Luxury Car Owners Switching to Pickup Trucks

Originally Posted by Shannow
Originally Posted by meep
To my knowledge this has not changed. Trucks have a mass advantage against smaller vehicles, but have disadvantages in rollover stability, exacerbated by lacking rollover strength. Newer ones seem to be catching up in rollover strength. A 3,000lb sedan going sideways in front of a 5500lb truck at 60 mph has more than enough energy to send the truck sideways into an epic roll. A 35mph accident on city streets will favor the truck in my arm-chair-engineer mind.


They have come a LOOOOOONG way...

My best engineer witnessed a Colorado come off the road at highway speeds, drifted onto the centre grasslands, slid a bit, overcorrected the slide, and the truck got tripped over and rolled. Landed on it's roof, and the lady driver forced the door open and got out.

Saw 4 people get out of a rolled Hilux the other week near work...out the windows due to orientation, but the ute was standing fairly and squarely on it's roof, not collapsed pillars like the old days.

I've seen more regular cars then utes on their roof over the last 35 years, and the modern ones are very good.

Originally Posted by meep
What I'm not sure about is crumple zone management. That sturdy BOF construction needed for doing truck things may not compromise as well as as unibody vehicle.


Again, that's changed...in Oz, the Colorado is a five star safety rated vehicle in the crash testing programme (even the Chinese LDV has stepped up to 5 stars)...the Mustang is 3.5 stars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGdLvMh5OPs&t=140s


The US lagged well behind ROW in this regard. SUV drivers in particular were screaming when in 2008-2009 that the NTHSA updated their regulations which required that cabins not collapse/crush the occupants in the event of a rollover.
 
My Wife was recently rear-ended in our RAM. The collision moved her forward (stopped at a light) almost a full truck length with her brakes engaged! Big time impact, the Volvo that hit her was unrecognizable.

She is slightly injured, and will heal quickly, nothing too serious. But the other driver was hospitalized and weeks later was barely able to make a court appearance.


I am very pleased with the RAM's performance, and I am very glad she had the extra mass around her. If she was in a small car she could easily have been killed!
 
Originally Posted by SteveSRT8
My Wife was recently rear-ended in our RAM. The collision moved her forward (stopped at a light) almost a full truck length with her brakes engaged! Big time impact, the Volvo that hit her was unrecognizable.

She is slightly injured, and will heal quickly, nothing too serious. But the other driver was hospitalized and weeks later was barely able to make a court appearance.


I am very pleased with the RAM's performance, and I am very glad she had the extra mass around her. If she was in a small car she could easily have been killed!

I was rear ended at a stop light by a Dodge Ran driven by a dumb kid talking on phone . My guess he was going 30 mph . My car was a 2016 Honda Accord , totaled , 3 people in my car , nobody injured . The Honda performed perfectly.
Glad your wife was ok , I would never go smaller than a midsize vehicle because of idiot drivers .
 
Originally Posted by tony1679
Originally Posted by PimTac
I think "fixing " other members comments in a quote is done in poor taste and should be discouraged here.
That's an opinion. I'll reserve mine. That's what a forum is. A place of opinions. It was simply my own opinion. If I wanted to do it in poor taste I wouldn't have used strikethrough. Wasn't there something said in this thread about "buttin in"...?
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Your point is made but my mind is set.
 
In contrast, my next car is likely to be 165" long- and that will be the biggest sled in my driveway.
 
Sure, we all judge, make decisions, and so on. Doesn't mean that I want to impose my values on the other person.

Heck, I like redheads. That means I judge them to be more attractive than blonds or brunettes. Doesn't mean I think everyone should date or marry a redhead.

Making judgments isn't a problem. We should engage critical reasoning. (Yes, ironically that's a judgment.) Where we have a problem is imposing my values on you. If I made you all date or marry redheads and drive manual transmission 4 cylinder cars, we've crossed line.

If you want to buy a brodozer, I'm all for you having the freedom to do so.

