Comment by kube-system
1 day ago
> The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the US. A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run over toddlers without even noticing.
The craziest thing about this criticism is that it is phrased as hyperbole but the reality is that this is seen as a small truck in the US.
The Ford Ranger actually is the best selling pickup truck in Europe for 10 straight years, but doesn’t sell as much in the US. The larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude more in the US.
The best part about the F-150 is that it isn't even toddlers at that point. The most common F-150 variant I see in my area's hood goes up to my shoulder and I'm 2 meters tall.
You often see the very important people driving these working their way through crowded parking lots and places that are primarily foot traffic with a "Wtach out for ME!" driving style.
It's so funny that when people design vehicles that actually have a need to be big - big buses, commercial vans, fire trucks - one of their common features is that visibility is treated as something important, and often these types of vehicles have either a nearly flat, uniform front side, or they try to minimize the engine compartment hump as much as possible and make the windshield huge. But when we talk about cars that are made for the consumer, all sanity goes out the window, we get these near-caricatures that would be hilarious if they weren't real. The craziness can only be somewhat tamed by government restrictions, depending on where you live, but the peak of this design results in huge, elevated flat boxes for engine compartments, mounted as high as possible. It doesn't matter that the driver has a blind spot in every direction, what matters is showing off how HUGE your 18L V32 engine must surely be under that hood, how powerful it must be to draw air through that chrome grille that's half a person's height, and most importantly, how much of an imposing heroic warrior one must be to own that tank.
Yep, the hoods are higher than my wife's head.
My wife: 5'5": https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D
Not to mention the amount of stones they kick up. In AZ if your truck has a suspension lift, you're supposed to have mudflaps. But that law (and many other vehicle laws) is not enforced.
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> The Ford Ranger actually sells better in Europe than it does in the US. And the larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude more.
Do you have any sources for this? I looked online and found a couple of charts, none of them support this claim. The Ford Ranger sales in Europe vs US are similar (who buys more varies by year) but the F series seems to be mostly bought in US
I think they meant it has much larger % share of pickup market in Europe vs US, not necessarily higher absolute number of sales (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2025/02...)
Surely the hilux would be more popular than the ranger, but maybe Toyota just sends those to the developing world and Australia?
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Thank you, that makes sense. But in that case it doesn't do much for the op's argument, which seems to be that Europe _prefers massive cars_. US still has much more of obscenely big cars, and Ford F having less % pickup market share shows that there's much bigger market for these cars, if anything
For the most recent year numbers were published it also had better raw numbers.
Where in Europe is that? Because in southern Europe pickups are very rare, but maybe they're more common in the north.
I'm probably one of the few people in this thread who are actually truck shopping right now
The ranger is a great option for most people but one of my capabilities for the truck is to bring my bike to motorcycle track days. Usually I'd only take a single motorcycle, however track days are more fun with friends. to fit two motorcycles in the back of the Ranger, you need to adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly to fit both on the bed.[0]
that leaves only the bigger 1500 class trucks as options for me, and why I'm going with an F150
[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q
> to fit two motorcycles in the back of the Ranger, you need to adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly to fit both on the bed.
can't you position one bike facing forward and one facing back, so the handlebars don't collide? Either way, going with an absurdly big and dangerous car to avoid _awkwardly positioning_ some cargo is pretty American thing to do
Or, hear me out, just get a trailer which is what I do to tow my motorcycle with a sedan.
It's much easier to load motorcycles pointing forwards, just because you have to get them up a ramp into the bed. In the forward direction, you can use their engine to get up the hill.
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Trailers do exist and there is no good reason to drive a commercial vehicle every day for simple trips. It is also less expensive to use a trailer.
Yes, I’m sure that guy made the comment so he could get advice from HN’s top minds about how he doesn’t actually know what his requirements are.
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This is a great solution. I have a small utility trailer I use to move my dirtbike (and lots of other stuff!) I tow it with a CR-V.
Since I don't need the hauling capacity every day, or even every week, it's great to leave the trailer at home and park in more places.
I'm interested in a trailer, but the space they take up while not being used (which is most of the time) is a big negative.
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So, the normal size truck actually carries the things you want to transport, if you move their handlebars.
You’d pay an extra $7000 because… you don’t like to pack?
Isn't that generally the case, convenience? 20% to 50% extra in price to handle edge cases and unknown unknowns seems pretty cheap. That's like, $100/month to $200/month for a lot of extra flexibility in the US.
As someone unsympathetic to big vehicles in urban areas, and probably most suburban areas, the challenge as always is figuring out how to re-internalize externalized costs.
Or I guess reduce externalized costs. (Additional safety features? Increased road wear tax? Vehicle size class limitations on certain roads or lots?)
Buying secondhand, the F150 is actually cheaper. I neglected to mention this but there’s a lot more used F150s than Rangers on the market
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Don't know why you are down voted. People just assume that you have a place to store a trailer (and truck and motorcycle).
As to your choice of the Ford,as a rural late model (2018) F-150 owner, I'd encourage you to consider something else. A used Tundra V8 or one of the GMC/Chevy's. My mechanic is thumbs down on the Rams longer term.
I've had nothing but stupidity with this F-150 and all I do is personal plowing and a few loads of gravel or dirt each year. Granted, my steep dirt road can be very rough in mud season. But I've now spent about 8K in non-maintenance repairs.
