Retrax bed cover it is very nice for family trips.  We drove to Santa Fe to ski during holidays and had plenty of room.

They have gotten expensive.  I think I paid $54k for my last truck.  This one was significantly more.  Ridiculous costs, but I keep mine for at least ten years so I don't care.  

[Frank Drebin 5,657]

On 1/23/2023 at 2:08 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

Moonroofs/sunroofs have got to be the worst value for money premium feature on a car. I had one on aforementioned Passat and really can’t remember opening it up. I don’t have one now and I have never, ever said “I wish I could open up the moonroof.”

Extra weight, extra money for a window you never look out of. 

I ordered one without the sunroof.  It is just something that, from experience, I never used and they will eventually break with an expensive repair.  Because i keep mine so long, I don't want to deal with the sunroof breaking on me.  Learned the hard way when my 2012 F150's sunroof decided to start leaking during Harvey.

[Francisco 2.0 32,406]

Counterpoint:

https://www.theautopian.com/that-viral-tweet-about-truck-bed-sizes-over-the-years-is-just-stupid/

 

Quote

irst off, I want to be clear that I’m a champion of small, useful trucks. I love them! There’s a reason I picked a tiny Taylor-Dunn workhorse for the Autopian’s first Truck of the Year, and why I braved the wrath of so many Ford F-150 owners when I pointed out how a small, one-cylinder Indian-market pickup had more payload capacity than some F-150s. Big-ass trucks do not always make a lot of sense, and if all you’re doing in them is driving to work and getting groceries or taking your dog to the movies or whatever then it’s possible you’re using the wrong tool for the job. Then again, drive what you want. I’m bringing all this up because there’s been another half-assed viral car-related tweet that’s blown up and has been seen by millions, shared by the kind of smug jackasses you desperately try to avoid at parties. Last time it was about how all SUVs allegedly look alike, and this time it’s about being wrong but still a judgy prick about truck bed sizes. I guess we may as well do this.

 

Quote

Here’s the tweet about this I saw first, coming from a Twitter account named “FuckCars,” which might be valuable context to keep in mind:

At most recent count, that tweet has been seen 11.3 million times, which is a lot of times for anything to have been seen by anyone. I’ve probably only seen The Big Lebowski one-millionth of that many times, and I think it’s a fantastic movie, for example. So, what’s this tweet saying? It appears to show how truck bed length has decreased as a percentage of overall length over the F-150’s lifetime, based on measurements from 1961 to 2021. I’m pretty sure anyone reading this sees the inherent flaw here, but before we address this wildly obvious elephant in the room wearing a hat that says ELEPHANT in bright LEDs, let’s go to the source data of this chart, which is noted as coming from Axios, specifically this article, which is a subset of this longer, more involved one.

 

Quote

Essentially, what that Axios article describes is how the pickup truck in America has transitioned from being primarily a workhorse vehicle into a much more mainstream, general-use family car, and the associated body and other changes that went along with that, most specifically cab size. This is generally a reasonable observation about what’s been happening over the decades, and there’s definitely positives and negatives to this trend.

 

Spoiler

The viral tweet latches onto one part of the Axios story, how the cab to bed ratio seems to have changed over the years, and states that “A new F-150 is just a minivan with a doorless trunk.” Now, even if we ignore the weird language (doorless trunk? Who talks like that?) and the strange attempt at minivan shaming (there’s nothing wrong with a minivan [Ed Note: Also, trucks don’t have sliding doors, so this makes no sense. -DT]) we can’t ignore what this whole mess ignores: You can still buy single-cab, long-bed pickup trucks. If we look at a brand-new Ford F-150 with a long (8 foot) bed with a single cab and compare it to one of those 1961-1979 F-150s shown in that chart, and then do our own math based on the overall length of the truck and seeing what percentage the bed takes up, we see it’s just about identical:

 

Comparing apples to apples here, where those apples have single-cabs and long-beds, we see that bed percentage of overall length really hasn’t changed all that much at all. And, if we’re feeling saucy, like we clearly are, why shouldn’t we also just take a moment to note that the modern truck is much more fuel efficient and wildly safer than the old F-150, at least from the perspective of the people inside. It’s not wrong that bigger and heavier pickup trucks can cause more damage in wrecks, but it’s not like being hit by a ’70s-era F-150 is a picnic, either.

The Axios article has a similar graphic to the one in the tweet, too, and it’s similarly misleading:

 

 

This isn’t showing any ratios flipping, it’s comparing fundamentally different types of trucks. A crew cab, by the very nature of how human bodies require physical space to exist, needs to be bigger. And, unless you want your truck itself to be even longer, then you have to take that space from somewhere, hence shorter beds. It’s not a new thing, it’s how crew cabs have always worked.

