those days are now…
The sky is falling !
“…the bank paying .25% interest on a CD…”
My Ford stock is paying 3.6%…(to keep the discussion auto-centric)…
hows the gm doing?
We are driving on thin ice monetarilly. But many are able to do so in a fine ride with nothing down and 84 months to pay.
@dagosa Look, I appreciate the utility of the large pickups (though I will note that most of the people driving them are driving them as fashion statements and the most the pickup bed ever sees is that can of beer while they’re tailgating at the ball game).
However, the idea that small trucks can’t take a yard of mulch from a scoop is simply wrong. I know, because I’ve gotten 5 yards of mulch in the last month into the bed of my 88 Mitsubishi pickup with no problems. The bobcat operator didn’t complain about it at all, and didn’t damage the truck… Not that I would have cared that much because my truck is a work truck. It was purchased specifically to haul loads, and to get beaten up so that our nice vehicles don’t have to. I don’t care what it looks like, because I didn’t buy it as a fashion statement.
And I dunno where you’re coming from on this “delicate” bed stuff either. Mine is double-walled steel and will haul (by which I mean “is rated to haul,” not “I’m an idiot and overloaded the hell out of it” 
) 3/4 of a ton.
Most of the landscaping yards around here use monster front end loaders and they can’t even see your smaller truck around the bucket they’re trying to dump from. They don’t want to go get a small bobcat to do your load because there are contractors with large pickups and small dumps queued up behind you.
I have a very sturdy utility trailer I haul behind my TB for such trips. They don’t even like to pause for me to spread a tarp so I try to have that ready as much as possible.
I went to get stone once and the guy looks at my 2 ton trailer with rim bars and not much else and says “you gonna try hauling stone in that???”. “After I put this down…” as I spread out the heavy duty tarp. “Oh, OK.”
Yes, @insightful. Financial traffic is being routed to the markets by trashing dividends to savers. The situation is not coincidental.
I must be shopping at the right place, then, because where I get mulch from only has a bobcat. They cater to homeowners, not landscaping companies.
@shadowfox.
I think you are miss interpreting what I said. You can drop a bucket of mulch into a small pic up, but if it’s from a large tractor or loader with a full yard in the bucket, it is difficult to center the load. It is much easier to in a larger truck. When you do load it to it’s limit, especially with gravel or any abrasive substance, the delicate part of any truck bed is the OUTSIDE and it starts taking gas. It’s just the nature of the beast. The smaller the truck, the harder it is to do anything but hand load it. These things are notoriously poor receivers of mechanical loading. Heck, today’s full size truck with crew cabs are worse and compact trucks with any size bed is a standard cab which is very unpopular…look at sales ! Larger cabs mean longer wheel bases. Small trucks just can’t cut it for the scenario of, picking up mulch, gravel ,etc…they aren’t made for it. They aren’t a dmp truck.
If all you want is a yard of mulch, most just buy it by the bag and hand load it.
Small trucks are easily replaced by a utility trailer pulled by a small SUV with a tow capacity of 1500 lbs, which is much more then you can load in a small truck bed. I and most others who came from homes to pick up anything substantial from a bulk loader used a trailer or we have it delivered or buy by the bag.
Most people caught on to this around here and use trailers instead of small trucks. They use their big trucks for towing and carrying people in their crew cabs with gear in a small bed. And not hauling mulch. It can be done in little trucks but in the real world, it’s the exception, not the norm as they are less efficient then a cheaper trailer.
Check the sales…small trucks didn’t sell and we all can invent exceptions for their use, but the vast majority just have little use for them.
Agree with @twinturbo 100% . That’s exactly how we operated in the nursery I work for.
When a business like a nursery looks at the truck market and sees that the full sized model’s fuel consumption is nearly the same as the compact model while having considerably greater towing capacity and ground clearance for a few dollars added to the monthly payment it isn’t surprising that they jump for the full size just like the rest of the public.
But pickup popularity is a regional/cultural thing. Some men would be embarassed to show up at work driving a pickup while others would be embarassed to show up in anything else.
back to the fwd probability.
I wonder if…
( don’t know for sure so I’m throwing this out there )
IF…you had a fwd pickup and actually used it in the utility of general pickup usage…
is a fwd drivetrain even strong enough to handle this work load over time ?
transmission ?
cv joints ?
front and rear suspension ?
lack of a frame generally associated with fwd vehicles ?
I can’t speak for the VW FWD pickups as most of those were used for light duty work and they did work well for the type of useage.
A local pharmacy had several of them back in the 80s that they used for deliveries of prescriptions (light as it gets) but also used them to ferry items such as wheel chairs, oxygen tanks, scooters, cases of various medical supplies, and things of that nature.
I have seen some of the Subaru Brats used for heavy duty chores; or heavy duty for the vehicle type. Some were used for maintenance running on oil leases with that tiny bed loaded down with 4 foot long pipe wrenches, multiple 5 gallon cans of lubricants, boxes of tools, and so on.
The chassis and CV joints held up pretty well and these things took a beating. What usually did them in was manual transmission and/or clutch issues but considering the environment and flogging that was handed to them they worked well; all things considered.
Granted, the Brat was on-demand 4WD so they were generally running a mix of FWD or 4WD.
