Australians are driving bigger, heavier, dirtier cars and it’s alarming both climate and road safety experts.
A decade ago, sedans and hatchbacks were the most popular cars in Australia. Today, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and American-style utes dominate new car sales and advertising.
Saw an ad on Facebook for a ranger the other day, 2 years old 21k km, description read never been off-road, mainly used to go from home to the office. Was selling to upgrade to the new model.
Also I don’t believe these fancier utes are very suitable for actual work, to much precious body work and paint around the bed of the truck. We have some single cab utes at work, and what gets put on the tray I wouldn’t want to be doing on anything I cared about the looks of. Also the height to get to some of the trays is ridiculous.
The bed of mine was factory sprayed with a thick rubber/plastic layer - it’s very hard wearing. Pretty sure I could hit it with the blade of my extra heavy 11kg crowbar and barely leave a scratch and you can buy aerosol cans of the stuff at SuperCheap for 40 bucks. It’s easy to repair.
Single cab isn’t an option, I have kids in the back seats all the time. Also the family complains when our camp bedding gets covered in mud/dust/etc.
The bed of my tray is 900mm off the ground and I prefer that height to anything lower. For example it’s a lot more comfortable to unload load bags of cement or shovel sand/gravel out of the tray when it’s already at waist height. I do need some sort of step (esky/etc) to stand on while roll my motorcycle up with a ramp… but that’s no big deal.
As for being environmentally friendly, that’s what my eBike is for. Pretty much only drive the dual cab when I need to.
All fair points. I don’t follow the whole no one should own one as put forward by a lot of people here. There is just a lot of people don’t need one. Know someone who drives a patrol from one side of Melbourne to the other side everyday as a commute to the office, one person no kids with no equipment , and they have another 4WD so there is no excuse there. My environmentalist mate has a land cruiser as that’s how he can explore our beautiful country, and rides a bike to work.