Vans and minivans do everything trucks and SUVs do, and they do it better. Every time. No exception. SUVs and crossovers are just worse minivans for people who think they’re too cool to drive a minivan.
And those outside of North America largely need not apply. I wish we could just have a robust public transit system here, but apparently, public transit is antithetical to muh freedum or something. Or so they tell me.
And that’s not even getting into the point the post makes, which is that these monstrosities are getting bigger and more dangerous to pedestrians, yet our governments do nothing to stop it.
I would love to buy a kei car but the USA won’t import them. I want a Nissan Sakura - an EV that costs $15,000 new. Nope. The USA has all these rules in place to prevent competition. They say it’s about fuel efficiency or safety, but many foreign cars are more fuel efficient than USA cars, and this is an EV - so it’s vastly more fuel efficient! As for safety, we allow motorcycles, golf carts, and farm tractors on our roads but not kei cars?
It’s not about fuel efficiency or safety. It’s about protectionism. USA auto manufacturers have rigged our market to ensure we have to pay $30,000 or more to buy a new car. They don’t want $10,000 kei cars being sold here because they know they can’t compete.
They’re legal in colorado but with a lot of protectionist add-ons, like the newest model you can import is 25 years old, and you can’t get on the highway with one.
They’re legal in Texas now. I think in November they’ll be 100% legal and soon be able to buy them from a dealer. Since last year you could import them.
Are crossovers that bad? They seem mostly to be sedans with better storage and a little worse gas mileage. The latter of which minivans definitely dont win on.
That just sounds like a worse station wagon. Which, being the owner of a Subaru Outback station wagon, I can confirm.
Wouldn’t a station wagon have even worse gas mileage?
Worse station wagon is exactly what a crossover is
What about moving a mattress? Can’t fit that in a minivan, and that comes up all the damn time.
There are valid complaints in here, but most of it is nonsense. Trucks and SUVs are the only choice? What do you even mean by that? It’s way easier to get a regular car.
I live in Texas. I only know one person with a truck, and it’s used constantly. There’s something in the flatbed that wouldn’t fit in a van at least once or twice a month, I’d say.
You can fit at least a twin, probably a full size inside most minivans (I did have to take one out of a grand caravan recently), and a queen or king would go on the roof fine if you spec one with crossbars. Most minivans also have reasonable towing capacity, so renting a U-Haul utility or cargo trailer is less than the difference in one monthly payment between a van and a bigger truck or SUV. I’ve put thousands of miles on my 2nd gen highlander hybrid just towing either my utility trailer (5x8) or a U-Haul cargo (4x6, 5x8, and 6x12), moved twice, helped friends and family move, done dump runs etc… I’ve only rented a moving truck once, for my first move, and that was only due to limited time for a full apartment move.
The Highlander is an SUV and is thus unsafe to pedestrians and worse than a minivan according to this post.
I mean, it’s a hybrid vehicle that seats 7 people that is smaller in length and width than a new sienna, the same weight and the same towing capacity. It might be an inch or 2 taller than the sienna overall because I needed to add a 1.5" lift when I replaced my suspension at 195000 miles to give me the ground clearance to clear the rocks where I go camping when it’s fully loaded, but I still manage to get the 28mpg it was rated for 13 years ago. My previous 2006 highlander hybrid had almost 170K on it when I upgraded to the 2012. Hate on a Tahoe or Expedition or Wagoneer all you want because they are fucking absurd vehicles, but I bought literally the only used AWD, hybrid people mover/working vehicle I could buy, and when my 2006 hihy came out it was the only option at all 15 years before the Sienna went hybrid.
I’ve moved many a mattress in my parent’s minivan. With the seats folded down or removed and a bit of an angle and/or squishing in a bit you can usually fit a queen, maybe even a king depending on the mattress and van. Box springs are harder, but often still doable, and in a pinch can be easily strapped to a roof rack.
They also have a '93 ranger with the 7ft bed, still chose to use the van for mattresses as often as not, to need to strap anything down or cover them if there’s rain in the forecast.
I did a road trip with my wife a few years back and borrowed their Sedona, took out the back seats, threw a “queen” sized air mattress (I’m pretty sure it was a little undersized from a real mattress, but still pretty close) and the mattress was a little squished on the sides but otherwise fit pretty comfortably in the back, we slept in the van for about a week moving between different campsites.
Know what mattresses don’t fit comfortably in? The 5.5ft beds a lot of pickup trucks have these days.
Fair enough. But short beds notwithstanding, removing seats or using a roof rack hardly qualify as “doing everything trucks do and doing it better”.
I’d still rather use the truck. The original post is silly.
I mean, it probably takes about as long for me to remove the seats from the van as it does for me to find a broom and sweep out the truck bed to make sure my mattress doesn’t get dirty because I’ve been using my truck as a truck, so six of one, half dozen of the other.
And truck bed or roof rack I’m anal about securing my loads, so I’m gonna spend a few minutes fucking with ratchet straps either way, box springs are light so unless you’re really short it’s pretty trivial to get them on a roof rack.
Plus you get the benefit of being able to carry more passengers when you need to. Haven’t found a pickup yet that will seat 7 or 8 people.
Lol land of the free
The argument is not that some people need trucks.
