Petty tyrants, especially petty Leftist tyrants, are all the same. They all believe that they are smarter, wiser, more knowledgeable, and more logical, and therefore the world would be a better place if only they could decide what you need, what you should want, and how you should live your life.
The latest Leftist petty tyrant bugaboo is pickup trucks.
They hate them and they are on a mission to eliminate them from your choice of vehicles to buy.
Case in point, this teacup Nazi:
Pick-up trucks are ridiculous clown cars and 99% of the people who buy them will never have a practical need to own one. Here’s why:
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
First off, pick-ups have for years consistently been among the most popular, best selling vehicles in America. But we know from consumer surveys that almost no one who buys one uses them for anything more than daily commuting.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
A Strategic Visions survey from a few years ago found that 75% of pick-up owners towed something with their vehicle one time a year or less. 70% went off-road one time a year or less. More than a third didn’t even use the bed of the truck more than once a year or less.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
So the vast majority of people who buy them don’t use them for their primary design function. Which shouldn’t be surprising as the most popular models don’t really have a useful design function that can’t be fulfilled by other, smaller, cheaper vehicles.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
When you think of pick-ups at the very least you’re thinking hauling lumber in the back. But most pick-ups sold are crew-cab models, which means a second row of seats in the back in exchange for less bed space. Trucks with full 8ft beds are actually remarkably unpopular.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
What that means though is your average Ram 2500 Megacab is no better for hauling plywood than a base-model Toyota Sienna minivan with the seats folded down.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
People don’t want to admit though that they’re driving a four-ton family sedan though. So we talk about towing capacity. Except most truck owners don’t tow with them, and those that do can’t tow as much as they think or don’t need that truck to tow what they have.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
Outside of a few fifth-wheel campers, most trailers people would use can be hauled by smaller vehicles. People don’t NEED the large stuff, they get it because the truck can haul more. The bigger vehicle creates its own need.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
But let’s look at the people who ostensibly use them for work: contractors, remodelers, construction workers, etc. Trucks represent a fair portion of what they drive for work, but not as much as you think. I’ve seen surveys that show only a third of remodelers drive pick-ups
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
The actual work-horse of American contractors and tradesmen is something closer to a Ford Transit Connect, i.e. a tall van. Enclosed storage area, infinitely customizable, 24 mpg for city driving as opposed to a Ford F-150 Supercab’s paltry 16.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
Even farmers don’t for the most part drive modern pick-ups, because they’re basically useless for most farm work. Too tall, too heavy. The used trade for 90s models among agricultural workers is huge, because that was the last time trucks were made they could practically use.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
And the problem with trucks getting bigger and bigger doesn’t end with them being impractical. Taller front-ends mean lower sight-lines. You become both less likely to see a pedestrian AND more likely to kill them.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
I’ve seen some different stats on this but I’d say conservative estimate is that larger pick-ups and SUVs on the road has caused pedestrian fatalities increase by about a quarter since the mid 1980s. Basically all gains made in auto safety features erased over the last 40 years.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
The same model fully-loaded, like you go down the features list and check every box, will run you close to $80,000. That’s basically luxury car prices. And most the people buying them are going to finance some or most of that, so just go ahead and add $10-20,000 to that.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
Now you can think up a myriad of examples of how you, personally, need a pick-up or the one time that it was useful to have one or whatever. But your experience is stacked against the literal millions of pick-up owners who bought them as engorged status symbols.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
The fact is most practical uses of a pick up can be handled just as well 1) in a smaller vehicle 2) are so uncommon that it’s cheaper to occasionally rent something. Owning a truck the size of a WWII Sherman tank serves no practical purpose and makes you look fucking ridiculous
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
Gonna reiterate this because it keeps coming up but “you” and “most people” are not the same thing. You personally having a regular use for a large new pick-up is not a counterpoint to the fact the VAST majority of people who buy them are suburbanites buying a status symbol.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
Some people have brought up snow and ice conditions, which, fuckin’ lol. First off if you’re regularly driving in snow deep enough to justify a pick-up and you don’t have a plow attached to the front then you 1) work on a farm or for the Forest Service or 2) are a fucking moron
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
If you’re talking about icy roads then you’re talking about just adding weight and momentum to a situation where stopping isn’t happening easily. Consistently best-rated winter drivers are almost always AWD sedans.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
If you personally can think of situations on ice where a truck is better than a Subaru Outback and ISN’T just going to fishtail your ass into a curb, then good for you but I guarantee your insurance company begs to differ, and they have a bigger dataset than you.