But I'll still laugh at you when you appear on a TV news piece where you are complaining to the camera about $8/gallon fuel. Especially if all you haul is air and your back-side.

Feel free to laugh at me when I'm working my clutch thousands of times in rush hour stop and go traffic. I can take it.

Originally Posted by exranger06
EVERYONE judges others to some degree. It's human nature. What if someone told you they bought a brand new tri-axle dump truck as a daily driver? And they park it in their driveway and just use it to commute to their office job and they never actually haul anything in it? You can say "It's a free country, it's their money, it's none of my business or anyone else's, blah blah blah" all you want, but you'd be lying to yourself if you didn't think buying a dump truck for that purpose is ridiculous and stupid! And as soon as that thought crosses your mind - you've just judged that person. Some are just more judgmental than others. Just sayin'.
 
Originally Posted by double vanos
...So I'll add this one last reason for driving a truck: you're cruising on the freeway and some idiot crosses the highway into your lane. There's a heck of a crash. Trucks might come out of that luckier than cars. If I've got to face that scenario ( it happens more than you think) I think I want to be in a truck instead of a car.


Front passenger is at risk of serious injury in some pickups.

https://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/most-pickups-need-better-passenger-side-protection

Quote
...The majority of pickups recently put through the passenger-side small overlap front test struggled to maintain their structure, but two trucks — the Ford F-150 and the Nissan Titan — earn a good rating. The F-150 and the Titan join the Ram 1500, whose good rating in the test was released late last year.

The Honda Ridgeline, which earns an acceptable rating in the passenger-side test, is the only pickup so far to qualify for the 2019 TOP SAFETY PICK award, thanks to available good-rated headlights, which the other models all lack, and available superior-rated front crash prevention.

In total, IIHS has rated 11 crew cab pickups in the passenger-side test — four small and seven large. The Toyota Tundra, a large pickup, earns the only poor rating, while five of the trucks rate marginal.

"We commend Ford, Nissan and Ram for providing state-of-the-art crash protection for both drivers and front passengers of their large pickup models," says David Zuby, IIHS chief research officer. "As a group, however, the pickup class still has a lot of work to do."

A small overlap crash occurs when just the front corner of the vehicle strikes another vehicle or an object such as a tree or utility pole. IIHS began rating vehicles for protection in a driver-side small overlap front crash in 2012. In 2017, the Institute launched the passenger-side test to make sure occupants on both sides of the vehicle get equal protection.


Incidentally, When IIHS states that all pickups except the Ridgeline lack "good rated headlights" it is often because of excessive glare to oncoming drivers. In some cases this can be corrected with proper headlight aiming, and in some cases not.
 
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Originally Posted by PimTac
I think "fixing " other members comments in a quote is done in poor taste and should be discouraged here.

I have seen forums where changing quotes resulted in an instant, permanent ban...I would probably be in favor of that.
 
Originally Posted by Jarlaxle
Originally Posted by PimTac
I think "fixing " other members comments in a quote is done in poor taste and should be discouraged here.

I have seen forums where changing quotes resulted in an instant, permanent ban...I would probably be in favor of that.

I don't know if I would go that severe. 1 or 2 warnings before a ban would be good. I do hate when people change quotes.
 
Yeah … and it's easier on the digital world to just copy/paste the two lines you wish to comment on … some of these threads become a dozen pages just over massive regurgitated paragraphs … yet with a minimal response …
 
I always enjoy these threads that turn into a discussion of our personal rights in the U.S.. We are an interesting country. There are certain things that we consider to be unalienable (God given) rights more so than most other countries. Guns, homes, and vehicles fall into this category. Our gun culture -whew!, we cannot have enough guns. Our homes have grown to at least double the size that is actually needed and if there is not a minimum of at least 3 bathrooms it is a travesty. Our car culture is unlike no other on this planet. Our vehicle design is strictly dictated by the availability of inexpensive fuel. After the mid-70's oil embargo, Ford was the first to start downsizing their full-size pickups in an effort to be more efficient. Albeit I'm short, I now need a step ladder to see over the side of the pickup bed.

