I work in construction, I get paid a truck allowance. If I didn't have a truck, I'd be issued a company truck. I'd rather let the company buy me a truck than drive theirs.

I need mine to tow our camper. However, the camper is a lifestyle choice, so a bit of both I guess.

I have a church youth group. So yeah. Not to mention my travel trailer I like to go out in a few times a year. Occasional trips to Home Depot or Lowes.

1994 2500 454CI Suburban.

Pull RV and my other trailers with my diesel 3/4 ton. Plus a toolbox for the stuff I use when I go to the field. Utility trailer for odds and ends, cargo trailer for my giant scale R/C airplanes.

My 1/2 ton 4wd is 99% offroad. In 11 yeas 65k miles with almost all of it offroad/dirt/mud

Self-employed with gear; an SUV suits my work/family life best. I enjoy driving too, so I don't go cheap on cars.

If my Prius could tow a flatbed or a dumper or haul 12 bails of hay, I wouldn't need a truck.  Since it can't, I need a truck.

Hardware runs, trailer pulling, camping.

I believe the answer for me at this moment is no.

I was planning on buying a 4x4 to build for some trails and stuff around here, but the panicdemic gifted me a sports car instead.

One thing that keeps me away from trucks and non crossover SUVs is the cost of ownership. Low fuel milage, higher insurance costs, expensive tires, all add up quick. My daily driver lezbaru can't handle deep deep snow or big ruts/rocks but it gets 40 mpg, $500 for a set of tires that lasts 2-2.5 years, and around $600 a year for insurance (hail is the big cost driver around here). Once you get used to that it is hard to go to $800-1000k tires and 15 mpg.

My decision for a 4x4 truck is much like carrying a weapon, better to have it...

Lots of things I do with my truck can't do in another type of vehicle:
1. haul shit to the dump
2. haul metal targets to the range
3. haul yard waste
4. sit on the tailgate and drink bottled water after place I go to for a 3 mile jog
5. sit on the bed in a lawn chair on the beach with a cooler and not get my feet all sandy
6. haul lumber from Home Depot
7. haul 20 bags of mulch from the same
8. use the truck bed as a work bench
9. back truck in garage and put step ladder in bed so I can climb up and change the light bulb in ceiling of garage
etc
etc

My daily driver is a 2002 Lexus GS300. On the weekends I drive a 2003 Ford Excursion 4x4 diesel. When you're hauling 5 kids and a 10,000 lb. boat, there's nothing else that will do that job.

I bought my first Escalade when I was dating my wife. We didn’t have kids. So did I need the 3 rows? Probably not, but I loved the 6.2 liter v8, the rumble it makes and the overall looks of the vehicle. It also adds high ground clearance for the shitty roads and floods we have here.

I had a Tahoe in college, it was big and safe .
I currently drive a Escalade esv which is suburban length. I have two kids now, the extra space is much appreciated. And could I live with a smaller vehicle? Probably 99% of the time. But on those few occasions I need the capacity of my car. It’s nice to have. (Costco/sams trips, Home Depot/Lowe’s, road trips, etc)

I’ve owned everything from small cars to crew cab trucks and from Jeeps to the Excursion I drive now. I can haul everything I ever put in my trucks and it stays dry. I can hold all the people I have ever needed without taking two vehicles or relying on someone else to drive like when I had a jeep. I can go grocery shopping and don’t have to put stuff in the bed to roll around or decide what large items to leave out of the trip because they won’t fit. I can do all that and have room for a car seat and stroller. Plus I don’t have to have two vehicles for different tasks meaning I don’t buy two sets of plates or pay insurance on a vehicle that’s never driven.

I build and fix shit in peoples high end homes. I need to haul materials and tools. I do not want to hear, smell, or heat/cool(hvac) anything outside of the cab. Otherwise a work van would work for me.

A truck with camper wprks for me for now. I plan on setting up a tool trailer with inspiration from other contractors and Ron Paulk(Smart Bench).

I'd be happy driving a land yacht, e.g. Lincoln Town Car

I stuffed a dead deer into a Prius C.  It smelled.  A truck or SUV with a tow hitch rack will always be used.

Winters and mud season th 4wd gets used regularly on my jeep. Added bonus is the removable top and doors in warmer months. Sure, a truck would be better for hunting season and for hauling firewood but I actually use my jeep and it's 4wd much more than I hunt and haul wood.

So far, I haven't had trouble finding someone willing to split a truckload of 2 of wood and use my chainsaw.

Doesn't matter really want Vs need.  I want a pick up but cant justify the price.

LULZ...

Getting 6-8 tons of fruit out of a sandy, muck filled, blueberry field. Hauling nurse tanks, fertilizer boxes, and Tractors and Harvesters between fields, getting the fresh pack to the buyer or Dock at the exchange, ain't gonna happen with a 1/2 ton or Rice burner.

I suppose I'll opt for a Bass boat hauler, and dump the 3/4 and 1 tons in a bit though.
Still gonna need a 3/4 ton, to haul all of our shit to the Bayou, and haul shit when there.

The better question is, how the hell does one get by without a proper truck?
Ya can't even haul enough firewood to keep a sick Hippie warm in a Prius, and how do you get the Deer home come fall?