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) July 26, 2021
That was a very long Twitter rant.
And yes, I am exactly the person he is talking to/about.
I bought a Ram 2500 Power Wagon with the 6.4 Hemi.
I put it on 35 in mud tires.
Why?
Because I fucking wanted it, that’s why.
I earned three degrees in engineering. I worked hard and got a good job making good money. I saved and sacrificed, and in the end could afford the truck I wanted so I bought it. I could have spent that $50k on a BMW or Tesla or some other status symbol car but I didn’t. I’m a suburban redneck and my status symbol car is a big fucking truck.
I’ve pulled a Uhaul with it once.
The most off road I’ve done with it is the gravel drive at the shooting range.
But that’s completely irrelevant to me because I love my Power Wagon.
This is America.
As a hard working, tax paying, law abiding American, I should have the right to spend my money how I want on what I want without this micro-Mussolini telling me what kind of car I can have and for what reasons he thinks I should or shouldn’t have that choice.
And I don’t give a fuck about his concerns about my truck and pedestrians. That’s that same bullshit Leftist tyrants use to justify gun and ammo bans. “It’s too dangerous for you to have even thought you’ve never actually hurt anyone with it.”
Fuck this guy to death with lifted Super Duty.
I am tired of these shit-heels and their shit-weasel opinions about how their assessment of my lifestyle doesn’t justify their arbitrary standards of what I want to spend my money on.
These Twitter fascists need to understand that they can have my pickup truck when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Just to spite these fuckers I’m going to buy another pickup just fucking because.
Teacup Nazi fucks.
Don’t mince words, J, tell us how you really feel. 😏
I always do. That’s why I blog under a pen name. The freedom to be honest.
AAAAAMMMEENNNN!!!! Another “intelligent “ asshole telling use what to do. THIS is the only thing “political correctness “ has bought us… useless morons telling us knuckle draggin cave men how to live. Rock on America.
Over the years, I’ve often heard the “you hardly ever use its capabilities, so you should just rent one from a corporation when you need it” argument.
Which… things being owned by corporations, and people just rent? Sounds literally Fascist to me, but whatever.
In practical terms, I might only need 4WD a couple of times a year, when I really, really need to go somewhere in adverse conditions. Which is exactly not the time to be trying to rent a truck with 4WD, at the same time as everybody else in the area, and without being able to get to the rental place anyway.
I don’t like it so you shouldn’t be allowed to own it does seem to be the mantra.
And there’s a good chance that the reason they don’t want you to be able to own it unless you really “need” it is because they feel threatened by manly men who actually do need a pickup truck. They don’t want just anyone to be able to own one because then they feel inferior to everyone…which just won’t do.
My wife is the one that owns the pickup. I drive a hybrid because of commuting. And I bought the high end model because I work my ass off and wanted to be comfortable w/ a good sound system.
This whole tweet is a fine example of a narrative being distributed. I’ve seen this same content from a lot of different places, starting with consumer reports.
The reason you buy a pickup is that these same weasels destroyed the large car market. If you have a few kids, you need a truck or a van.
Personally, when I was out in the field doing real work, I preferred a van. Easier to drive, more space, better security. That said, where I live, many of the trades dudes use pickups and haul trailers for their gear. That way, they have a nice go-to-town rig. A trailer as gobs more usable space than a van. And you aren’t pulling one of those with a KIA.
Long ago I had that same argument with a lefty friend that was on a tirade because he happened to see a Ford Excursion on the road. He himself drove a sports car of sorts. Same logic – no one needs that so they shouldn’t be able to get it.
So what works with these fools –
– So I can’t have a stakebody or flatbed truck?
– So I can’t have a full size van?
– What about a camaro, challenger, or other large car?
My point was these all had the same engine, and pretty much the same materials in them, only a different shape. I also went off like you – Who the fck cares what another man drives? Gas prices go up, he’ll get his. Whatever.
Where a truck differs is:
They are way more recyclable than a car (More of them is metal), and they tend to be durable. You can keep the things running indefinitely. I see pickups from the 60’s and 70’s still on the road. And running, these rigs command top dollar.
