Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2wd Pickups outnumber 4wd pickups about 4:1 down here.

Hope you get to feeling better you ornery bastard!

Great thread. God willing I have 7 1/2 years of work left before retiring at 70. Gotta pay off a new or low mileage vehicle and pay off the house note during that time. Hey, money saved on a 2wd vs 4wd could go towards a motorcycle too.

Time is short.

You goofy 'ol fucqer....

That made me LOL.

I'm still amazed that some folks think 2WD is 99% as effective as 4WD.

Birdwatcher, regardless whether you go with 2 or 4 wheel drive you might want to give some thought to weatherproof, lockable storage / extra carrying capacity when you go truck shopping... IE - standard cab versus extended cab, four door cab and/or lockable rigid bed cover. Besides room for occasional additional passengers, the extra space in bigger cabs is a big asset in keeping stuff dry and out of the heat and cold, not to mention valuables/necessities out of sight and easy access to potential thieves which a lockable bed cover alone would still help accomplish with a standard cab.

As always, YMMV...

Joken, thanks for the advice. Here on the home stretch I still got two itches to scratch; I haven’t owned a truck and I haven’t owned a Harley. If I work it right I can do both over the next few years. I sorta envision handing off the truck to my son after I croak, however long that is. I have been well served by Toyotas over the years, I expect a Toyota truck would still be running.

Chain on each of the drive wheels???

2 WD trucks... just put enough weight over the rear axles...

In MN, I occasionally ran four 70lb bags of sand back there and with snow tires it did pretty darn well....

did the same thing in my Volvo wagon...three 70 lbs/ers....

Well with Mud tires and weight over the rear axle, its still better than trying to do that in a car, even FWD...

tire height helps a lot ...

I have also seen in several 4 WDs I've owned.... put it in low lock, and even with the front hubs not locked in, and mud tires, they will do pretty darn well also..

4WD is best, but its not like the other alternatives won't move at all....

how did the rural world get by before people started buying 4 WD vehicles.... they were available way back in the 40s and 50s....
but not purchased as often, even in snow country...

Nobody ever went anywhere back then. duh You can't get anywhere without 4 wheel drive silly goose. Just think of the country that's been opened up! Soon as it snowed the amount of effective wilderness acres went up by a magnitude of 10 at least.

My Grandad was vehemently anti 4x4 for the longest time. Always said it was nothing but trouble, extra parts waiting to break. He could get a 2wd pickup into anywhere anyone needed to go. But he has tons of stories about McGyvering his way out of stuckholes too.

About 1990 when he went to order a new Ford truck my dad talked him into a 4x4. He hasn’t had a 2wd since. In fact now that his last two trucks have had the shift on the fly knob on the dash he puts it in 4wd about any time he turns into a pasture.

Those front wheels turning make a big difference if you need to get through a long enough stretch that you can’t rely on momentum. Plus you don’t have to have the bed full of sandbags or something to add traction in case you actually need to haul something. A 4x4 with lockers in both ends is a whole other animal as well. My 1979 Bronco has Traclok limited slips front and rear and it’ll go like a billy goat.

That's why I like 4x4 when its muddy, deep snow or just generally knarly, you can creep along at walking pace or less in low range. Easy on the truck easy on the tires and doesn't chew the chit out of the road for the next guy, which will likely be you.

If I knew that I had to work 'till age 70,..I'd spend my nights walking through the ghetto hoping somebody would knock me in the head.

might be pinching a log.

Also steep hills and loose gravel.

For most of my growing up years we didn't have a 4WD in my family. In those days, the roads were maintained much better because there were timber tax $$ and haul fee $$ to maintain those roads. They still didn't plow snow so we'd have to sometimes wait a month or two to get to town after a snow storm. Now there are almost no road maintenance $$. 4WD is pretty near necessary. If you don't own one yourself you have to sponge off of someone who does.

Tom

,...but I spent close to a decade working in a Japanese factory. It's kinda like talking about dog years. One year in a Japanese factory is like seven in an American factory.

I hit 59 and broke out the 401K. I didn't get to spend it, however. The thing they don't tell you about 401K's is,...you have to put everything you draw into another retirement account or the government takes it in taxes.

It turns into the perpetual fuggin' retirement plan that you can never spend.

,...could be worse, I guess. I could be a Millennial.

Put an identical 2wd next to a 4wd for sale and see which one sits longest. 4wd might burn a bit more fuel, but you'll get it back in resale 9 outta 10.

Just the opposite here... 2WD trucks sit on the lot until they die from old age... Dealer once told a year or so ago, that a guy moved up here from TX and wanted to buy a new truck - but the one he had to trade was a 2WD, and the dealer simply wouldn't take it..

I've actually asked a few old timers how they got by with 2WD drive pickups.


Basic answer, "We just didn't get around nearly as easy".


I am quite aware that my grandpas and great uncles had nothing but 2WD pickups when they started out. They also got by with little 2WD tractors. And there might have been 2-3 guys taking 'all day' to feed 100 head of cows.


Could I get by with a 2WD pickup? Sure, most of the time I do now. The rest of the time a guy just wouldn't get as much done and it would be a big pain in the ass getting stuck all the time.

4WD is rather handy and I have less than zero desire to go back to 2WD.


Kinda like indoor plumbing. Sure, I could walk outside and go take a [bleep] in an outhouse but that would be pretty retarded given there is a perfectly good toilet inside the house.

Ya well, you worked for a living, I just sit around and make dumb jokes and sarcastic comments while planning what I’m gonna do on the 180 days each year I don’t gotta be there.

Like now, a whole friggin’ week for Thanksgiving. Three more weeks of not really working then two weeks at Christmas. A week at spring break plus five three-day weekends during the school year. If that ain’t enough we get ten paid sick days each year of which five can roll over. I have 147 sick days I haven’t touched yet, if I can go just four more years I can call in sIck for a whole year

I just took a quick look at CarMax; thirty-six Tacomas for sale in the area, thirty of these are 2wd. Of course 4wd might leave the lot faster but that’s a local snapshot.

Two-door cab 2wd with less than 50,000 miles on the clock goes for about $20,000. Cheapest 2dr they got in 4wd goes for around $28,000. That’s a decent used Harley right there.