@hooberly -Welcome to the SDMB- Taking into consideration the ease of getting in and out is very smart on your part.
I’m a tall guy, long legs in my mid-sixties. I drive a 4Runner. It’s easy for me to get in and out of.
My Wife drives a Subaru Accent. Much lower to the ground and is hard for me to get in and out of.
Also consider what I call ‘foot wells’. Is there a sill for the door? An area raised about 2 inches from where your feet rest when you are sitting? The 4Runner has none, so my big size 13 feet just slide out.
You could maybe take a look at Japanese Kei trucks? US law allows the importation of any foreign car over 25 years old and Kei is a Japanese designation for vehicles below a certain size/hp to receive special lower taxes. There’s been a micro-trend in the US of importing Kei trucks because the fill in the actual practical, tooling around with a truck on the farm/job site role that has been eliminated from the US market due to CAFE regulations.
There’s all sorts of Kei truck propaganda out there about how they’re superior practically vs oversized American trucks:
One thing to keep in mind is that in recent years, the manufacturers have been shrinking the bed size on “mid-sized” trucks, which are the Tacomas, Rangers, etc.
Today’s standard is a 5’ bed and a crew cab, which is different than it used to be (6’ bed, extended cab). Their marketing material is all about off road, towing, and creature comfort, and very little about hauling capacity or convenience.
So you may have some issues finding a relatively modern truck with the bed space it sounds like you’re looking for.
Another option if you have space to park it is to get a vehicle and a small utility trailer. My trailer can hold sheets of plywood, A half load of mulch, etc easily and hooks up to my Jeep in a minute.
If you’re not sure that you need a truck: then you probably don’t need a truck. At least, not often enough to buy instead of renting one or having whatever-it-is delivered.
As someone who has owned and driven both 2wd and 4wd pickups, hatchbacks, wagons, vans, sedans, and SUVs – both real SUVs and fake crossover “suvs”, based on your requirements I would recommend a minivan. It seems to meet all your criteria and with the explosion of crossover “suvs” being purchased by soccer moms who think they need 4wd because their driveways occasionally have autumn leaves scattered on them, vans don’t have the negative “mommobile” image that they did a generation ago. Pickups have poor handling and while the bed is nice (sometimes) the limited cab space, even on full-size pickups is, well, limiting. I also live in western Oregon where it rains 366 days a year so having covered storage in the vehicle is pretty much a requirement. YMMV on this. You can put a canopy on a pickup, of course, but that severely limits your rear and side visibility. Much worse than what a van has. And pickups already have crappy visibility.
Pickups are nice if you’re going to haul long stuff (2x4’s, fence posts, lengths of gutter, and the like) or really dirty stuff (dirt, rock, rotting trash) on a regular basis. Otherwise, a van is about the most versatile vehicle you can get. Get one with rear heat and a/c and it’ll also be one of the more comfortable vehicles you will ever drive – or for me it was, anyway. As @Dewey_Finn (and thorny and others) notes, you can rent a pickup for a day if you only need the utility of one once or twice a year. U-haul offers a full-day pickup rental for $20.
Also, depending on your location a good running, newer, low mileage van will be much cheaper to purchase than an old, high-mileage, beat-up pickup. That’s always nice. Probably cheaper to insure as well – less likely to be stolen.
I’ll discuss all of your great suggestions and advice later this evening (errands to run), but I did want to thank @Shalmanese for the Kei truck suggestion. A brief glance at researching indicates several used Kei trucks (and vans) already located here in the States, so shipping would be minimal.
@PastTense asked about my budget–it’s pretty nebulous at this point, and it may be unrealistic, but not more than $20,000, I’d say.
More and more I’m being persuaded that a truck (for the out-out-out-OUTside chance I may need to haul something) is just not necessary. I mentioned delivery, and I actually have rented a UHaul vehicle for an afternoon just recently.
A bit of a counter, that is ultimately pointless. In the mid-80s my family wanted an extra car that I could use, probably ultimately take to college, and mostly just have around as a little runabout, much like the OP wants.
For the price of a basic sub-compact import we got a Toyota pickup. So we had the truck part for the times we needed it; a function none of our other cars could fill. For the rest of the time it was something just as functional (with much worse gas mileage) than a two seat sub-compact.
The Ford Maverick is really the closest thing available new, now. It pushes the balance to the side of people mover, with mandatory 4-doors, and away from the truck side with a 54 inch bed. The Toyota had an 88 inch bed, I think.