I was getting dental work done yesterday. My dentist drives a Mclaren.
Do you need such a thing?
No. But it’s cool. And God Bless’em. He’s earned it. And what’s funny, although one would look at that with the same notion – “who needs that”, it’s probably not all that much different in cost than a tricked out superduty Ford these days.
You know, there’s a reason the Catholic Church considers Envy a deadly sin. Along with Pride, one of the deadliest. These people’s souls must be black as coal.
By the way, when I first moved to DFW – before all the blue state locusts started arriving, what you’d see is dad has a pickup of some sort (Event though he’s an accountant) and mom has an SUV of some sort. Sometimes a van.
I often joked that I couldn’t wait until I was issued my truck.
That’s still mostly the case. I can count at least half a dozen families on my walks through the hood where dad has a truck and mom has a suburban or Tahoe with the 2-4 kids.
My better half didn’t understand why I bought our first pickup. Until she drove it, then I had to borrow her pickup when I need to haul something. LOL
Why spend so much time on a worthless POS? Get off of Twitter, and have a better life.
What’s the over/under on this asshole owning an all-leather interior, satellite radio, 5.1 surround sound, sat nav, bluetooth, wifi hotspot, luxury Land Rover?
OK, so let’s say the pickup truck owner tows a boat or a camper a few times a year, or uses their truck’s bed to haul stuff. What the twit doesn’t say is what does the person with the small car do when they need to tow the boat or those other things?
There’s no place that will rent you a truck to pull your boat, and even if there was, you’d be more dangerous on the road since you’re not familiar with how it all handles. Maybe you could pay for delivery on whatever is in the bed.
What they don’t understand is that people buy their vehicles with the total use in mind. If that includes something they do once or twice, it’s still part of the whole picture. The vehicle industry knows this and it’s part of how they do business. Another example is that if you plan on taking a trip longer than 200 miles a few times a year, you most likely don’t consider an electric car. There’s no way to drive 250 miles or so and recharge enough to drive farther in a few minutes.
Oh, so they want you to not have the boat or the camper and not take drives to another part of the country?
Just another totalitarian tyrant who wants to redefine the way everyone in the world lives to be like their wishes.
A Toyota Sienna doesn’t have the squirrel power to haul my big ass nuts.
Argument over, get out of my wallet, and leave my truck and guns alone you fucking pretz.
Funny how someone who is not me seems to think they have the right to decide what I need.
Wonder if this individual would be as willing to accept my determination on what their needs are? Somehow, I doubt it.
It occurs to me that one could make a similar argument against individuals owning fire extinguishers, first-aid kits, and suchlike. You probably won’t use it, you won’t maintain it, you don’t know how to use it properly… just leave that stuff to the Qualified Professionals.
Come to think of it, I believe I have heard exactly that argument a few times over the years, just not as often nor as stridently as the argument against trucks, SUVs, and, er, other deplorable items.
“You don’t need your own copy of the E Plebnista! You might try reading it yourself and misunderstand it! Rely on the Keeper of the Sacred Relics to tell you what it means!”
You mentioning fire extinguishers made me realize I haven’t checked mine for a while. Recheck date of 1986, hmmmm. Still in the green, good to go. ;-))
It’s a lot easier to convert Tacoma to a technical than it is for a Sienna.
By the way, his premise is flawed.
“And the problem with trucks getting bigger and bigger doesn’t end with them being impractical. ”
They aren’t getting bigger, per se.
Just came back from a walk with the dogs. Along the way I sized up a sample of the neighborhood pickups. There were the big three, plus a tundra 4×4.
I’ve had many pickups, notably a 64 chevy, 83 chevy silverado 4×4, and a 74 F-100.
They all were taller/as tall as what I saw, wider by a lot, and had longer hoods than anything in production today. Add into that the crappy mirrors and general poor rearward visibility, so-so brakes, and today’s are way safer.
I had a 03 forerunner at one point. It was way larger than the Toyota pickups I drove as a field tech.
Another thing I’ve noticed in my hood is how f-ing fast women drive through it in SUVS. I’ll take your average dude in a power wagon diesel long before a much more dangerous soccer mom in her x5, VW Atlas, or CR-V.
