Letting something that is 1% of operating hours for a device drive requirements strongly is often a mistake. With some obvious exceptions because e.g. I cannot choose when I am going to engage in maximum braking and defer it to a different vehicle.
I tow stuff about a dozen times a year and live in a city. I drive a Tahoe because not being able to tow when you want to is a pretty big inconvenience even though I’m a single occupant driver 90% of the time and it’s way bigger than I “need”. Turns out it’s quite comfortable and I just like it, even if I wasn’t towing ever.
I went years of renting vehicles just to tow. It sucks in a lot of ways. No one just wakes up and thinks “I’m going to tow some stuff”. You’re doing it for a reason, there’s probably a high amount of labor involved in that reason, trying to do it all in the rental window or find an appropriate vehicle on the day you need it. Is a challenge. I’ve set rental reservations then it rains so I can’t do the work I needed to. Clear skies tomorrow but have to wait a week for another rental to be available. It’s a hassle.
Another thing I struggle with is my towing needs fluctuate a lot. Earlier this year I was doing a construction project and ended up needing to tow stuff practically every day for 6 weeks. If I tried to do that any other way than owning a capable vehicle, it’d have been logistically challenging. Trying to time vehicle rental with trailer and equipment rentals would have dragged the construction project out to easily triple the time just by adding delay, probably much longer. Not to mention the cost of it all. Which the bigger vehicles do cost more, but they are assets even if depreciating. When you rent it’s pure expense. The rent cs own calc can flip quickly.
Here the person was saying "once in the entirety of your ownership". If it's really once in the vehicle's life, then you really should rent something else when you need this.
I understand renting vehicles to move stuff is a PITA. I've used the hardware store's trucks several times and it adds a lot of anxiety to a project (though I've never had a really tough time with availability).
Occasionally I still rent, sometimes I need a bigger truck than I have due to weight.
The comfort part is hard to discount too as is the increased visibility* and the fact that people choose a vehicle as a fashion statement.
* yes I know tall trucks are less safe for pedestrians and near distance visibility is reduced. That’s a low frequency occurrence for me, not a lot of pedestrians where I am, and is not something I even consider during purchase. Visibility in traffic and car centric places is so much better.
if a car advertises that towing is a feature, and that the truck should be dependable in its features (which is literally Ford branding), and then towing only worked.. one time (barring extenuating circumstances) -- it most definitely is a product which failed to deliver.
a lemon, so to speak.
There's not even a single vehicle that I could choose that would meet all of my different use cases for 5 years. It's better to pick something that fits the 95% use case best, and figuring how best to plug the gaps for the other 5% of the time.
