| ▲ | culi 5 days ago |
| In a sane society "knowing someone with a truck" is all you really need. In a highly individualistic society "having a truck just in case" is the dominant precept |
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| ▲ | NoLinkToMe 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Fully agreed. Although to add, I literally never met someone with a truck, and in fact never owned a car myself either, but rented a car and also ranted a van plenty of times during a move, even with a driver. Same reason I don't own an airplane, I just rent one with a driver if I go on holiday trips. Big caveat: I've always lived in a (capital) city of my country and I have no kids yet. But by and large I think renting for the 3 day a year use-case makes more sense than owning 365 days of the year, even if you have no friends to rely on. |
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| ▲ | SkyPuncher 5 days ago | parent [-] | | If you tow anything, renting is not an option. Rental contracts almost always prohibit towing or restrict it to only 1st party trailers. | | |
| ▲ | mlhpdx 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This. I learned as much when I was clobbered by a distracted teen and my SUV ended up in the shop. I use it a lot for moving people, things and towing (like daily). Nobody would rent me a SUV and allow me to tow with it, only commercial truck rentals at ridiculous rates. And for the truck driver haters three things: - Are you speaking from experience or projection? Stereotyping doesn’t work. After owning a large SUV for 25 years I can say with conviction that the price is worth the utility to me. No question.
- I would LOVE to also own a small electric scooter for small trips. The cost and poor quality have put me off for years but it’s inevitable I’ll end up with one soon.
- Our next sedan will be electric as well, and probably weigh more than the SUV. Truck owners aren’t idiots or evil. | |
| ▲ | NoLinkToMe 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Eh perhaps if you rent a recreational vehicle from a company that caters these cars 90% to tourists . I've rented plenty of cars for towing, even with the trailer, from the same company. There are lots of companies that specialize in renting out vehicles for moving, construction etc. There is a market for everything. | | |
| ▲ | SkyPuncher 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Those companies likely exist, but they don’t exist in my area. The only thing that I can rent to tow with is a box truck. Needless to say, those aren’t really fit your whole family in type of vehicles. | | |
| ▲ | NoLinkToMe 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm curious what the population size is of the place you live (order of magnitude). I fully appreciate not every place in the world has such companies with rental offerings. If you own a boat, jetski or horse trailer etc, and live in a small metropolitan area with few rental offerings, those I think owning a car makes sense. And if it's a large enough boat (so not a jetski, which a regular car can tow), a medium/big SUV or truck is the most sensible choice. Meanwhile only about 10% of the US population lives in a metropolitan area of less than 100k people. About 65% lives in an area with >1m people for example, where I'd be quite surprised you can't find regular rentals to tow things, my city has plenty and it's <1m people. And only about 10% of households own boats, and only a fraction of those are stored on-land, and a fraction of those are larger boats that require a sizeable car (SUV/truck). Meanwhile 80% of cars are either trucks, vans or SUVs. So statistically the vast majority of people that own SUVs/trucks, do not own a boat or something equivalent that needs an SUV/truck to tow, or who live in a place where there are rentals that allow you to tow whatever you want if the car is rated for it. And even then you get to the point where the question is still whether you need to own one, or know someone with one. So I think the point stands: most truck/SUV owners don't own because of their use-case, but because of other reasons (mostly personal style / branding / feeling). Yes of course non-ownership of an SUV/Truck is not an option for 100% of SUV/Truck owners given their use-cases. But the vast majority of SUV/Truck owners statistically don't own something that needs an SUV/Truck to tow, or live in a place where you can find rental alternatives. | | |
| ▲ | SkyPuncher 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I've done this research in 4 different large metropolitan areas, including Chicago. There are a handful a major problems: 1. They don't guarantee a specific make, model, or configuration. They guarantee a hitch receiver, but they don't guarantee minimum payload capacity, brake controllers, tow mirrors, axle ratio (important for towing), or engine configuration (also critical for towing). This alone is pretty much a breaker. Again, a truck isn't any use if it cannot legally tow your configuration. 1b. Rental trucks are almost always lowest trim levels. They're not going to have a tonneau cover, advanced safety features, or creature comforts of the truck you own/lease. 1c. They do not guarantee fuel capacities or offer extended range tanks. This can be a major problem when you're towing in the middle of nowhere or in mountainous areas. 2. They do not guarantee they will have inventory available when you need it. Everyone wants to go camping and move during major holiday weekends, so it's neigh impossible to actually rent one during peak times. This argument holds against any sort of "just rent from a niche provider". Renting doesn't work if somebody else is renting the vehicle you need during the time you need it. 3. It's wildly inconvenient to actually rent a truck. For example, Enterprise does offer truck rentals - but they come from truck-centric rental locations, geared towards business and commercial use. They basically only operate during standard business hours. That means getting a rental truck requires taking time off. Some companies offer fleet rentals that basically solve all of the issues above - except these are really more like leasing programs. You can get a month-to-month rental, but prices are pretty absurd. Not to mention, you still have a truck sitting in your driveway for the part of the month you're not traveling. | | |
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| ▲ | amelius 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In most places in the 1st world you can rent a truck if you need one * For other times, use a car. * a truck is just a car that misses a roof over the back part of it |
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| ▲ | bArray 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > * a truck is just a car that misses a roof over the back part of it Respectfully, a truck is not just a car missing the back part of it. It often has a lot more power, is lifted, has off-road springs, larger wheels, low and high speed gear box, roll cage for the front cabin, raised air intake - the list goes on. Most people, though, do just need a car with a removable back. | | |
| ▲ | amelius 5 days ago | parent [-] | | In any case, the "truck" from the article doesn't seem to have all that. |
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| ▲ | mullingitover 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I own a truck.* *It’s stored at Home Depot and whenever I need it, I just pay them $19 for the hour or so that I use it. | | |
| ▲ | mckn1ght 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I did this for a while. You’re leaving out some ancillary details: time driving to and from home depot to pick up and drop off the truck, needing a truck and no rentals available, picking up a rental truck and there’s some issue with it, something happens out of your control that requires more time with the truck but you can’t extend the rental… all things i’ve encountered. At some point the number of times i needed to use it picked up (hah) which multiplied these inconveniences enough that it became worth it to just pick up (hah) a used truck. I use it exclusively for hauling work, but that usually entails at least one trip without a load, which may lead people to incorrectly judging me for driving it unnecessarily. |
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| ▲ | 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Ray20 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| >In a sane society "knowing someone with a truck" is all you really need. Yes, yes, we all know. "You'll own nothing and be happy". Fewer and fewer people believe you. |