On the flip side, we are developing some great technology for energy conservation: solar, wind power, bio fuels, super insulated homes, etc.. Our water and air quality has improved dramatically. Recycling of our extreme waste ebbs and flows. At least now the cubic foot of packaging one receives with their McDonalds meal is paper instead of foam. Global climate change seems to be the new, looming disaster on everyone's minds.

But then, there's our car culture. For every step forward we make becoming better, we take two steps back with our car culture. Our vehicles are, again, growing in size. Speed limits are going up. Mass transit and car pooling stumble along. To offset our demand for larger vehicles, the mfg. are now forced to eek out every bit of efficiency by introducing technology like GDI, variable cylinder management, start-stop technology, CVT, tiny turbo charged engines. etc.. We could easily meet our efficiency goals if we were not constantly ramping up our car culture wants.

But, that is the U.S.. We are a country of obsessives. It is who we are. I agree with most others here that I don't care what others drive. It's their life to live as they wish. I own a few guns, live in a very modest home, and drive (mostly) modest vehicles. I'm a baby boomer, the generation blamed for most of our messes. I'm certainly not a tree hugger (in the most popular sense), but I do appreciate what they have given me over the years, LOL. To each his own. We are a peculiar bunch. We demand our cake and to eat it too.
 
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Speed limits are going up.

I haven't seen a single speed limit increase anywhere I've gone since shortly after the national 65 limit was dropped in 1995. Many of the two-lane secondary highways in this area have been dropping from 55 to 45 steadily for years and continue to do so.
 
Your world is pretty small then.

Almost everone out west went to 70 or 75 mph speed limits quickly after the 65 max was lifted on interstates. Many have gone to 80 mph since.

Minnesota just completed a statewide state and us highway speed study, with the bulk of mileage going up.

Plenty of two lane in the western us at 65 mph these days too... All of it was 55 mph back when 65 was the cap...
 
I just can't imagine driving a truck if I didn't need to. I drove various pickups at work for years, and they're slow, horrible on gas, a pain to park, and just generally joyless. The view was nice I guess, but there's more to driving!
 
Originally Posted by antonmnster
I just can't imagine driving a truck if I didn't need to. I drove various pickups at work for years, and they're slow, horrible on gas, a pain to park, and just generally joyless. The view was nice I guess, but there's more to driving!

In my opinion most of your experience of driving a pickup has changed quite a bit, they've improved in fuel economy, these things are improved in the performance department and joy is probably a debatable topic in any situation (except root canals and colonoscopies...those are very rarely joyful),

You hit the nail on the head about parking though...I can't stand parking my truck. And this isn't a case of...well you don't know how to drive a truck, type thing. It's just a pain compared to a car, there's less room, you stick out a bit, you have to avoid some parking spots, etc. That's the only thing I miss.
 
Parking is no fun, and it doesn't help that at work they made the spaces smaller (I don't drive the truck to work often, thankfully).

I usually park out in the back 40 and find a spot to pull through. Once through enough I can spot the lines in the rear view mirror (the spot I'm not parking in) and that helps guide me the last bit of the way--having those convex stick on mirrors helps too.

Backing in might be best solution though, then you can watch the lines. Adding a backup camera hasn't been cheaper or easier--I bought some cheapie setup off Amazon and clipped it over the rearview mirror.
 
Mine is fairly easy to park and the visibility is great … but GM quit making these:

987890BC-3ACB-48FB-8714-6443572CFE2B.jpeg
 
Heh, looks sharp.
thumbsup2.gif


I did sabotage mine a bit, it has a cap on the back, and the windows in that are smoked. But the A and B pillars are awful. There's a couple of left hand turns that I know of where I have to first turn right in order to have visibility to my right.
 
Originally Posted by 4WD
Mine is fairly easy to park and the visibility is great … but GM quit making these:




Unicorn for sure. I haven't seen a regular cab pickup in person in years. They were the norm when I was a kid (80s).
 
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