It is that huge trucks and suvs shouldn’t be the way they are nowadays. They can tow just as much if the hood is redesigned so it has better visibility than an M1 tank, because it’s currently worse. They’re stupid and oversized in the wrong ways.
If you need a real truck, you probably should get a flat front Isuzu FTR or something more functional than a sidewalk princess designed to kill pedestrians.
They changed the rules in my country. You can buy a truck but I’ll be taxed like a personal car instead of light cargo, unless you have a business and it’s a company car. That seriously curbed the eagerness to buy one.
Honestly I don’t mind trucks or SUVs specifically but vehicles are getting way too big on average, I mean the F150 is North America’s best selling vehicle (*edit: I have since learned as of 2024 that spot actually belongs to the RAV4) since forever. It’s a problem of misaligned incentives.
There’s an exception carved out for large vehicles in the EPA guidelines that hold them to less stringent emissions standards which incentivizes building larger vehicles 1
Large cars are also incentivized by our crash safety rating system which only takes into account the mortality rate of those inside the car as apposed to average related fatalities. This means it will prioritize safety of those in the vehicle, which has led to our average fatalities increasing. 2
As an unintended side effect this also damages roads much faster because vehicle weight per axle determines the magnitude of the damage a vehicle does to the road. 3 anecdotally this makes me concerned for the additional weight that electric cars add.
Also as vehicles increase in weight the amount of microplastics put into the air as a by product of tire wear increase. 4
As cars increase in size (and therefore weight) the downsides are exponential.
And also, can’t do a thing about blinding headlights in giant suvs nope not a thing.
We’re pop up headlights a danger? I always wondered why they went away as a style choice
Dangerous, overcomplicated, prone to failure and expensive. The auto industry didn’t fight to save them because customers didn’t really seem to care that much about them.
That makes a ton of sense, huh, today I learned
I’m curious how many folks in the US basically go broke from truck payments and interest rates. I do pretty well working in tech and I still gasp whenever I look at truck prices here. They’re a massive fucking ripoff—even small trucks like the Ranger and Tacoma. I probably walk past folks on the daily that are paying 4-digits every month for a stupid status symbol, while they get paid like shit.
I live on vancouver island and a minivan cannot replace my pickup truck in multiple ways lol
OP thinks their city is the center of the universe, probably American haha. Just because your area is flat and paved doesn’t mean the rest of the world is
Montana here, my 4Runner gets me way deeper into the mountains than a minivan can, and I’m not inclined to limit my recreational activities just because some urban jackass who can ride the bus everywhere doesn’t approve of my vehicle.
Right? Dude, we don’t all live in a city. I’ve got four horses that need to be hauled on a regular basis. Your minivan or van isn’t pulling a gooseneck 4-horse trailer.
Even locally some people give me shit but then suddenly I am their friend when they need to use the truck lol
Does pop-up headlights mean the old kind that mechanically raise when turned on? I was fully unaware of safety concerns and govt regs against them and just assumed they were too costly and overly complex for manufacturers to keep doing. And I still see them in some sporty models.
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Not even close to true. We have a small car (integra) and a giant truck (F250). We use the F250 to tow boats and a camper. Most people look at the tow limit and don’t realize the limiting factor is the payload. We had to trade in our F150 for the F250 because the F150 only had 1500 lbs payload. The camper (6000lbs dry, 7500 lbs max) had a dry tongue weight of 850 lbs and a loaded payload closer to 1000 lbs. Leaving about 500 lbs for people, dogs, and cargo. Doesn’t work. F250 has 3300 lbs payload. Find me a van with 3300 payload and no, don’t look in the manual. Those are all the theoretical max payload. Look at the door sticker. F150 manual says something like 2200 lbs, but door sticker says 1500 lbs. And yes, the F250 is no fun to drive in a city or take shopping. Thats what the Integra is for.
F150 manual says something like 2200 lbs,
That’s for the f-150 each trim and modification lowers it. Want the v8 instead of v6, less payload. Entertainment and speakers, less payload. Captains chairs, less payload.
The manual tells you all of this as well.
Sure, but that doesn’t give you an actual payload number. The only ways I’ve seen to get an actual number is the door sticker or the manufacturer tow calculator. You can get the VIN off of a dealer page and enter it like https://www.ford.com/support/towing-calculator with VIN 1FTFW5LD5SFB04598 and check out the 1340 lbs payload on that F150.
Well that’s because a single item can change the end payload, they can’t tell you the specifics because of the massive variances in personal customizations.
You’re asking them to give you an exact number that doesn’t exist until it’s built and ready for delivery.
I added running boards at the dealership when I bought mine, guess what, less payload and that’s NOT in the sticker. Sound proofing? Less payload. Bed protector, less payload. They just can’t tell you mate.
While I don’t entirely agree with the sentiment of your post. I will sure add my two cents:
I travel for work and have learned the Chrysler Pacifica minivan rental cars are unbeatable machines for loading equipment and driving long distances. The seats fold right down into the floor and I can load it to the ceiling with my Pelican cases. The larger crossover SUVs are just sedans that somebody attached a bike pump to and inflated the metal between the inside and outside of the vehicle. There ain’t shit for space anymore. Also the Pacifica is comfy af.
Also also, you don’t have to lift your heavy shit 4 feet off the ground… Big bonus.
Yeah! Minivans are the best for hauling people or stuff.