It might be entertaining to do a similar tweet chain about the plusses (few) and minuses (many) of the hybrid or all-electric vehicle of your choice. Toyota understands that their market for the Pious (thank you, South Park) is people who want to virtue-signal that they care about the environment, while actually doing harm. As for all-electric vehicles (which a friend accurately calls “emissions-elsewhere vehicles,” and I, somewhat less accurately call “coal-powered cars”), you’re just using fossil fuels less efficiently than an internal combustion engine, by converting them to electricity first.
Any half-way competent EE should be able to give you far more material in this vein….
YMMV….
Most of the alleged hybrid harm I’ve heard of is based on flawed assumptions, such as the car only lasting three years and the traction battery being non-recyclable.
I’ve had the same Prius as a daily driver (not so daily the past year and a half) for over 19 years now; it finally needed a new traction battery after 15 years or so; and I expect the old battery got reprocessed for high-value mineral content.
‘Course, I kept my old Jeep Cherokee for nearly as long, until it became not worth the repair costs, and now my other car is a Tundra (complete with the larger V8 and 4WD).
Electrics, yeah: coal-powered, pollute-elsewhere. And the claims made for the fuel economy of pluggable hybrids are downright fraudulent – hey, I can get 100 MPG in my classic Prius, too, if I start at the top of a hill with the engine warmed up!
My Honda Insight had its battery pack replaced, under warranty, around 70k miles. Its replacement failed again around 120k miles (no more warranty), at which point even looking at what exactly the problem was would cost $2500. So I sold it for $1k to an Insight nut (with full disclosure; he was happy to fix it himself).
As for “less efficient”, that’s probably not true. When I was evaluating the Tesla model S, I computed the energy cost per mile (with NH’s rather high electric rates) vs. gasoline. The answer was that the energy cost of the Tesla compared to that of a gasoline car that gets 69 mpg. That would be a hypothetical car — not even the Insight, which is way less than 1/2 the size of the Tesla, would go that high.
There’s an argument that the largest pickup trucks should be classified as light commercial vehicles, due to their sheer size and mass.
But that’s not the same as ‘you don’t need that!’.
In my state, it used to be like that. If you had a vehicle higher than 8500lbs GVW (which includes 3/4 ton pickups and above) you had to have commercial “truck” plates. That was changed about 5 years ago or so, which did make registration a bit less expensive.
But there’s still another sticking point…vehicles of that size don’t get “tax relief” from the local personal property taxes. In this state, the local governments assess a personal property tax on vehicles that tends to be in the hundreds of dollars per year. Many years ago the state government passed a “relief” act where most of that tax is paid by the state government, but vehicles over 8500 lb GVW are not eligible for the relief, so we still get stuck a bit.
Still worth it.
My commuter vehicle is my motorcycle. I drive the truck when I need to haul something or the weather is too crappy for the bike (I’m not a fair weather rider, it’s got to be REALLY crappy to rule out the bike). I don’t do a lot of hauling in a year, but enough to justify the truck (I’m one of the people who won’t own a truck without a full sized bed). Plus, we live in a hurricane vulnerable area: the 4wd truck (with 12,000 lb winch on the front) is our “get out of dodge in an emergency” vehicle. Much better suited to that role than the sedan. We can put the dogs in the crew cab and have enough space in the bed to carry enough gear to survive on our own indefinitely as long as we can scrounge food and water.
I don’t give a crap what this “the government will take care of us” pansy thinks I “need”. It’s not the government’s responsibility to ensure my family’s safety under any and all possible circumstances, that’s my job; and if my family is not taken care of during an emergency, that’s not the government’s fault, that’s mine. If I actually felt I needed a justification for a big truck, that’s enough for me right there.
I earned the money. None of his business what I buy with it.
So, what do you think of the 6.4L Hemi? On paper it doesn’t look that much more powerful than the 5.7 (390 hp to 410 hp, 375 torque to 429). Given that you have to move up from a 1500 to a 2500 truck to get the 6.4, you got a heavier truck so does it really get the job done? I’ve been looking at moving up to a 2500 series, but really don’t want to spend the extra cheese for a diesel. Given that I tow an RV all over the state 8 to 10 times a year, ease of towing (not just capacity but also drivability) is important to my decision.
