Never thought I would like owning a pickup truck, then I borrowed one for a while, and now I own one. I am not a farmer or construction worker, but my bed is also not clean =). So somewhere in the middle.
1) Get the obvious out of the way: they are big. This is both a negative and a positive, but with an energetic 6 year old, 2 full sized dogs, parents, and gear on a trip, there is enough room in our F-150 to relax and spread out. Negative is the gas mileage of course, mine gets about 20 all around. For commuting I drive an electric to pay back the gas karma tax.
2) Hauling stuff. Sure, you can rent a truck from the local hardware store, but the instant accessibility of loading up and go has appeal and value, at least to me.
3) Camping. I distinguish this from "off-road" because that's a different animal. Camper on the bed or trailer behind, truck is your supplies, bike haul, power, emergency living quarters and with appropriate care in drive lines can go almost anywhere after you unhitch.
4) Surprisingly, ride. This is entirely subjective of course but both the wife and I enjoy the ride quite a bit in the truck. It doesn't HANDLE well in performance situations, but that's not what trucks are for.
5) Also surprisingly, ergonomics. We both love the livability features of the truck. Storage all over, comfy seats, practical control layout, various automation assistance features. In the right trim they are pretty luxury, and we didn't even buy a particularly high end version.
Negative values that exist for some but not me are looks tough, usual male insecurity compensation stuff, it's bigger in the intimidate others sense, etc. There's a vanity identity to being a "salt of the earth" type with a truck, and of course the truck has nothing to do with the person driving it being one of those people, but there are those who believe it does.
My favorite goofy truck thing is people who get super jacked lift kits. Reason given is often ground clearance; rarely does this allow for much - it's the differential that often matters, and even with bigger tires, you're moving that thing maybe an inch or two up. It makes the center of gravity often pretty terrible as trucks don't do well in that regard to start with. I've seen people with massively jacked kits who then have to buy drop-down hitches to be able to haul anything.
Yes, because of the unusual materials etc. Regular shop wouldn't have been able to do if they wanted to (and Tesla is picky about verifying shops). To be clear it was easy to find a certified shop, and the entire experience felt well cared for by Tesla as is their rep. But it was a ton of cost (to him) for what amounted to a fender bender.
As a Tesla owner I found anecdotal evidence of one of the core ideas here: Tesla's just cost more to repair. My wife had some guy back in to the front of our car - she was completely stopped at the time. Parking lot collision and the other guy just wasn't paying attention, "crash" speed was probably < 4MPH. It ended up costing him $13K, although clearly his fault I felt bad for the guy. He managed to crush the instrumentation cluster in the nose and warp the hood and front end (remember, aluminum). Also the redonkulous torque and speed are abound to get some people in trouble, as fun as they are.
1) Get the obvious out of the way: they are big. This is both a negative and a positive, but with an energetic 6 year old, 2 full sized dogs, parents, and gear on a trip, there is enough room in our F-150 to relax and spread out. Negative is the gas mileage of course, mine gets about 20 all around. For commuting I drive an electric to pay back the gas karma tax.
2) Hauling stuff. Sure, you can rent a truck from the local hardware store, but the instant accessibility of loading up and go has appeal and value, at least to me.
3) Camping. I distinguish this from "off-road" because that's a different animal. Camper on the bed or trailer behind, truck is your supplies, bike haul, power, emergency living quarters and with appropriate care in drive lines can go almost anywhere after you unhitch.
4) Surprisingly, ride. This is entirely subjective of course but both the wife and I enjoy the ride quite a bit in the truck. It doesn't HANDLE well in performance situations, but that's not what trucks are for.
5) Also surprisingly, ergonomics. We both love the livability features of the truck. Storage all over, comfy seats, practical control layout, various automation assistance features. In the right trim they are pretty luxury, and we didn't even buy a particularly high end version.
Negative values that exist for some but not me are looks tough, usual male insecurity compensation stuff, it's bigger in the intimidate others sense, etc. There's a vanity identity to being a "salt of the earth" type with a truck, and of course the truck has nothing to do with the person driving it being one of those people, but there are those who believe it does.
My favorite goofy truck thing is people who get super jacked lift kits. Reason given is often ground clearance; rarely does this allow for much - it's the differential that often matters, and even with bigger tires, you're moving that thing maybe an inch or two up. It makes the center of gravity often pretty terrible as trucks don't do well in that regard to start with. I've seen people with massively jacked kits who then have to buy drop-down hitches to be able to haul anything.