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.
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.