Oh, and that twitter argument has been in the back corners of various forums ever since the internet was invented by Al Gore. But sometime earlier this year the entire stinking mess was brought out into the open, as if on cue. I’ve seen multiple posts and news article that are almost cut-n-paste of the above. Someone somewhere is giving marching orders.
Pony up and get the diesel. There really is a difference in towing with diesel vs gas. If you really do tow 8-10 times per year, you will notice the difference.
It’s a $12,000 option. You really have to tow a lot to justify that (unless you really just want a diesel). Even with the higher fuel efficiency of the diesel, you’ll never drive enough miles to recover the initial buy in price.
I love it. It’s thirsty, not gonna lie, 13 mpg average. But it towed a 7000 lbs trailer up and down the Appalachian mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina like it wasn’t even there. The new 2500 have dynamic engine braking in tow/haul mode. Works like a charm.
On paper I’d doesn’t look like much more than the 5.7 but it grunts with a flatter torque curve that kicks in at lower RPM. The 5.7 is an all purpose engine that Chrysler puts in everything from trucks to Jeeps to sedans. The 6.4 is a dedicated truck engine.
Thanks, good info. Yeah, the $12,000 entry fee for a diesel is money that’ll never pay back unless you’re towing daily for work. I see lots of people get diesel trucks but I have trouble justifying the cost. I’ve been hoping the 6.4 has more grunt than the numbers would indicate.
If you only tow a handful of times a year, the Cummins ain’t worth it. We run all RAM at work. Got rid of the Cummins and went all Hemi. Cheaper to maintain, cheaper to buy. Still can haul, just not as quick. We tow just short of 10k daily and occasionally haul 17k. Yeah the fuel mileage sucks ass, but it takes a lot of gallons to justify that 12k sticker and the 8k emissions repair that will inevitably happen.
What should be considered is just how much more power modern gas engines put out and what was considered good performance for an engine just a few years ago.
My first truck was my dad’s old 1995 2500 Chevy with a 6.5 turbo diesel. That was rated at 420 ft-lbs. The much loved 7.3 Powerstroke was rated at 425 ft-lbs, and the workhorse 12V 5.9 Cummins was rated at 440 ft-lbs. There are plenty of those work trucks still on the road hauling trailers.
Diesels making 900+ ft-lbs are relatively new. Work trucks have been hauling with 400-500 ft-lbs engines for decades.
If you pulled your trailer with a 2000 Ford Super Duty with a 7.3 Power Stroke or a 2000 Ram 2500 with a 5.9 Cummins, a 2021 Ram 6.4 Hemi has the same power and is hooked up to a much better transmission.
If you are pulling a 45 foot gooseneck with a couple of skid loaders on it at 20,000 lbs, get the diesel. If you pull a 10,000 lbs camper a few weekends a year, save the $10,000 and upgrade to the 6.4 Hemi or 7.3 Ford Godzilla gas engines.
Would it make his little statist head explode to know that I own 3 different pickup trucks? BFYTW.
Yup, civil war is coming in the USA.
I can’t help but notice that the articles seem to quote the same survey.
We all know that most truck-owning guys are not gonna answer a damn survey questionnaire……
So the survey is meaningless.
Everyone i know with a pickup uses it all the time. Towing boats, moving furniture, going to the dump, getting ten bags of mulch– you name it.
Yep, they are pinning their whiny pitch on a bullshit survey.
I’ve owned 4 pickups in my day. Wife wanted an SUV and now I got a big one, 4WD, and towing package. I tow a trailer with it at least 12 times a year.
Total BS survey.
Obviously he’s never been to Texas or Oklahoma… sigh
1. This is just a long rant by the guy who will always be be stuck in traffics jam because his shiny little virtue-signaling car can’t cross the road median and turn around to go back the way that he came.
2. I own a LOT of things that I haven’t used in years, yet still own because I may need them and know that they’ll be unavailable for purchase when they are REALLY – – if rarely – – needed. The case of MREs, the extra drinking water, fire starter gear, medical supplies, ammo, rifles pistols, and my shotgun…
Oh wait, I actually hard to use the shotgun to draw down on someone, so that doesn’t count.
I’d say pepper spray, too…but I had to empty one can on a couple of diverse youths engaged in a public display of their stupidity, so that doesn’t count either…