Where is here? This is just pathetic. You ever load a skid of material/ equipment into a van? It’s do able with the right size fork lift I guess, pain in the ass though when you got two skids worth to load unload. How about when you only have a crane avaliable? How about when you have petrol cans / slip tanks to bring to a job site to fill up your crane/ excavator? You think a guy wants those fumes in his cab? Need a dump box for landscape work? Pull of your bed and put one on. Want to get into tow and recovery, pull of your bed and put a tow lift on. Need a flat deck? Guess what you got it for the price of fun. Need a welding rig? Guess what it’s right there put the welder in the back and gas bottles. What you gona fill the van cab with exaust fumes from the welder and risk leaking oxy/propane/acetylene into your nice and dry van cab? But hey your shit will be dry right?
My guy, no one is saying that pick up trucks are useless. What they are saying is that trucks are too big and too expensive for what the majority of buyers use it for. Many Americans buy their pick up trucks for symbolic cultural status, not pragmatic trades use.
I once spent a summer installing new milking parlors at dairy farms in central PA. The welder, tanks, PPE, and the rest of our tools fit just fine into an old transit van with sliding side doors, rear double doors, a hitch to tow the generator, and a roof rack for large items like pipes and ladders. A box truck was used to deliver material pallets to each worksite.
The company I use for plumbing and HVAC uses vans. The carpet cleaning service I use has their cleaning machine built inside of a van. When I had to transport 50+ computers to refresh satellite office hardware I used a minivan with removable seats.
Could a pick up have done all those jobs? Absolutely. However, we didn’t need a pick up to do all those jobs, and the vehicles we did use were much smaller and less expensive. That is what people in this thread are saying. Most modern pick up trucks are not designed for trade use; today’s midsize pickups are larger than full-size pickups from 20 years ago, and they have the bells and whistles that you’d expect to see in a higher end passenger car, instead of the vinyl/plastic interiors that they used to have ~20 years ago.
EDIT: I just saw that the original person you responded to did say that no one needs a truck. They were probably being hyperbolic, but as there are numerous use cases for pick up trucks I can see where your push back came from.
Where is here? This is just pathetic. You ever load a skid of material/ equipment into a van? It’s do able with the right size fork lift I guess, pain in the ass though when you got two skids worth to load unload. How about when you only have a crane avaliable? How about when you have petrol cans / slip tanks to bring to a job site to fill up your crane/ excavator? You think a guy wants those fumes in his cab? Need a dump box for landscape work? Pull of your bed and put one on. Want to get into tow and recovery, pull of your bed and put a tow lift on. Need a flat deck? Guess what you got it for the price of fun. Need a welding rig? Guess what it’s right there put the welder in the back and gas bottles. What you gona fill the van cab with exaust fumes from the welder and risk leaking oxy/propane/acetylene into your nice and dry van cab? But hey your shit will be dry right?
My guy, no one is saying that pick up trucks are useless. What they are saying is that trucks are too big and too expensive for what the majority of buyers use it for. Many Americans buy their pick up trucks for symbolic cultural status, not pragmatic trades use.
I once spent a summer installing new milking parlors at dairy farms in central PA. The welder, tanks, PPE, and the rest of our tools fit just fine into an old transit van with sliding side doors, rear double doors, a hitch to tow the generator, and a roof rack for large items like pipes and ladders. A box truck was used to deliver material pallets to each worksite.
The company I use for plumbing and HVAC uses vans. The carpet cleaning service I use has their cleaning machine built inside of a van. When I had to transport 50+ computers to refresh satellite office hardware I used a minivan with removable seats.
Could a pick up have done all those jobs? Absolutely. However, we didn’t need a pick up to do all those jobs, and the vehicles we did use were much smaller and less expensive. That is what people in this thread are saying. Most modern pick up trucks are not designed for trade use; today’s midsize pickups are larger than full-size pickups from 20 years ago, and they have the bells and whistles that you’d expect to see in a higher end passenger car, instead of the vinyl/plastic interiors that they used to have ~20 years ago.
EDIT: I just saw that the original person you responded to did say that no one needs a truck. They were probably being hyperbolic, but as there are numerous use cases for pick up trucks I can see where your push back came from.
Usually people needing bigger than a van here get flatbeds rather than US style pickup trucks