I say this as a past owner of multiple mustangs and rangers - I'm done with Ford.
You usually don't buy a vehicle that doesn't fit on a regular parking space when you don't have place to store a trailer.
Funny how some people go stupid justification after stupid justification for what is just an impractical for anything vanity product.
I’ve done my research pretty thoroughly, I found a 2022 with the 3rd gen 3.5 eco boost, so the cam phasers are fixed. The only thing I have to look out for is the 10R80 10 speed. During the test drive the shifts were smooth and minimal gear hunting so hopefully it’s alright
A lot of commenters saying you "need" a trailer (instead of an F150), but another option would be one bike in the bed and the second bike (if needed) on a hitch-mounted rack. A hitch rack takes less space to store when you're not using it than a full trailer. It would probably be more annoying to load and unload than just putting two bikes in the bed.
Anyway, if you want an F150, get it -- I don't really care.
Get a trailer. Way more flexibility that way and easier loading/unloading.
Similarly I have been thinking about a van so I can sleep in air conditioning between track day sessions and/or races. I also want to be able to bring materials to my workshop. Not sure what I will do, yet.
I prefer small trailers for this but if you don't have the space for a trailer, F150 it is.
You can probably fit a normal sized car and trailer in the space of an F150. Stupid argument. Or, you know, rent a trailer. It's utterly idiotic to carry around the weight and size of the F150 when you don't need the loading space. I hope American gas prices adjust to reality and people start considering efficiency, cause this mentality is not sustainable and hurts everyone on the planet.
This is dumb, I've lost count of how many times I've hauled multiple motorcycles somewhere and you know how I do it? A trailer. It's easier and safer to load and unload, which is why almost everyone else does that as well.
If you want an 'image' purchase just own up to it. Your post hoc justifications don't really hold water.
I have a Ford F-150 (14 gen) and the front is so huge I need to step on the front grill guard to reach anything inside the engine compartment. It is all around an unreasonably sized vehicle. My excuse is that (a) I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around and (b) I work from home so no commute. But for most people who do not work construction this is an insane daily driver.
> I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around
I don’t understand this argument, as they seem incredibly impractical for that. There is very little space for ‘stuff’, there is only the uncovered bed which is relatively small. The bed is also at an awkward height so very impractical to get stuff in or out. Since the bed is open, you always have to take all your ‘stuff’ out, you can’t leave tools in there or anything of value or it will get stolen. If you put a hard cover on. it leaves even less space. And since a large part of the vehicle has no roof you cannot have a roof rack.
You do not see these used by people in construction or other trades here in Europe. They use vans. An (extended) van has an ungodly amount of lockable storage space, easily accessible with side and back doors, with a floor at a reasonable height and if that isn’t enough you with a roof rack you can strap a lot to the roof as well.
I really don’t see how something like an F-150 is more practical for ‘hauling stuff’ than something like a Mercedes Sprinter.
I did look up some numbers (used the most capable configuration I could find for each of the vehicles):
Max bed length for an F-150: 247cm Max cargo space length for a Sprinter: 481cm
Bed/cargo width: F-150: 126cm, Sprinter 178cm Bed/cargo height: F-150: 54cm, Sprinter: 200cm
Max. payload capacity: F-150 : 1106kg, Sprinter 1477kg for the extra-long version, 2447kg for the long version.
Have you ever loaded drywall into a van? It is not fun. A truck bed is sized to load it perfectly. Strapping down lumber is also simpler. Lastly with nothing above the truck bed you can carry much taller things than in a van.
It isn’t the only way but yes a truck is very practical. That’s why they are used so much in the US. The difference between the US and the EU isn’t just arbitrary either. In the US gas (sorry, petrol) is a lot cheaper, roads are bigger, wider, longer, and sometimes you need to tow a large trailer. I tower a 3 ton excavator with my truck to build my home office.
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You can fit a full size dresser in the rear sat compartment in the crew cab models (the most popular model)
My wife walked past an F350 the other day with our toddler, and the hood was above her head.
My wife, that is. She’s 5’10”.
I think the F-150 is the most popular. I know many people don’t care about other’s subjective experiences, but it’s always such a mindfuck to my EU mind when I see trucks of this size.
Like my brain expects the car to finish, but there’s more car. Then it happens again and again in a quick succession. It confuses me, I shake it off. I look at the car again. The bed is empty, there’s one person in it.
Then I think „what’s the point”? And then I remember we grew up in different environments and have different expectations about how things should look like. And I still don’t fully get it.
Almost any large car will fit almost anywhere in the US, so you might as well get the car that serves even your most marginal use cases. Fuel costs are much lower than Europe, and Americans are relatively richer anyway.
From my experience, these trucks make much more sense on a road in the US. European roads are fairly small so these trucks look _even bigger_, whereas in the US everything is massive so the cars fit. Still, having to look _up_ to see the windshield is crazy and I hope it won't be normalized in the EU
They make little sense on any road though.
The f-150 is a bit smaller than its big brothers the f-250 and f-350 dually!
The even smaller Ford Maverick sells twice as many as the Ranger
When I see a Ford car in Geoguessr I always know I'm in USA. Just Americans but these terrible cars.