What size will the loading area be?
Do you need a big truck because you’re a “mountain person”? Maybe you live in the country and you just want to get out into the wilderness and drive your 4×4 and haul loads of lumber because a truck is the only way to do it.
Maybe you’re going hunting so you want to bring your RV, or maybe you want to go camping with the family so you need to tow your future Airstream trailer. These are all good reasons to buy a truck, and therefore a loading area. But how big should your truck be? Learn more about bed and cab size so you don’t regret buying a truck.
Load Area Size
Most “truckies” don’t like to see beds like this. You might hear them say, “It’s too short to actually work in.” People will always make fun of you for having a very short truck bed, but when you stop at a gas station, they’ll walk by with a finger or two raised because you’re running low on fuel in your Subaru Baja. Typically, these beds are 3.5 to 5 feet long and are found on the aforementioned Subaru Baja, Ford Explorer Sport Trac, and the new Ford Maverick.
With extra short beds, people think about the length of the bed based on whether they can lie down and sleep in the truck bed. Or they may wonder if their truck bed is long enough to accommodate a slide-in camper or motorcycle.
Short Cargo Area
Short beds are 5 to 6 feet long. They are usually found on mid-size pickup trucks such as the Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Pathfinder, Chevrolet Colorado, Ford Ranger, and Honda Ridgeline. Typically, you will see this bed paired with a full-length “Double Cabin” or “Extra Cabin” (some manufacturers use different terms).
In fact, with a 5-6 foot long bed, you can do quite a lot. You can fit your whole family comfortably in five seats with four full doors, stuffing them with snowboards, outdoor gear, camping gear, a 150-quart cooler, and all the recovery gear you need for off-roading.
Standard Bed
Standard beds are mostly 6 to 6.5 feet long. Most come with a double cabin with a regular size door and another door that is a half door or a “suicide door”.
If you want a shorter wheelbase, you can get a standard size bed with a standard size cab that only has two doors. The wheelbase is the preferred size for many SUVs.
In full size trucks like the F150, Chevy Silverado, Ram 1500, Toyota Tundra, etc., the standard bed always comes with a crew cab, a standard cab or (single cab), or a full size bed. The latter has a very long wheelbase.
Generally, a standard size truck bed is the most practical, since a lot of lumber is sold in 6 foot increments. It looks proportional, and most people are 6 feet tall or shorter. That means if you want to camp with a topper, or if you own a slide-in camper, you can lie down in the back, since most truck beds are that size.
In my experience, if you plan on using it on the weekends but don’t want too much, and you need a truck to drive to work every day, a standard bed is about the right size for a pickup truck. Long Loading Area
Long beds are typically 8 feet long. This is the preferred length for people who need to work in their trucks, and is a good reason why the average length of vehicles continues to increase.
Long beds are ideal for contractors because many of the items they work with are very long. Pipes, copper, 4′ x 8′ plywood, 2′ x 4 lumber, windows, glass, drywall, and more, are necessary to build homes and maintain the communities we live in. Make sure your garage is big enough to park it.
My foreman, who worked in construction as a kid, told me the only real “work trucks” were those with 8 foot beds, 4 wheel drive, Ford F250s, and work cabs on the roof. The frustrating thing is, you can’t get one of these for under $80,000 these days.
How Truck Bed Lengths Are Measured
Truck beds are measured by taking the distance between the inside of the bulkhead (the part closest to your cab) and the inside of your tailgate, which is the portion that opens and closes at the back of your truck.
Some think that this measurement is the outside measurement, but this would vary greatly because of the differences in bodywork between manufacturers.
The width of a truck’s bed is measured by taking the inside of the widest part of your truck bed and measuring the distance between that point and the point directly across to the other side.
Many manufacturers have now thrown a wrench in the dimensions of pickup trucks as you may have already found out through ads and commercials. Heard of the “Multi Pro Tailgate” from GMC? It’s a tailgate that offers 7 different ways to flip it up and use it.
With the tailgate down on the 6 foot bed, it turns into a 7 foot long bed, with a flip up tab to keep your motorcycles from rolling out of the back.
Other manufacturers like Dodge offer two side compartments on their beds that allow you to store long objects or recovery gear. However, the addition of these compartments eats into the interior space of the bed, so you might get a bed that’s actually smaller than you thought!
How to Choose the Right Truck Bed
Choosing the right truck bed is going to be a matter of preference for the consumer at the end of the day.
Do you need to carry a bunch of camping gear? How about some 8 x 4 sheets of plywood? Do you care more about being able to fit people comfortably in the cab of your truck? Or, do you just have one buddy that you take from job site to job site and you really care about having a long slide-in camper?
If you value living room, go with the standard bed, crew cab. This way, you get the benefit of a bed, but you also have plenty of space inside the cabin.
All of the above are questions you’re going to want to answer before you choose what truck you’re going to get. I will also add that it helps to make this decision yourself and not give into peer pressure or what other truck owners think of what a “real truck” is.
Even if it’s just a “Hey honey, can you go pickup some mulch so we can keep these seeds safe?” You’ll want to have a truck so you can drive directly to place that sells bulk landscaping supplies, have them dump 1/2 a yard of mulch in the back, and drive directly home.
There’s no need to have to borrow a neighbor’s truck, deal with hooking up your utility trailer (if you have one), or renting a truck or trailer.
Have a truck also allows you to have a distinct separation between the “clean” and “dirty” parts of your vehicle. Throw the oil that you need to recycle in the back of the bed instead of the trunk of your sedan. You’ll thank me later when that oil spills.