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by gknoy 1093 days ago
> The rest I have never seen carrying anything other than groceries or the occasional new TV in the bed. They are entirely unnecessary.

I have an older pickup that my in-laws sold us years ago. It's not in the best shape, and most of the time we use it for typical second-car usage: picking up kids, getting groceries, etc. However, it's been useful _so many times_ in the past five years that the convenience of having it outweighs having some other smaller car and then renting a pickup when necessary.

- holiday travel, packages and luggage fill the back. (I'd prefer a minivan, but we don't have one.) - Some local farmer donates a bunch of stumps for the school garden, we can use the pickup - trash / e-waste delivery to the dump - get / deliver furniture - bring school projects to/from school - buy a bunk bed at IKEA, it's in half a dozen six foot boxes of wood

Most of these are occasions where there's significant disruption if we were to go try to rent a vehicle from Uhaul or Home Depot, which makes it less likely that we actually do these things, or suffer through trying to shoehorn things into a tiny car. Being able to throw things in the back of the truck makes life occasionally a lot more convenient.

With the pickup being mostly useless, but occasionally Extremely Useful, it is not surprising to me that many keep them, and even consider buying higher trim levels to have a nicer+bigger cab, especially as their kids get older and larger. :)

1 comments

Just rent a god damn trailer when you need one. It costs nothing and is available at every gas station (at least where I live).
Having recently rented a trailer, this doesn't mirror my experience at all.

Picking it up took an hour and was a pain in the ass. You still need a vehicle that can haul a trailer, and a compatible hitch. You have to drop it off by a certain time, so now you're rushing. If 3 other people in the area decided to move on that same weekend, you're now screwed because you have no access to equipment.

> You still need a vehicle that can haul a trailer, and a compatible hitch.

Pretty much everything above compact can haul a small trailer, and surely they all use a basic ball hitch?

> Pretty much everything above compact can haul a small trailer

Not according to trailer rental companies. And since it's their trailer, not yours, they get to make the rules - yet another way it's more convenient to own a truck.

> and surely they all use a basic ball hitch?

I had to go buy one, and there were three different main sizes of ball hitch, so there doesn't appear to be a single "basic ball hitch."

PS, I don't own a truck, but this experience - and many similar days where I ended up renting a van or similar - have led me to eye the Maverick.

> Not according to trailer rental companies. And since it's their trailer, not yours, they get to make the rules - yet another way it's more convenient to own a truck.

> I had to go buy one, and there were three different main sizes of ball hitch, so there doesn't appear to be a single "basic ball hitch."

Damn the US are silly as fuck. The wiki confirms that the US has 4 size of hitch balls (1 7/8, 2, 2 5/16, 3).

In europe there’s only the ISO (50mm) hitch ball. Above that you might get drawbars and pintles, but they tend to be more specialised and for heavier applications than a basic trailer or camper.

But surely you can get a class II or class III receiver tube, and then have a set of tow balls you can swap in based on trailer requirements?

In the US most places are less concerned about the hitch and more about the vehicle itself. Even if the identical car is sold in Europe and rated to tow something hefty, it's probably not rated as such in the US and you'll have a hard time getting someone to rent you a trailer.

Part of the problem is that there are generally more restrictive speed limits on RVs and cars with trailers in Europe (and those limits are generally more stringently enforced). e.g. Spain sets a limit of 90 kph for a car with a trailer while South Dakota sets the limit at 130 kph.

Indeed you can even get a single, uh, shaft, that has a ball on each side and pull it out and rotate it to select which one to use. Maybe not for a 3” hitch.