HEY ... LEAVE ME ALONE ABOUT MY TRUCK ... IT GOES WHERE I GO. BESIDES, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT WHEN YOU CALL MY F250 DIESEL PICK-UP A SUV GAS-HOG.

I'm from the southern states, but have been working just outside of Toronto Canada for a while (on Engineering assignment). About once a month, my wife and I go downtown to an event or to see someone we know. Sorry, but I like to drive my 2003 shiny black truck everywhere I go. To illustrate the size, it's a F250 Four-door Power Stroke Diesel / Super-Duty Crew Cab / Short-Wheel Base and it stands about 7-ft - 6-inches tall. Yeah it's big, but it's fuel efficient and has a very good emissions rating.

In downtown Toronto, most of the parking lot, parking spaces, here are narrower by code than most places you'll find in the states. It appears to me they're about 1-1/2 to 2 feet narrower. If you park your F250 in one of these spaces, you can't open your doors. They are designed for small to mid-size autos only. I'll drive around until I find a pay-parking-lot that has a little bigger parking spaces, there are some, but I have to look around for them. UNDERGROUND PARKING - YOU KIDDING ?? If you want to modify your truck into a convertible ... STOMP ON THE ACCELLERATOR AND GO FOR IT. Most underground parking garages have a height limitation of 6-ft. to 6ft-6" maximum.

I've met a lot of good folks up here in Canada, especially outside the big city, but when I drive downtown, Cosmopolitan people look at my truck as if it just arrived from another planet. They bump into each other, drop their kids and groceries and really stare at me and my truck. Every now and then, I get angry comments or gestures from people whom don't understand why anyone would have the audacity to drive anything bigger than a mini-van downtown. One day when I was downtown, I pulled beside a curb to go into a convenient store to ask directions to somewhere. My wife, two kids and mother-in-law were in the truck at the time. I was kind of in a hurry.

I got out of my truck and stepped up onto the curb, then two ladies, appeared to be in their mid-30's, walked up to me and angrily said, "please turn your gas-hog SUV off to save fuel and prevent pollution!" I was kind in my response ... unlike their body language and tone towards me.

Being an opportunist, I turned to them and said, "well, since you are so nice to hand out suggestions, perhaps you can give me directions to 'such and such place'." They were irritated with my bold approach and request for information, but gave me directions, probably so they could escape. In leaving, I told them "thanks for the directions and besides, it is a Pickup, not a SUV." Also, I said "it is a fuel-efficient low-emissions-vehicle, it's a diesel not a gas-hog. Also I said that I am a contractor and need a big truck to pull around my 5th wheel."

Let me tell you buddy, I got the DEER IN HEADLIGHTS LOOK OUT OF THEM. I don't think they knew the difference between SUV and Pick-up, Gas or Diesel and they sure didn't know what the heck a 5th wheel was. They probably ride the subway and don't even own a vehicle. Oh well ... I might as well have been in Singapore. Being the nice 'outsider' that I am ... I just overlook various cosmopolitan downtowner's comments and gestures, because 'they will never understand.' I just co-exist for now and just smile while they eat their tofu.

I LIKE THIS QUOTE FROM ANOTHER FORD-TRUCKS FORUM POSTING:
And this "man" was he riding a bike? Or was he driving a gas burning, pollution creating machine too? Ask him if the words, Low Emissions Vehicle means anything to him. The 6.0L diesel engine is a LEV certified engine. Of course to little greenies this may not mean anything. Big trucks and SUVs bad! Tofu eating, Birkenstocks wearing idiot, good?
MAN ... DOES THIS EVER REMIND ME OF TORONTO.

Hey, I like some things about Toronto. It's just not a truck friendly city.

Oh well ... so much for a contractor, southern guy trying to mingle with the big city folks in Toronto. Hey, I meet some cool folks up here, but I don't feel like changing to 'fit-in.' It's getting COLD UP HERE NOW, I'm getting itchy feet ... and I think I am going to point my F250 towards the south and return to my kind of reality.

Skigalini

 

Hey Skigalin,

I keep running into you in this forum. Got over the flu now so I hope I can type better. LOL

I don't think this phenomenon is isolated to Toronto. I find the same tofu loving tree huggers in DC, NY, Atlanta, Chicago. Etc… I try to stay out of the cities I find it is to rot with the natural selection process and I don’t want to be caught in the cross fire.

What they don’t seem to understand is that although we drive large vehicles many of us are members of organizations like Ducks unlimited and do more for their precious trees than their bitching. Didn’t those two bitties know that restarting any engine and especially a diesel causes more pollution than running it at idle for a half hour or so. Well I forgot can’t be that educated if they think a pickup is an SUV.

What I find humorous is that I don’t think any of them could survive out in the country. Put them in the woods and they would starve or freeze. So if they like nature so much why do they all live in the city. I don’t think that the pollution is going to harm their apartments that are sucking down natural resources to build and heat.

Well enough for now… before I get on a roll. There are more people who are in tune with nature that drive trucks than there are riding the subway.

Later
Jeff

 

Gotta love the good ol south!

 

I'm in Georgia and if you told someone to 'turn off your truck to save gas and emmissions' you might get punched in the mouth. You should have told them to keep walking before you put a carbon footprint on their azz.

I really like my truck and understand the principal of an efficient engine doesnt waste fuel. I see more crappy clunkers spewing blue smoke all over the place than I do diesels.

 

I have a sticker on my truck that says "My carbon footprint is bigger than yours!"

 

Its great to know that the liberal elite/ Social engineers are not confined solely to these great United States...... Obama in 12'... Go Team! (to Hell)

 

Yeah, the only way he'll get my vote is if we're voting for worst president of all time during the next election.

 

Not many people outside of Toronto like the people in Toronto

 

Is FL still considered part of the South? I get this from time to time b/c I am not a contractor and really have no good reason for owning a big diesel truck. Believe it or not, I sometimes get it from other truck owners.

 

Ha, that's pretty funny...throwing one of their own kind under the bus. But being a resident of SC, I don't really consider Florida a part of the south. Nothing against them, just the way most of the state is, it seems more like a northern or western state to me.

 

I am from central Pennsylvania but stationed in central Louisiana. Attitudes between here and there are the same. If your a guy and your driving anything but a truck, people start askin questions about your sexuality.

 

Yeah, I drive my mom's diesel VW bug every once in a while and if I pull up to a diesel pump there's usually a guy there in a powerstroke or cummins or duramax and I wind up having to explain that my truck is a 250 diesel but I'm driving the bug for whatever reason. I drove it to North Carolina this weekend and this one old man in a gauldy duramax with some ugly stacks that stuck up about 3 feet above the cab start saying stuff about how I needed to get a "real American diesel"!? I quickly replied and told him that he obviously wasn't aware that Duramax is manufactured by Isuzu, which we all know is VERY MUCH a japanese company. I think this thread can be summed up with a great quote from an episode of my favorite show, Seinfeld:
George: "People...!"
Jerry: "They're the worst!"

 

I'd comute back and forth to work in a HEMTT if I had one.

 

HELL YEAH!! I seriously wouldn't mind having a H1. Way better than the curb hopping H2's and H3's. I bet they would be AWESOME if they can come up with a way to throw the new 6.7 in them...and probably efficient and ecofriendly enough for our friends in Toronto and the other liberal urban areas.

 

Hmmm... What would they think of that superduty I saw a week or so ago at truck source diesel? 5ton military axles, dt466 and I believe 54" michelins... Made my stock super duty look like a cissy. When people gripe about my truck I just explain that since I put the tool box in my smart car no longer fits in the bed.