There is absolutely no advantage to fwd in a truck and the idea they are better in snow is just false. Fwd is better for starting off on flat ground…that is it. Every ounce of weight you load into a rwd drive truck helps it’s handling and traction. Every once of weight you carry in any front wheel drive vehicle hurts it’s traction, especially on hills. Trucks are made to carry cargo. That is the “definition” of them. There is no advantage to fwd in a truck if you are going to use it as a truck…nada, none, zippo. Using fwd and truck in the same sentence is a contradiction. Fwd in a cargo vehicle is relegated to lighter loads and flat terrain…you literally have to find conditions right for them to rationalize their use. Rwd trucks with the right prep needed for any car can be used anytime, any where and under any conditions. Why would you want a fwd truck ??
@dagosa it’s shadowfAx, if you want the system to ping me when you @ me.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I’ve lived the proof. My small pickup receives a full yard of mulch from a bucket every time I go to buy it. I don’t know why I’d pay $70 for a yard of mulch in bags when I can pay half that for bulk mulch at my supplier, who again has never complained about loading mulch into a small truck.
If I replaced my small pickup with a utility trailer and an SUV, I’d have an SUV that I don’t want which is larger than my truck, and a trailer taking up room instead of just a small pickup taking up room. That doesn’t make any sense, especially since a 1500 pound tow capacity is 150 pounds less than my pickup is rated for.
Now, I do agree with you that getting a small truck with a macro cab is dumb, which is why I didn’t. I bought the truck as a light duty work vehicle. It doesn’t even have a radio, much less a bunch of dumb creature comforts and luxury touches. We already have 3 nice cars, we didn’t need a nice truck.
As to why small trucks didn’t sell, it’s because of the chicken tax and gas. In retaliation for foreign taxes on imported American chicken, the US government passed a bunch of tariffs, including on small trucks, which meant the import truck market was killed overnight. Domestic small trucks had been neglected for years as companies focused on the hot selling large truck fashion statement market (hey, remember the Blackwood? That’s a large truck, and it’s stupid). As a result, you had Ford Rangers with about the same operating costs (gas, etc) as their full sized cousins, so people naturally got the bigger trucks.
If you look in other countries, small trucks sell just fine. Hell, I thought of you yesterday when I read this article ( http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/the-tiny-ram-700-pickup-truck-can-carry-more-than-half-1652291667/+travis ) about the new small (front wheel drive - which for the record I agree with you is less than ideal for something you’re going to be loading down in the back) truck that Chrysler/Fiat is building for Central and South America, where it will join the similarly sized Chevy Tornado, the VW Amarok, and the Ford Global Ranger/Mazda BT50.
It isn’t an indictment of the utility of small trucks that Americans have a “bigger, faster, more extreme” mentality about nearly everything. I say that’s more an indictment of American values.
@shadowfax
I don’t argue that small trucks are not preferred by a minority of people, but two things are fact. First, they ride like crap in 4wd form which the majority are sold in private sales here…and secondly, they are nearly impossible to get them as safe handling with 4wd. I had six of these small trucks, three in 2wd and three in 4wd and they just couldn’t match the comfort or convenience of larger trucks. They have been neglected for one reason only THEY DON’t SELL. Now, you may think there is some big market out there because you can do what you do with one but few think the same way. Other countries have them because they have more narrow roads and lower safety standards and higher fuel prices and rwd economy is tougher to accommodate.In other countries they pull trailers with Civics too but you don’t see the USA following suit ! Most people use their trucks for many things, commuting, camping and toy management. Plus…the average American is getting obese. That has a lot to do with cabin comfort. Try fitting a couple of lardos in a tiny truck standard cab and you can see why the average American won’t buy them. Too many negatives.
Btw, these little fwd trucks are not built for snow country’s they are built for third world light load work where economy of operation and cheap sales of unibody makes them more affordable. Like fwd cars, they are not ideal to use, but cheap to make. They are making them because the major players like the uSA are not buying little rwd trucks and keeping the market profitable and supporting their continued construction. They are making them as one offs from fwd cars they already have.
It has less to do with the bigger faster mentality as it does the practicality of making these things. They are a bygone vehicle whose sales are taken up by compact SUVs, utility trailers and minivans.
Btw…big surprise. Nearly all Americans considered connectivity in the purchase of their new cars. They also consider comfort for their big butts. This all works against the sales of these little, near worthless to most, little cheap trucks. Nothing is “stupid” if it sells.
@dagosa
“they ride like crap in 4wd form which the majority are sold in private sales here”
Clearly, you don’t live in southern California . . . LOL
Here, most of the small trucks . . . Colorado, Ranger, Tacoma, Dakota, etc. . . . are not sold as 4x4
There are an awful lot of Tacomas which have the prerunner package. That is off road tires, suspension lift, etc. But they’re rear wheel drive. Posers, all show, no go
Yeah, most Rangers and S10s were seemingly optioned as little as possible. Now, perhaps the Asian makes went somewhat more upscale…
If one loves plain, easy-to-repair comoact trucks, you can probably still pick up (pun intended) a DOT-surplus Ranger at a reasonable price, and keep it running a LONG time.
@meanjoe75fan
In Los Angeles, it seems that used Rangers actually hold their value pretty well. Not as well as Toyota, but pretty good, considering they were using much older technology, and hadn’t been updated in years
I’m not a pickup guy having only owned three vintage ones (49, 52, 61) but I think I know why a FWD pickup would not sell. It would really suck!!!