Well they are tougher than cars, so I am sure they last longer.

Aren't the pickup trucks sweet?

My guess is that fleets are skewing the results.Delivery outfits and construction companies keep pickups until they drop or there is nothing left to fix.Few fleets run Hyundai Sonata pickups.Trucks are "unloved",whereas cars are status symbols or their owners tire of them quickly.Besides,when they dont redesign trucks to look much different year to year,who would want to replace a truck with one that looks the exact same?

When you're shelling out 50 grand for a truck, and its value cuts in half after 2 years, you might as well keep it til it's worth nothing!!

@Paul,

Actually, I believe with the elimination of smaller pick-ups and the introduction of more illustriously luxurious half tons and heavy duties, cars and trucks may share a similar path.

People had better paying jobs back then...so they got a new vehicles sooner..simple as that folks...back then you didnt even need grade 12,11,10,9... to get a good paying job that you could buy a house,2 cars ect,now most people are broke and working for jack all...with grade 12 and years of post education,university..

As for the trucks being the oldest in the household,
yeah, a couple of reasons... people who buy trucks really love them and alot of people keep their old truck and purchase a new one,I still kept my 03 when I bought my 05 SRT 10 and kept my 03,05 when I bought my 2010 Dodge Ram..I know a Ford/GM/Dodge guy's who use their trucks for work and use the older one till it is worn out,and keep the newer for a family vehicle until the old one is too beat..then they buy a new family truck and use their old one..simple as that...

well duh. trucks are built tough, whether they are chevy, ford, or dodge( noticed that i dont include titan or tundra?). cars are for wussies. people buy trucks for work or to play with. its just like the muscle cars of the '60s and early '70s. nobody cared about the cost of gas then, and some still dont now. everything about a truck is built to better standards than a car ie electrical systems, engines, etc. im about to drop 2 grand for a sound system in my '01 f150. would i be able to do that, say, in a new civic? not without electrical upgrades, but i wont have to do that in my f150 since the amp power is higher..... there are only two things a car does better than a truck. 1: get better gas mileage, and 2: not rollover as much lol.

@Dodge,

Great point! However, if your referring to 1977 as "back then", than according to Census.gov*, the average income in American households has actually risen between 1977 and 2009 by as much as 10%

*Please reference Census.gov

Mileage would be a better indicator. How many familiers have a car and a truck and the truck is no the primary vehicle. Less use, keep it longer s as it is low mileage and in good shape.

@Paul - read the information again... this is *household* vehicle age. You'll see at the bottom of the age chart "Nationwide Personal Transportation". Fleets and commercial owners have nothing to do with this.

jay murch--- the last time i looked, truck prices have gone up at least 100%, if my pay had, i could be driving that new cumins pwd ram

Most fleets do not keep vehicles forever - at least the fleets I've encountered. The city I live in never gets rid of anything, but the big corporations around here usually go on a 3 year cycle. Some companies and government agencies lease vehicles for a 6 month peak summer cycle.

I'd say that people are keeping their pickups longer because of the cost of new trucks, and for most families a p/u is a secondary vehicle. Tougher economic times also contribute to the equation.
I'd love to buy a new truck but we needed a new vehicle to pack around our kids first.

Well maybe you Pickuptrucks.com should include the average income for each vehilce group. Pickup truck drivers are largely blue collar and can not afford to trade as often as the white collar guy does his car. I'm saying on average, I know thier are some wealthier truck drivers.

I guess it's time to buy a new...everything!
My car (beater) is 21 years old, My pickup is 14 and the Suburban my wife drives (which I still think of as NEW) is 6 years old, so it's only approaching average. I know the car is old, if it breaks it's gone, but the pickup is still very nice, and I intend to keep it quite a while. The Suburban will be at least 10 years old before it moves on. So much for the theory that most folks get a new car every 3 years.

I'll say this is true for sure.

In the big STL area, about a third of the pickups I see are from the 90's or even late 80's!

Trucks are very useful to have, so people hold onto them. As mentioned they're built tough so they last longer.

Trucks have heavier everything, at least three times more than a car. You can't have a civic style suspension on a 1/2 ton PU. It may be a blue collar thing about owning a truck over a car or blue collar people are mechanically smarter than your Harvard grad who drives a Lexus on recall. My GMC Sierra is 11 years old and acts new, that is pretty common with Dodge,GM or Ford trucks if they are maintained. It's not uncommon to see 1975 pick ups running fairly well down the road, beat up good but running. You very very rarely see a 1995 honda running anywhere in the midwest.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that trucks and vehicles just last longer today. While many people complain of thin sheet metal, use of more plastics, non greasable joints, and that trucks are now "throw-away" etc.. Trucks are now lasting longer then ever, mainly thanks to far better anti rust coatings and better paint technology. Many people on the coasts and northeast wouldn't keep a car/truck longer then 5-6 years because quite often they would be rusted into a pile of nothing by then. You have 15 year old pickup trucks now that can sometimes look as good as the day they left the factory, often with very little rust.

I imagine it also is affected by where you live. Up here in Canada our winters are corresponding large amounts of road salt destroy vehicles. While they exist for sure, you dont see that many trucks past 15 years of age used daily anyway.

It sucks..

Older pickups have better mileage than newer ones, so people are holding the older ones. Gas prices are at $2.82 / gallon.
I hope automakers sell a cargo version of crossover vehicle like Escape / Equinox. Those vehicles have 30+ MPG and carry lot more cargo.

Already Escape has taken #3 spot overtaking RAM in the Top-10 pickup list.