For me, gas prices have finally reached the tipping point.
It is no longer even marginally cost-effective to own my truck.
I love my truck, don’t get me wrong. It has been my goal to own a truck since I got my first car.
My Dad always had a truck. I grew up with a truck in my family. I remember back in Prince George in the early 80’s me and my brother sharing the center seatbelt in a ride into town, with my sister in my mom’s lap. No crew cabs at that time. It was just a ‘78 GM Sierra, with a whole passel o’people. 3 on the column, so I only had to watch my knees when Dad hit 3rd gear.
I learned to drive in that truck. I remember at age 14 barrelling down a dirt range road outside of Edmonton with my Dad in the passenger seat, doing about 70, when I realized the road took a hairpin turn to the left. I slammed on the brakes and made the turn at about 50. I don’t know to this day how I managed to keep us out of the ditch. Dad drove the rest of the way home.
We used the thing for everything - hauling garbage, moving stuff. Camping. We had an old Okanagan camper, that my brother and I rode all the way to Thunder Bay in, looking out of that little front window. That truly was the best way to see the country - no seat belts, we could lie on our backs and read comic books or look out the window or whatever. This was in the days before seatbelt laws were as draconian. Would I do that now? I don’t know. Traffic is 100 times worse now than back then (especially since I live in Metro Vancouver, and I grew up in smaller towns elsewhere), so I think that it is more dangerous not to wear seatbelts. But I digress.
That truck meant a lot to me growing up, and I figured when I had a family of my own, I’d have one too. Not from some status thing (though it probably has a small part of my image of an ideal family), but from usefulness standpoint. The things I knew I wanted to give my kids pretty much required a truck. From hauling camping gear to hauling bikes to moving garbage to the dump, I couldn’t conceive of life without one.
When I got married though, my wife’s family never had a truck. In the early years, her folks played a large role in how we spent our money, because they helped us out a lot. When my wife didn’t support me getting a truck, and her folks didn’t either, and my folks were 2000km away, then I pretty much had to settle. I did manage to get a 4×4 though - another of my passions.
It would be 8 years later that I was starting to think about something else. My wife always knew I wanted a truck, so when I mentioned, at a time when we had the money to get something new, that I was thinking about getting a little commuter car and a beater 4×4 for the weekends, she said to me, “I thought you wanted a truck!”
That was July of 2006. By the end of the month, I had my shiny red Dodge Ram. I picked Dodge because at the time, they were the only of the full-size truck manufacturers who offered the ability for half the cylinders to be shut off on the highway for cruising, for fuel efficiency. And it did save me. I probably got at least 100km more out of a tank than regular trucks.
Since then, I have done everything I envisioned. I have taken it four-wheeling, hauled at least a dozen loads of garbage, helped many people move stuff, pick up stuff. I’ve picked up all kinds of building and renovation materials, IKEA furniture, and lots of stuff that no way would have fit in our minivan. We’ve gone camping with it, loaded the back up with all kids of good stuff and headed off to the hinterlands. I’ve really used it.
But the problem is primarily, I have used it to commute in. My work is 30km away from home, and half of that is through the city. Stop and go, hurry up and wait, idle and burn gas.
When gas was 60 cents a liter, it was no problem. When gas was 80 cents a liter, it started to hurt how much gas was costing. When gas broke a buck a liter, I started asking questions of myself, but I still thought all the benefits I was getting from the truck were worth it. And I enjoyed being able to help people out with my truck so there was a community benefit too.
But now, with gas holding steady over $1.20 and we aren’t even at the May long weekend yet, I have to reconsider. When I am commuting in the truck, I will drop nearly $400 per month in gas. Add to that a $450 lease payment. Add to that my insurance, already pretty much maxed out in terms of ICBC discount, which when subdivided by the month works out to $210 per month. That means, not even including maintenance costs, this truck is costing me $1060 per month to run.
Wow.
Now, compare this to a compact commuter car. I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect half the gas costs - most of them have a 40 liter tank, and my truck’s was 100 liters. I expect I will get a little more km out of a tank in the car (that was true with my old ‘86 Hyundai Excel, my first car) than I did with the truck, so count on 3 fills a month. That’s $150, maybe $200 if I have to do 4 fills. The lease (or financed) monthly cost would be in the neighbourhood of $250. Insurance will probably be less, though I am not counting on that, so say $175 per month. TCO/mo = $625.
That means I will save the family $435/mo from a downgrade. We will still have the van (which I don’t really like to haul stuff in because if things spill, it’s carpet and I can’t just hose it out). I could always get a utility trailer, or if I need a 4×4 a few times a year (really, I have only gotten to 4×4 3 or 4 times a year for the last couple years), I can rent one. The savings will still be significant.
If I wasn’t commuting, I could rationalize keeping it. But given the primary usage, it simply doesn’t make sense anymore. It sucks, because it represents the death of a dream, an ideal. It will also effect my whole social network, who may not have relied on me for my truck, but certainly appreciated when I was there for them with it. Sadly, they did not subsidize my truck (and couldn’t be expected to anyway - its primary use was mine and it only makes sense I should bear the burden for its cost).
Life could change in the future. If I change jobs to something closer to home, it could become affordable again. But for now, it seems like the best decision.