I wish I still had that truck, and unless it was wrecked there’s a reasonable chance it’s still on the road. Last I heard it had gone to West Texas to live at an airport, so rust wouldn’t have been an issue.
Anyway, to the OP, I get what you want, and it doesn’t exist in it’s pure form. About the closest you’ll get is a base model Ford Maverick, which from what I hear is a great car.
Thanks for letting us see your mental gymnastics as you think this through… it’s fun!
Also fun: your willingness to do a very-short-term rental has inspired me. So I’m probably leaving my vintage Buick V8 at home and renting a truck for a potential house project… and I’m renting a Chevy Bolt for a solo cross-country trip coming up!
(The Buick is smooth on a road trip, but at 17 mpg…)
Hey, those leaves get slippery after it rains! Also, don’t forget some of the soccer fields have (Gasp!) gravel parking lots, or worse, if you get there late, you have to park on the…grass! They need their 4WDs!!!
Even though it would have limited utility compared to a large SUV or minivan I’d still like a truck. The open bed comes in handy once in a while, and I wouldn’t be caught dead driving a minivan. A truck makes you feel like a cowboy out on the range, it has the air of independence and represents the spirit of fortitude.
If I could find one in good condition for a reasonable price I’d really like an El Camino.
Well, maybe. To some people it’s going to make you look like a wannabe cowboy who just wants to sit up high and look down on people, and doesn’t mind wasting their gas money and everybody else’s air in order to do so.
I don’t assume that about people driving trucks out here, because a lot of people out here are farmers and some of them actually need a pickup; though nearly all of those will be driving a full 8’ bed version, and often quite an old one. But I certainly don’t assume that they exude an air of independence and fortitude; and I assume they’re definitely not cowboys out on the range, at least unless I happen to notice a license plate from a state where that’s a significant thing. Most of the people who actually have cattle around here are driving horse-drawn buggies or bicycles. Somebody on a bicycle on a cold wet day actually is signalling fortitude, though they’re not particularly trying to.
How useful is an open pickup truck bed, when it leaves your stuff accessible by others and able to be rained on? Even though some people “wouldn’t be caught dead driving a minivan”, they’re very useful vehicles in that they can also carry quite a bit but in an enclosed cab. Or they can transport six passengers, in addition to the driver.
Well sure. But from inside the truck it’s really cool. I am talking about an old used truck too. Real cowboys don’t drive chrome adorned shiny trucks, that’s what the city slickers drive at the Dude Ranch.
Seriously though, all I’m interested in is a basic utility vehicle. I had an old F150 that spent as much time moving stuff around my property as it did on the road. I could fill the bed with mulch at a place just up the road and drive it around the property to spread it. And then run out to pick up some lumber any old time. Wouldn’t want it to be my only car.
I wouldn’t want my only vehicle to be an open bed truck. Or even any truck, van, or SUV to be my only vehicle. But caps are available for most pickups to keep stuff out of the rain.
Now that makes sense; at least if you’re often hauling mulch and lumber. If you’re only doing so a couple of times a year, then unless you can get a farm-vehicle-only-within-x-miles-of-the-farm sort of license and insurance in your state, then it probably doesn’t.
I haven’t seen the Ford Flex mentioned. I never owned one and have ridden in one only a few times but I was amazed at how much room there was. If the seats fold down, you could get a lot of stuff in one. Close to car height. No idea on reliability etc.
I’ve been mulling over the farm truck idea recently. I have a small farm, and pick up a lot of feed and stuff. But the truth is, I can haul as much feed as I need in the back of my Rav4. I get hay once a year, and the hay guy delivers, since I’m just a few miles away. So day to day, I really don’t need a truck. But it’s the plywood I need right now, or to haul an old mattress to the dump, or buy a small freezer from Costco and you have to haul it yourself. I hadn’t really given a thought to just renting a truck when I need one, but that’s really a much more logical solution.
When I was a kid, my parents would strap things like 4x8 sheets of plywood or paneling or mattresses to the roof and drive them home. Usually carefully and with us kids holding down the thing from inside the passenger compartment.
The cost of adding another vehicle without collision is trivial. Trouble is my physical condition is deteriorating and I may never get to do that kind of stuff again. I’ll be better off using the money I’d spend on truck to pay people to do stuff for me.
