Pickup Philosophy Question

Soundguy · Sep 27, 2012

genusCastor said:
QFT

I've seen this topic debated on numerous forums, a consensus is never reached, and folks end up believing what they want to believe...and have numbers to back their beliefs.

FTR, my daily driver is a Dodge 1-ton dually with a 9' flatbed.

- djb

it's one of those deals where every situation is gonna be different.

if you never haul anything and just drive to work in an inner city and deal wit limited curb b parking and garages.. well.. a crew cab dually is probably not a great choice.. if you haul cattle weekly.. it is..

my daily driver is a cc dually.

Soundguy · Sep 27, 2012

genusCastor said:
QFT

I've seen this topic debated on numerous forums, a consensus is never reached, and folks end up believing what they want to believe...and have numbers to back their beliefs.

FTR, my daily driver is a Dodge 1-ton dually with a 9' flatbed.

- djb

it's one of those deals where every situation is gonna be different.

if you never haul anything and just drive to work in an inner city and deal wit limited curb b parking and garages.. well.. a crew cab dually is probably not a great choice.. if you haul cattle weekly.. it is..

my daily driver is a cc dually.

varmint · Sep 30, 2012

Just an aside to the pickup stories... I bought a brand new Chevy Work Truck in 2004, to replace my old WT that was getting up in mileage and maintenance costs. But, I just wasn't using it enough to justify the annual registration/insurance costs, now that most of our big homeowner projects are finished, and my 90 year old neighbor kept saying he wanted it, so I sold it him, with all of 9000 miles on it, in 2009. He's now turning 94, the poor truck has about 12,000 miles on it, but because he can't see out of one eye and really shouldn't be driving anymore (just very short trips not far from where we all live) the truck looks like ****. About every body panel has been scrapped, dinged, torn off or crushed slightly. And where I used to wash and wax it, he hasn't touched it. Maybe changed the oil once? Sad to see what happened to it. The row of mailboxes out on the public road is constantly being attacked by him, much to everyone's consternation. I will occasionally borrow it when I help him do something, but since the inside of the cab now looks/smells like an old barn, I am careful what clothes I have on.

dmccarty · Sep 30, 2012

varmint said:
... I will occasionally borrow it when I help him do something, but since the inside of the cab now looks/smells like an old barn, I am careful what clothes I have on.

When we were looking to buy land we were at one parcel with the 80+ year old farmer. He had been born in the house that his daddy built around 1900 that was still on the land. The farmer had moved off to another parcel. Anywho, some rabbit hunters were on his land and he wanted them gone so he asked me if I would ride out with to tell the trespasser to git. I said yes and off we went in his truck. He was a chicken farmer and that truck STUNK. I had to roll down the windows to breath. :shocked:

Many years ago I was working in a development where rich people spent the winter. One of the guys I worked with was a serious drunk. I mean serious. This was before MADD and this guy was a mess. He had a truck he like to use while working on the property. I figured he liked to use his truck because he would have always have access to booze. The truck was the cheapest model you could buy with vinyl seats and floor. He could puke in that cab and just wash it out. Problem was you could not wash out the STINK. I had to roll down the windows to be in that truck. :shocked:

He, the boss, and I were working on a fence line one hot, humid morning when around 10:00 we ran out of water. We had sent the drunk first thing in the morning to full up the water cooler so we could not figure out how we were out of water. We opened up the water cooler and the drunk SOB had put in a six pack of beer buried in the ice which meant we had no water.

Another morning we were cleaning out gutters on a two story building. The boss had enough sense to keep the drunk on the ground raking up the trash from the gutters. After a while he started laughing and I looked over and the drunk was passed out spread eagled in a flower bed. He just pass out from looking up. :shocked:

How that SOB kept his job was beyond me. Our immediate boss could not fire the guy since the man running the complex gave the drunk a job. The drunk was a flat out menace and we kept him away from anything dangerous. Well, as best we could.

Later,
Dan

EricG1793 · Sep 30, 2012

My feelings are, if you need the truck at least several times a year, get it and not have a smaller vehicle, which adds maintenance, insurance, registration, tax, etc. expenses. Otherwise just get the smaller vehicle or even an SUV that will take care of most needs and borrow a truck when necessary.

My family had an '89 F150 XL, and we used it to haul garden debris, mulch, trash, fuel, when we relocated our music shop, when we moved our island in the kitchen from my aunt's to here, and it became my sister's first daily driver. It was affected by whatever paint issue Ford had back then and my dad was never notified by Ford and they refused to honor the warranty after he had found out about it after the time expired (that was our last Ford product other than a '97 Sable my grandmother bought for my mom), plus it had several issues that my dad didn't want to deal with so he got rid of it. Other than that, we've always gotten by with sedans.

The need comes up several times a year for a truck, though, most notably for moving our ATVs around (they've never been off the property since we got them around 10 years ago, except 1 that was hauled away by a friend with a borrowed trailer so we could work on it at his shop). Also the previously mentioned things continue to pop up, plus things like moving lumber around since our house is now 20 years old and needs work. My dad also has a large welder that's at his workplace's headquarters 3 hours away that will probably never make it down here.

We also live a mile and a quarter down a partially privately-maintained road (we need gravel delivered) and things get ugly in the spring ("mud season") and winter... very hard on the sedans; every one of them has gotten stuck in snow/mud/ditch at one point or another, we need front-end alignments frequently, suspension wears out quickly, we get flat tires frequently.... Anyway, the point is, it's not always hauling stuff that makes a truck appealing.

My neighbor has a Chevy Volt as her daily driver and an Escalade EXT for winter/mud season/long trips and to use to haul around her pottery for shows, and my dad and I helped her move a kiln with it. Her husband is a carpenter and his Sierra 2500HD Duramax is pretty much his daily driver and he houses all his tools in it and hauls lumber with it and pulls a trailer with his tractor and excavator occasionally.