Tried to buy a gladiator diesel, ended up with a 2020 Wrangler Rubicon 2 door.
I will keep my Colorado, or upgrade that to a 3/4 ton. Either way, I want something which costs less to buy, fuel, and repair for when I'm just running around or going down to my mother's house 200 miles away.
All well and good until what you are hauling falls out in the road and the guy behind you hits it.Ours with its 6ft box is close enough to 8. We simply leave the tailgate down when we need more.
I look at short bed trucks with 4 doors as 'Wannabe soccer mom trucks'.. Status symbols for suburbanite dwellers that want to role play and the only 'cargo' hauled in the back are grocery bags anyway. Totally useless for me. I like 4 doors and a backseat but I have to have an 8 foot box as well and of course a GN hitch in it.
We have a 2002 F350 with a 6' bed and the shorter of the extended cab (has suicide doors vs separate doors for the back doors and no B pillar).
Same with us. Got tired of having to swap vehicles when she wanted to tow the horse trailer. So she got a new truck. We recently bought a 2017 Acadia for road trips into Dallas and for my work trips. Used to be a 20 mile round trip, now I am having an 80 mile round trip daily to teach classes for about 10 weeks.
I drive thousands of miles in my company 4 door short bed pickup with snowsled or ATV in back. Just because something is useless to you doesn't mean that it won't work for somebody else. I would not want to go back to hauling all of my winter clothes and gear in the bed of the truck, and I sure don't want some behemoth with the extra cab and 8 foot bed on some of the roads I drive. Besides, that extra 18" bed isn't that important; my snowsled would still be sticking out the back.
Another pet peeve...using very old terminology that means nothing on the truck. There are no 1/2 ton trucks. Even the lowly Tacoma has almost 3/4 ton payload. Caused serious problems lending on trucks. Payloads over a certain amount (1T) are considered commercial. Different financing and different insurance. Trucks kept getting bigger, but dealers and customers kept referring into the antiquated terms. Many lenders just ignored the rules to make money.
Had a neighbor who bought a Hemi Dodge truck and took it back. He got a Cummins. I asked him why. "Not enough power", he said.
Other than some very minor rocker panel rust,
Every few years, in the spring, I roll into the shop and hoist it up. I then get under and start cleaning, priming, and painting.
I spent years in South Dakota. People there do not knowingly buy vehicles from Minnesota. The amount of salt used by MNDOT is so much that vehicles rust so badly.
^^ that is very true. Around here we can drive a truck until we get tired of it. My current is 22 years old and has a perfect body. If you regularly go over our mountain passes it is a little different but few do that on a frequent basis in the winter. I bought a Toyota FJ a few years back and the first thing I did was look for coats of primer/paint underneath and sure enough carfax had them all coming from eastern and midwest northern US and Canada. I ended up buying a 2008 originally purchased in this county and guess what? No rust to this day.
We had something similar where I used to live, but the vehicles had drugs packed in various nooks and crannies. Came up from South Florida. Once, they brought home a mid-80’s Buick Regal T-Type. We thought we should approach them about buying it. The Sheriff’s department had a similar idea.
There is a dealer in Roanoke, that does JUST the opposite
I hauled 13k combined with my old Volvo S70 140hp which does 50mpg+ commuting.... the same engine in a VW LT (MY '95 Sprinter with VW engine) was approved for 8.75 ton (19.300 pounds) but the LT got nowhere near 50mpg...
I buddy of mine is a auto body guy. His friend picked up a near new car from Florida and brought it over to show him. After looking at it a while he asked "you know the windshield columns are rusted out, correct?". There was no fixing of them, it was a total rust and he had wasted $$$.
I can just see this now....There is a dealer in Roanoke, that does JUST the opposite
He goes north, buys rust buckets, and just puts them on the lot.
The "southerners" never even think to look for rust,, this is the south,,
The car is cheap,, they buy it.
He moves dozens of cars every week in that condition,,
I remember the first time I drove past the lot, and saw the rusty cars, that were not that old,,
AND, the price is so low,, you just gotta buy it,,,
I avoid that lot like the plague,, the vehicle seems to look nice,,,,,,,,,,,,
I crawled around under the last two pickups I bought and they both looked solid. After one winter in the crap they are putting on our roads now, the rust was coming off the frame in flakes.
That sounds boring. A winter without snow is like breakfast without orange juice.
We got a 2019 ranger with a 6ft box. Its nice to drive around town and fit on narrow roads. It gets fabulous fuel mileage, gobs of power at 260hp, towing capacity is 6000lbs + something and comfortable to ride it. Its a keeper. Here is its review.
Have you ever tried hooking them up to a harness and letting them pull you?Why wouldn't someone not get out in it and have a great time skiing on it.
No offense to my neighbors to the south, but Houston is the nether regions of Texas. We're a solid 4 hours north of that humid, overpopulated area. My wife has to go there for work quite often. She will not miss it next year when we retire.
I hear you. My adult life has been about equally spent north and south. The advantage for me now is that snow is a choice. I can head north a bit and enjoy it. For what it's worth, I don't drink OJ either. Too many carbs.
I have no particular use for a back seat in a pickup so I generally go for the extended cab with longer bed. Don't really need an 8' bed anymore, but the 6½ is nice.
