I tell myself I will look seriously at Toyota Tacomas, as they are sensible vehicle for me to buy especially with an off-road package. Small, fuel efficent, easy to drive. It would be a good truck, especially if some day I’m forced out of my apartment and have to commute to work. You know fight traffic, gas up every week, stop lights, getting raped and sexually abused regularly by the cops, etc. 2 miles over the speed limit? Unbuckle your paints, Sir! The things that give every suburbanite a real boner as they take their SUV everywhere, including to the doughnut shop next door. True, I do live in suburbs but I bike or ride to work and to stores. I want to have goats, live in hills and burn my own fucking garbage when I have land. Yes, I don’t mind smell of manure, some horny buck goat, or a little burnt plastic. Growing and butchering beats buying everything in plastic and paying for landfill dumping in endangered species habitats and fake recycling.
Of course, I’ve already made up my mind, and will now do everything in power to reinforce my decision to buy a red F-250 XL regular cab long bed 4×4. Let’s be honest, I like big burly trucks, and I can not lie. And I’ll make up every excuse in the book to support that conclusion. The Toyota Tacomas are said to get really bad gas milage for their size, often in the real world drinking as much fuel as a full-size truck, as nobody feathers the gas peddle or drives on flat roads quite the like EPA does.
And the Tacomas play the EPA game of using a one-and-a-half soda bottles, then turbo-charging and ramming as much fuel and air as possible into those pissy little cylinders to get as much power out of engine while climbing or stomping on gas – all while testing and trashing all the internal components of the engine. It saves fuel in testing, but in reality when people drive, not so much. Then you have the auto-start stop, which repeatly subjects the engine to bearing stress and under lubrication, by shutting off the engine at every stop light and then turning it back over without lubrication when you take your foot of the gas. Hell of it is I don’t like using the foot brake at red lights, I’d much rather use the E-Brake to hold it still as I’m lazy. And then all passenger vehicles now are using OW-20 thin as water motor oil for lubrication, which provides for even more engine wear.
Truth is I really like how old fashioned the technology – relatively speaking for 2026 – in the F-250s with the manual hubs, floor transfer case shifter, relative lack of screens on dash, manual climate controls, and a simple big-block 6.8L pushrod engine that uses and is designed for old fashioned, better lubricating 5W-30 oil. No displacement on demand or cylinder deactivation on old-style big blocks. Just power and none of the woke savings, that probably look good for a bureaucrat in Washington DC trying to reduce emission and fuel economy on a national scale, while fucking over actual drivers as manufacturers comply with the government style. Pumping losses from a big block while coasting, idling losses at traffic light, and friction losses from 5W-30 are real, but on an individual consumer level are so pissy compared to the cost of a risk of non-long lasting block. Should shit break down, every hick town that smells like cow shit has a mechanic that can work on a Ford and get Ford parts, Toyotas while not uncommon locally, aren’t as easy to get repaired in the BFE.
Granted, I am a fucking luddite more concerned about my own self interest then saving my country, but I’m also not spending my hard earned money to save America or the climate. Best way to save climate is to leave your engine off. It’s not like my 5.3L on Big Red with it’s displacement on demand had a lifter fail, but it always was a risk in my mind, even if it was the rotted out frame that meant the end of it’ s life. A few years back, Toyotas also had their rot problems, but the Dana recall fixed that. Older Fords bed rot issues, but not so much recently. Had some lifter tick on ol Red but nothing bad compared to some which lead to often the destruction of cam shaft and engine. I doubt it saved enough fuel over 120,000 miles to be worth the risk even if it was on aggregate good for the nation. I also like how the F-250 XL have manual climate controls, old fashioned buttons and guages, and only a fairly minimal screen in driver’s window. Touch screen radio with Android Carplay, but that’s standard crap in 2025. Makes it easier for listening to Ian Tyson and Dick Curless going down the highway, as I listen to the growl of the destroked-Godzilla.
And the truth is I want an 8-foot bed for lots of room for camping, batteries, and supplies. Big alternator to top off the batteries when the multiple solar panels can’t get enough light in the shade. People told me years ago, get the extended cab, you’ll like all the room, but it just became a place for clutter and crap, taking more time to heat and cool the vehicle and making the truck longer and big then needed compared to just a long bed. Indeed, a long-bed regular cab F-250 is only 4 inches longer bumper to bumper then a 6-foot bed Tacoma as the Tacoma only comes in the quad cab design. Right now I have a lot of electrical stuff under the back set of my truck but if I got a long-bed, I’d mount all that crap in the bed where I much more be likely to use it.
I know I’m just extremely mentally ill for not craving a house in the suburbs with a hybrid SUV to drive to the suburban office building next to the old city garbage dump, grid tied solar panels, a 100 sq foot colored television for learning how awful the Trumpster is and paying for weekly plastics recycling hauling.