[flagged]
If we could finally ditch the light-duty trucks loophole [1], that would probably help when it comes to the incentives to build certain kinds of vehicle.
[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo...
Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
71–80 of 651 posts
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#72One of the most highly upvoted Reddit posts on /r/fuckcars mocks large pickups compared to the utility of a kei truck. https://reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/sdrgv3/japanese_truck... A kei truck has about 90% the bed length of a pickup while being a lot more nimble. The lower bed is more ergonomic to load and unload too.
Missing the point. Many people buying inefficient oversized pickup trucks don't care that there's smaller and more efficient options out there, but they do it for the status simbol and ego lifting, not to be utilitarian and efficient. I see these monster pick-up trucks more and more in European cities nowadays too, F-150s, Dodge Rams, with some fancy paintjob and big wheels but who's bed hasn't seen any actual use ca…
Huge lifted trucks are just flashy iPhones in another form--jewelry and signals of wealth to others.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#73One of the most highly upvoted Reddit posts on /r/fuckcars mocks large pickups compared to the utility of a kei truck. https://reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/sdrgv3/japanese_truck... A kei truck has about 90% the bed length of a pickup while being a lot more nimble. The lower bed is more ergonomic to load and unload too.
Missing the point. Many people buying inefficient oversized pickup trucks don't care that there's smaller and more efficient options out there, but they do it for the status simbol and ego lifting, not to be utilitarian and efficient. I see these monster pick-up trucks more and more in European cities nowadays too, F-150s, Dodge Rams, with some fancy paintjob and big wheels but who's bed hasn't seen any actual use ca…
Sprinter vans are more practical than modern pickups. You can fit a few sheets of drywall into it, lock up your stuff, and keep everything out of the elements. If you have a windowless van, you have everything out of sight, as well.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#74Kinda ironic that big city dwellers are buying larger and larger trucks every year just to take them on grocery shopping runs while rural farm workers are moving in the opposite direction for actual hauling.
I don’t know how much they’re moving in the opposite direction… my dad was a rural beekeeper for many years and had a series of compact pickups (Toyota pickup, Nissan hardbody, Chevy S10)… and then he changed careers around the time you could no longer buy new compact pickups in NA. I expect that the number of compact pickups in rural areas hasn’t actually been going up in the years since.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#75New minitrucks should be legal here! If you don't need a huge truck, you should be able to buy something smaller.
You do see new minitrucks in certain non-road settings in the US, but yeah, they aren't street legal. Some folks import them for use as UTVs: https://usminitrucksales.com It's the same somewhat bizarre logic that makes it fine to register say, a 1969 VW Beetle in the US, but not a 2004 Mexican Beetle that's no less clean or safe. The older stuff gets grandfathered in because at that age there's hardly anyone willing…
There's a bit of confusion here: there are modern small cars/vans/trucks that are safe (e.g. https://www.euroncap.com/en/press-media/press-releases/euro-...) but efficient and well designed, and then there are new vehicles built for a slightly lower price with safety features like crumple zones entirely absent, commonly sold in Mexico. These are death traps. Many of the Chinese trucks (e.g. Great Wall) were like that too, but they do make safer ones now.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#76I’ve looked into one of these and they’re completely illegal in my state, no way to register them without gaming different dmv stations and getting a clueless dmv rep who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, to register it. This is Oregon. Really unfortunate situation as these fit a lot of use cases that would previously require something as big as a gas guzzling Ford F150 otherwise.
> Really unfortunate situation as these fit a lot of use cases that would previously require something as big as a gas guzzling Ford F150 otherwise.
What about the Ford Maverick? The only issue is that the bed is fairly small, but it looks like these minis have small beds and low towing capacities as well? And Ford makes a hybrid version.
(Don't misunderstand: I'm not arguing against relaxing the rules in Oregon.)
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dead on arrival. Not enough room for the kids and dogs.
People haul kids and dogs in the beds of their trucks?
Many new trucks can fit three car seats. What was once the truck bed is now a smaller truck bed and a second row of seats. Aka a "full size cab".
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#78I've seriously contemplated getting one of these. Street legal, fuel efficient, simple, but when I started researching them I started to see a pattern. It's hard to find anyone in rural areas willing to work on them and not all mini trucks are equal. Some are not shipped correctly and have frame rust issues. There are YouTuber's that cover some of the models and the gotchas and things to inspect. I would never buy on…
I guess if there's a dealer that's something but isn't it getting hard to get any kind of car worked on in rural areas?
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I presume you're not in USA - I can't imagine being allowed to import the Mahindra copy-paste Jeep into USA. Those clones are so blatant... Wish they added some more Indian flair to them. I can't believe jeep still bothered to enter the Indian market with that on the roads!
Jeep's design is close to a century old at this point. Why should it still be legally protected?
They don't even look all that much like Jeeps. Like yeah, some similar design elements, but that's true of pretty much every sedan or crossover or SUV or what have you on the market today.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#80I’ve looked into one of these and they’re completely illegal in my state, no way to register them without gaming different dmv stations and getting a clueless dmv rep who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, to register it. This is Oregon. Really unfortunate situation as these fit a lot of use cases that would previously require something as big as a gas guzzling Ford F150 otherwise.
Why are they illegal?
Someone has to pay to have a vehicle certified (crash tests, emissions, figure out what’s needs modified to meet US regulations, etc). If the vehicle was never sold in the US to begin with, then they can’t be registered until they are 25+ years old. Even then, it’s hard/impossible in some states.
My memory is a bit hazy, but at one point in time an importer company paid the large sums (hundreds of thousands I’m sure) to have a certain GT-R model go through the safety/emission procedures so they could be imported before they were 25 years old. That’s the only case I can think of.