 

 

That old ’70s Ford extended cab on the left there has a long bed, and the whole thing is incredibly long; and that’s not even a full crew cab, it just has two doors. And other crew cab designs like the Volkswagen Type 2 double-cab there has a shorter bed, but still decently long, and keeps the overall length short because it’s a rear-engine-under-the-bed design with no hood, something that’s not really feasible if we care about meeting modern crash standards. Don’t get me wrong, I love that design, but there’s actual reasons why modern crew cab trucks look the way they do.

This isn’t a trend of “shrinking beds” as those graphs and articles claim, it’s a change in how people use trucks, and I think it uses the trends of more mainstream truck ownership to make some kind of vague point that we’re all going crazy and being more and more wasteful and killing everyone and somehow the inherent problem is our nation’s love for trucks, which are, you know, bad I guess.

But, any amount of scrutiny shows that this really isn’t the case. Yes, we all could get by with smaller cars for most use. I believe this, and, as a driver of a miniscule 52 hp weirdo car, I practice what I preach. But that doesn’t mean I see the past through a rose-tinted windshield and think every current truck owner is a monster, because they’re not, and modern trucks aren’t the demons they’re made out to be.

As far as the argument goes that it’s terrible that four-door crew cab pickup trucks have become normal, everyday cars, let’s not forget what normal family cars were like in the past. Growing up, my family’s two-car fleet was made up of a 1968 VW Beetle and one of these:

 

 

Yes, a Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon. Long as a truck, big-ass V8 engine, gas mileage numbers that, if they were the age of a child, would be definitively pre-B’nai Mitzvah, and about as safe in a wreck as being in a file cabinet dropped from a second-story window. Modern trucks may be excessive as family cars, but to cast this excess as something new and representative of some sort of moral decline is just not looking at what the past was really like. Even the most ostentatious-seeming modern big-ass truck gets better fuel economy, is vastly safer, and pollutes a hell of a lot less than family cars from the past decades. It doesn’t matter if it’s a truck or a station wagon.

 

 

Plus, charts like these deliberately ignore huge-selling double-cab pickup trucks like the Ford Maverick, which has the big cab and short bed these articles and tweets are lamenting, but can also get 40 mpg in its entry-spec hybrid form. A compact car like a Honda Fit, for example, gets about 35 mpg combined. So, really, what’s the matter with the Maverick being a truck with a big cab and a short bed?

What seems to be going on here with these tweets and articles is that they seem to want to make trucks into this scapegoat for everything that’s going poorly in the automotive space, when the reality is that like almost every other category of motor vehicle, they’re getting safer, more efficient, less polluting, and more. Sure, they’re also more expensive, more feature-laden, harder to repair on your own, and, yeah, probably generally more vehicle than is needed for most situations.

What cars become popular has never been rational. People don’t buy cars for rational reasons, and people have been buying cars for stupid reasons like status markers since cars have existed. If you can’t accept that, then you’re living on the wrong planet, because that’s how humans work, for better or worse.

If you want to tweet about some car-related things that actually matter and aren’t, you know, provably wrong with minimal effort, tweet about how cool tiny efficient cars can be! But if someone rolls by in a pickup truck with a bed only 37% of the overall length of the vehicle, just calm the fuck down, and be happy that they’re possibly getting better fuel economy and almost certainly polluting less than a 1990s Camry.

 

 

 

[CHIEF 5,094]

I will never not own a flatbed truck, I have decided. Things are so much better for my old ass if a forklift can just drop what I need on a pallet to be loaded. I got this 2018 Ford F-350 in  2019 with 76k miles for $43k. It has 101k, and I had a guy offer me $58k for it the other day. It is 24.5 feet long and is a bitch to park, but I can throw two tons of feed on the bed, and barely even squat it.

I have a skid steer, tractor, 28 foot gooseneck that I pull behind it regularly, and a Polaris Ranger to drive around the neighborhood. It is still the primary vehicle I take to town, the huge back seat will hold several hundred dollars worth of groceries.

CHIEF Jr. drives a 2014 Ram 1500 4x4 Hemi. We got it for him because it was so cheap. We bought it in 2016 with 20k miles for $22k, it is worth more than that now. We bought a single cab so he couldn't haul around a bunch of other college students and end up in lawsuits over a possible wreck.

Pickup prices are just plain ridiculous right now.

CHIEF

Edited February 1, 2023 by CHIEF

[Jkwellborn 6,718]

Several hundred dollars of groceries ain’t shit now. That’s like 3 gallons of milk and 5 dozen eggs.