Hauling my motorcycle, camping, shooting, fishing, trading car parts, moving furniture....

Why not have a truck?

Although, some think it's just a lifestyle vehicle, but it's my daily driver.
Attached File

Google sedan crush car
Sefan crushed by trackor trailer


That's why you need a larger vehicle

Well, My wife's challenger will not pull our 26 foot camper, so YES!

I don't use 4WD off road, I use it on-road in ice and snow.

Heavy shit don't move itself. When I bought my F-350, it was overkill. But I grew into it. I don't care what others do with their money, but if you need a truck for truck stuff, you need 4WD. I'd rather have 4WD with some mild or street tires and be able to turn the knob for 4WD, than have a 2WD I have to hammer on and hope for the best if things get slick.

That's just me.

When peoenask me if I "Need" something, I always say "What does "Need" have to do with anything?"

Well, I had a 2017 Toyota Tacoma SR5 4x4. I bought it because I got into flying a paramotor. I could have mounted a hitch platform thing and carried my motor that way, but that meant I would have had to stuff everything else into the car I had (a 2013 Chevy Volt), AND potentially drive that vehicle on dirt roads occasionally to get to some of the LZs I frequent. I kicked around the idea of picking up a used SUV and doing the hitch carrier thing. Then I thought to myself, "self, what about a truck? Let's see what used Tacomas are selling for!"

That started me looking at autotrader. Holy shit. For $30,000 the newest I could get was a '16 with 50,000 miles on it. 50k in a year old truck? Shiiiiiit. So I looked at what I could get a NEW one for. About $2500 more. Well, that was the 4x2. A friend (and you fuckers here) talked me into springing the extra $2k for 4x4. I liked that truck, but it had some annoyances. It did what I needed it to. It hauled my paramotor shit just fine. I had a travel trailer and took it as far as Florida and out to Moab. The Taco handled it fine. But a recent 3500 mile road trip (no camper, just the truck) had me annoyed by the driver comfort, and the way the transmission behaved (I'm not one who thinks the transmission 'hunts'. I know exactly what it does and why, but that doesn't mean I LIKE it...) plus the front shocks were pretty much shot with 34k on the clock.

So in October, I traded it on a 2020 Honda Ridgeline RTL-E. DAMN this truck is NICE. It handles well, it feels peppier, the bed is wider, the cab interior is bigger and is nicer in every way. The seat and steering wheel have far more adjustment than I need. It'll do everything I want out of a truck. Hauling my paramotor.. hell, I can break my paramotor down and fit it in the trunk. Oh, yeah, there's a bigass trunk under the rear of the bed. It's big enough I could fit in it and close the lid. Should I ever pick up another camper, I'd never want anything bigger than it could handle anyway. Overall, I'm fuckin' loving' my Ridgeline. I think if more midsize truck buying suburban dwellers were honest about their needs, they'd probably sell much better.

Have an SUV, need a truck

Power Wagon.
Don't use all its off-road capabilities, but its certainly not a pavement queen either.
There's glides screwed into the bed for snowmobile skis, so....

I can only fit 10 foot boards in the expedition

I take it that the OP doesn't have a family, a house that has a yard, goes hunting or fishing. He has never had to buy lumber, pulled a trailer, or gone camping.

OP must live a very boring life.

I need mine, just can't imagine not having one with owning a house.

Need.

We don’t “need” much of anything... we could all live like cavemen... but that’s a shitty existence, and cavemen spent the vast majority of their time just trying to survive and died relatively young.

I live in a world where I can make decisions based on desires rather than base survival.  As it turns out, a truck is a very convenient tool for my lifestyle, because I traverse relatively long distances, carry a lot of shit, occasionally go to difficult to reach places, and sometimes pull a heavy trailer. A truck meets all these criteria.

Stuffing a dead deer in a little electric euro box would be inconvenient, as would trying to make a multi day road trip (maybe ending somewhere far away from paved roads) in a glorified electric golf cart.  Different people have different lifestyles... if the extent of your travels is commuting to work in your town/city, then such vehicles may be the most efficient choice for you. Even so, you may elect to have a different vehicle because you fucking want it, and that’s ok too.

I could live on gruel. It’d taste like shit, but it’d be really cheap and it would provide the nourishment my body requires.  A prime ribeye cooked nice and rare is much better, so that’s what I’ll do... or maybe a chick-fil-a sandwich... it’s nice to make decisions based on what I want, rather than what I need.

these threads are always great. there is at least one time every few years i absolutely couldn't get by with a car. therefore i need a truck. needs to be v8 and 4x4 too.

it all comes down to how you define the word need, and in this case want and need are interchangeable.

4wd and good tires were certainly nice to have coming in to work this morning. No drama, no slipping, no losing the back end around corners or understeering through intersections and running into stop signs like a few people I saw

Truck? I had an F150 4x4 for 3 years. During that time, I only needed 4x4 on maybe once or twice, and used the bed for myself only a couple times for trash/junk. I used the bed more for helping other people

I get by just fine with an Outback now, but I do miss having that bed outside of the cabin for trash. We're adding another family member soon though so I'm gonna need to go even bigger

It really was not obligatory to answer.

You had the right to remain silent