I was never into trucks, but a cascade of circumstances put me in one. I hate to admit it, but I love that damn thing. I’m always throwing shit in the back, taking more camping trips, more wilderness trips, fishing low pressure spots, hauling trailers of shit, it does everything. The only thing that could come close utility wise would be a minivan, though I’d lose the offroad capability. I don’t love the gas mileage, but I’m looking at a possible ethanol conversion.
All that to say, if you have a truck, use it like a truck.
If you use the truck as a truck, it’s fine. I’ve got a cousin that has a giant truck… to haul his camping trailer that fits him, his wife, and their FIVE kids. The daily driver is a hybrid SUV, again, for five kids.
My wife and I, just the two of us, have a little Ford Fiesta. It’s perfect for us, and honestly we could deal with something smaller if we had the money for it, but the Fiesta was the right price at the right time.
That’s the thing, it’s not the trucks themselves that are the problem. It’s the size of them these days and their perception as a do-it-all vehicle. Theres just no reason the average truck user needs to sit 5 feet off the ground unless they’re hauling something in the ballpark of a 75-foot luxury camper on a regular basis. Not to mention the height of the hood and headlights, the ubiquitous extended cabs which kinda defeat the purpose by shortening the bed (Hauling the family and their stuff is what mini vans and station wagons always were for), those trucks with permanent covered beds parading as SUVs… Regular consumer vehicles and work vehicles alike seemed to get by without those things before the 2010s and not much has changed since then, unless you count the need to compete with the size of what everyone else is driving.
But good luck finding a light duty low-to-normal-rise truck with a full size bed that does just what you need for occasional use without the compromise on efficiency for daily driving if that’s what you so choose. I’m beginning to think that all this marketing around trucks isn’t actually about selling them to people who need trucks to use them as trucks 🤔
Last thing is there aren’t any real incentives to reach better fuel efficiency on truck platforms. It doesn’t cost nearly as much more to develop and manufacture them as customers are willing to pay for them- trucks make up to 90% of profit for a company like Ford. Plus they’re a loophole in US emissions policy. So more thought and funding could be put into making them more efficient, but that’s not what the buyers are buying them for and that’s not what the government is incentivising for, so the industry just goes “meh, just make 'em bigger, add some tech gimmies, and then go heavy on the marketing so we can squeeze more out of the customers this year than we did last year”.
Whew sorry that was a bit of a rant… I just have a permanent bug on my shoulder when it comes to what capitalism has done to transportation in the US.
Doing an ethanol conversion will only get you worse gas mileage btw. Ethanol contains 25% less energy than gasoline by volume, so you need to burn more of it to make the same power.
That’s a big reason while I’m on the fence. There’s a lot of conflicting information regarding actual costs and pollution. If I can determine that overall costs are reduced, even with the lowered gas mileage, and the exhaust pollutants being reduced, then I’ll do it. As it stands, I haven’t seen anything that appears definitive.
Ethanol has been in use in Brazil since the 70s. The fuel is cheaper than gasoline, but you need to burn more of it. The rule of thumb was that the break even point was around 70% the price of gasoline (but that was applicable to the mostly compact car fleet of Brazil - every vehicle would have its own number).
It definitely pollutes significantly less. You also have zero issues with carbonization in the motor as alcohol has a decent detergent action. You should get a bit more life out of your catalytic converter.
You get a few “free” HP if the conversion is done right.
Cold mornings are your enemy. Alcohol takes longer to heat up your engine, so there’s a gasoline reservoir for cold starts that the on-board computer doses until the engine is warm enough to not sputter out.
If your conversion leaves you with a flex motor (any mixture of gas and ethanol), you can switch to E25 in high winter (or eyeball it at the pump for something like 50/50). Helps avoid wasting fuel heating the engine from a cold start when it’s white out.
Ethanol is highly hygroscopic, so components in your gas train that don’t deal well with water can start to rust. This was an issue mostly in the days of leaded gas, but nowadays all gas has some ethanol in it, so you’re probably fine.
So, this is something I’ve also wondered. My main use for a truck is pulling the camper to the mountain, but I’ve heard that putting premium fuel just before your trip will help you, but that does not make sense as premium fuel is less volatile because it’s meant for higher compression rates in more performance tuned engines.
Amen. I grew up in rural Ontario where everyone and their kid has either a pickup truck or a beat up old Cutlass. I yearn to have a pickup because of how awesome they are. Challenge is I live in suburbia. It doesn’t make sense and I can’t justify it. People really need to think critically more about their purchases.
Same here, and the added benefit that you can throw whatever shit on the back without a real care of damaging it, and then just hosing it down. On an SUV or Minivan I would be making sure that everything was clean or carefully covered so not to spill on the carpet and shit.