[Celery Man 20,991]

1 hour ago, CHIEF said:

 

 

We bought a single cab so he couldn't haul around a bunch of other college students and end up in lawsuits over a possible wreck.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Celery Man

[CHIEF 5,094]

53 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Happened at Tech to my cousin, back in 2009, that was my warning. Cousin wasn't driving but his girlfriend's brother was. DWI with two counts of manslaughter after hitting a car with two girls and killing them both. It was a brand new crew cab F-150 with less than 10k miles on it with five kids in it. Completely totaled. My uncle bought him a used single cab after that. The girlfriend's Dad was a veterinarian, and owned a lot of property. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep him out of jail only to have his kid get busted for a bad urine sample during probation, so he ended up in prison for 11 years.

CHIEF

[Brian Fantana 6,690]

Signing your posts is weird

[Anwar Namtut 344]

I bought a 2016 F-150 super cab with the 6.5 bed brand new. It basically replaced our Expedition as a tow vehicle for our camp trailer. It just hit 70k miles and I can't see ever getting rid of it. I commute in the winter in it and park it in the summer except for hauling or camping. We don't have the trailer anymore. We have 4 kids and travel out of state to visit family, so that worked great for us. I do hate using it as a commuter as it is big and sucks to park. I ride a motorcycle in the summer so that helps. Someone on the first page, got a GTI for running around which is what I am interested, but kind hard to justify other than I don't like parking the truck at the grocery store.

[Brothahorn 10,087]

All Season tires or All Terrain tires?

[Pato del Muerto 52,555]

They look like nitto a/ts from a blurry zoom. 

[Francisco 2.0 32,406]

On 1/29/2023 at 7:36 PM, utee94 said:

Yup, '85.

I also liked this one:

 

 

 

 

 

[956 Worldwide 34,746]

On 1/29/2023 at 7:09 PM, fattyflattie said:

They are. Need to find that article of the guy that put a million miles on one is some stupid short amount of time.  Some route between central and west Texas iirc.  I remember it was enough miles to require several oil changes and tire rotations a week. Something like new tires every month.   Shit, will do some digging if I get time today.  
 

I've seen this same graphic for a Japanese sedan and Porsche 911.  Hint - they are both tremendously larger than their earlier iterations.  

That’s not what the graph is at all— it’s comparing the ratio of passenger space to hauling space over time.  And indirectly showing what we instinctively know and statistics bear that most new trucks are just people haulers and rarely if ever used for their bed/towing capabilities. 

[Pato del Muerto 52,555]

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

That’s not what the graph is at all— it’s comparing the ratio of passenger space to hauling space over time.  And indirectly showing what we instinctively know and statistics bear that most new trucks are just people haulers and rarely if ever used for their bed/towing capabilities. 

My truck has 4 doors and an 8 foot bed. So there’s no lost hauling space to interior space, even though the ratio is smaller than it would be than with a single cab and that same 8 ft bed. 
 

there’s also been shortened trucks for a long time too, so using only an 8ft bed to represent old trucks and only a 5.5 or 6.5 bed for new trucks is disingenuous. 

[Anwar Namtut 344]

40 minutes ago, Brothahorn said:

All Season tires or All Terrain tires?

 

27 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

They look like nitto a/ts from a blurry zoom. 

Second is correct.

[fattyflattie 4,638]

8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

That’s not what the graph is at all— it’s comparing the ratio of passenger space to hauling space over time.  And indirectly showing what we instinctively know and statistics bear that most new trucks are just people haulers and rarely if ever used for their bed/towing capabilities. 

Yeah I get it. It’s a graph comparing single cab long bed trucks (when crew cabs didn’t even exist) to a time when crew cabs make up 95%+ of vehicles sold today.  But there is also size bloat in vehicles from that vintage to today.  People prefer safety and comfort; this is my shocked face.  

[Celery Man 20,991]

if it was 1980 I could stick my kid in the front seat but wouldn't need to because that's why i have a wife

[Your Mom 4,830]

 

The kid hanging out that back window is going to drive this same truck off to college in a few months.  15 years and about 260k on the odometer since that pic was taken.  

[Hmbre97 6,329]

My dad used to have an 83 single cab lwb C10 when I was a kid. I hope to find another one someday to play around with.

[YGIFS 19,452]

3 hours ago, Anwar Namtut said:

I bought a 2016 F-150 super cab with the 6.5 bed brand new. It basically replaced our Expedition as a tow vehicle for our camp trailer. It just hit 70k miles and I can't see ever getting rid of it. I commute in the winter in it and park it in the summer except for hauling or camping. We don't have the trailer anymore. We have 4 kids and travel out of state to visit family, so that worked great for us. I do hate using it as a commuter as it is big and sucks to park. I ride a motorcycle in the summer so that helps. Someone on the first page, got a GTI for running around which is what I am interested, but kind hard to justify other than I don't like parking the truck at the grocery store.

I admire your back-country spirit.  And sometimes I do wish I never got rid of my F-150.  but two questions:

1.  Do all 6 of you sleep in that small tent?  

2.  Was the F-150 able to traverse the aggressive topographical undulation I see there in the background?