I was never into trucks, but a cascade of circumstances put me in one. I hate to admit it, but I love that damn thing. I’m always throwing shit in the back, taking more camping trips, more wilderness trips, fishing low pressure spots, hauling trailers of shit, it does everything. The only thing that could come close utility wise would be a minivan, though I’d lose the offroad capability. I don’t love the gas mileage, but I’m looking at a possible ethanol conversion.
All that to say, if you have a truck, use it like a truck.
If you use the truck as a truck, it’s fine. I’ve got a cousin that has a giant truck… to haul his camping trailer that fits him, his wife, and their FIVE kids. The daily driver is a hybrid SUV, again, for five kids.
My wife and I, just the two of us, have a little Ford Fiesta. It’s perfect for us, and honestly we could deal with something smaller if we had the money for it, but the Fiesta was the right price at the right time.
That’s the thing, it’s not the trucks themselves that are the problem. It’s the size of them these days and their perception as a do-it-all vehicle. Theres just no reason the average truck user needs to sit 5 feet off the ground unless they’re hauling something in the ballpark of a 75-foot luxury camper on a regular basis. Not to mention the height of the hood and headlights, the ubiquitous extended cabs which kinda defeat the purpose by shortening the bed (Hauling the family and their stuff is what mini vans and station wagons always were for), those trucks with permanent covered beds parading as SUVs… Regular consumer vehicles and work vehicles alike seemed to get by without those things before the 2010s and not much has changed since then, unless you count the need to compete with the size of what everyone else is driving.
But good luck finding a light duty low-to-normal-rise truck with a full size bed that does just what you need for occasional use without the compromise on efficiency for daily driving if that’s what you so choose. I’m beginning to think that all this marketing around trucks isn’t actually about selling them to people who need trucks to use them as trucks 🤔
Last thing is there aren’t any real incentives to reach better fuel efficiency on truck platforms. It doesn’t cost nearly as much more to develop and manufacture them as customers are willing to pay for them- trucks make up to 90% of profit for a company like Ford. Plus they’re a loophole in US emissions policy. So more thought and funding could be put into making them more efficient, but that’s not what the buyers are buying them for and that’s not what the government is incentivising for, so the industry just goes “meh, just make 'em bigger, add some tech gimmies, and then go heavy on the marketing so we can squeeze more out of the customers this year than we did last year”.
Whew sorry that was a bit of a rant… I just have a permanent bug on my shoulder when it comes to what capitalism has done to transportation in the US.
Doing an ethanol conversion will only get you worse gas mileage btw. Ethanol contains 25% less energy than gasoline by volume, so you need to burn more of it to make the same power.
That’s a big reason while I’m on the fence. There’s a lot of conflicting information regarding actual costs and pollution. If I can determine that overall costs are reduced, even with the lowered gas mileage, and the exhaust pollutants being reduced, then I’ll do it. As it stands, I haven’t seen anything that appears definitive.
Ethanol has been in use in Brazil since the 70s. The fuel is cheaper than gasoline, but you need to burn more of it. The rule of thumb was that the break even point was around 70% the price of gasoline (but that was applicable to the mostly compact car fleet of Brazil - every vehicle would have its own number).
It definitely pollutes significantly less. You also have zero issues with carbonization in the motor as alcohol has a decent detergent action. You should get a bit more life out of your catalytic converter.
You get a few “free” HP if the conversion is done right.
Cold mornings are your enemy. Alcohol takes longer to heat up your engine, so there’s a gasoline reservoir for cold starts that the on-board computer doses until the engine is warm enough to not sputter out.
If your conversion leaves you with a flex motor (any mixture of gas and ethanol), you can switch to E25 in high winter (or eyeball it at the pump for something like 50/50). Helps avoid wasting fuel heating the engine from a cold start when it’s white out.
Ethanol is highly hygroscopic, so components in your gas train that don’t deal well with water can start to rust. This was an issue mostly in the days of leaded gas, but nowadays all gas has some ethanol in it, so you’re probably fine.
So, this is something I’ve also wondered. My main use for a truck is pulling the camper to the mountain, but I’ve heard that putting premium fuel just before your trip will help you, but that does not make sense as premium fuel is less volatile because it’s meant for higher compression rates in more performance tuned engines.
Correct, don’t use premium fuel unless your engine requires it.
Amen. I grew up in rural Ontario where everyone and their kid has either a pickup truck or a beat up old Cutlass. I yearn to have a pickup because of how awesome they are. Challenge is I live in suburbia. It doesn’t make sense and I can’t justify it. People really need to think critically more about their purchases.
Same here, and the added benefit that you can throw whatever shit on the back without a real care of damaging it, and then just hosing it down. On an SUV or Minivan I would be making sure that everything was clean or carefully covered so not to spill on the carpet and shit.