Utes as family cars: the pros and cons

3 July 2024 By: Bruce Newton

Utes have come a long way from the rugged work horses they once were, so can they now make good family cars?

Buying a family car used to be simple. Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore? Sedan or wagon?

Not so nowadays. Sure, there are still traditional sedans and wagons on offer but it’s now SUVs that have risen to prominence, along with utes.

Once upon a time, utes were for building sites and farms. But nowadays our driveways, highways and freeways are heavily populated by them.

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It’s perhaps understandable. Utes have become far easier and more civilised to drive, with all the features of other vehicles as well as offering some decent tax incentives for some buyers.

Dual cabs are the most popular ute body shape and clearly a lot of family buyers are considering them as their primary form of transport.

In that role they offer both advantages and disadvantages. Let’s find out what they are.

Buying and running costs

Dual cab – or double cab, or crew cab – utes are the ones with four doors, a bench rear seat and usually a box on the back to stow your stuff.

In the hugely popular one-tonne class dominated by the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux, pricing for a 4x4 dual cab ute starts at or even below $40,000 for Chinese and Indian brands. But you’re looking at $50,000 for a model from the big players and more than $80,000 for the most luxurious versions.

This high initial investment is accompanied by higher running costs than many simpler vehicles such as car-based SUVs.

Most utes are powered by diesel engines, which offer pretty miserly fuel consumption for their size. But that can increase when they are called on to haul big loads.

Diesel engines also emit less CO2 than equivalent sized petrols but emit more of the other toxic gases such as oxides of nitrogen. If you want to opt for petrol, hybrid or EV powered ute, good luck. Few choices exist as yet, although some are coming.

What about servicing costs? Yep, that is also more expensive. For example, a two-wheel drive petrol Nissan X-Trail SUV’s capped price servicing costs $2296 over five services while the Nissan Navara ute is $3305 over the same period.

And those tax advantages we mentioned earlier? Well, you have to be careful because the write-offs really only apply to working vehicles, not ones used primarily in the role of family transporter.

If you want to spend a lot of money – well over $100,000 – then you can consider the locally-converted American jumbo utes that have become suddenly, substantially and controversially popular on Aussie roads. Here we’re talking the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150, RAM 1500 and – soon – the Toyota Tundra.

They have huge and thirsty engines and can tow a lot. Surprisingly, most of them have smaller payloads than the likes of the Ranger and HiLux. When you boil it down, they are really too specialised and expensive to suit most buyers.

However, according to valuation experts RedBook, they have the better resale ratings than the mainstream dual cabs, which align broadly with the better medium and large SUVs on depreciation.

Practicality for a family

A quick glance at a dual cab with its big box on the back for carrying loads and you might conclude it’s the ultimate in family convenience and practicality.

Well, that’s not necessarily true.

No matter which of these dual cab utes you buy, you will get no more than five seats. Other vehicles such as SUVs and people movers can offer five, seven or even eight seats depending on the model.

There’s another seat issue to consider and that is comfort. While the US jumbo utes offer fantastic sprawling space in their rear seats, our mainstream utes typically have limited knee space and an upright backrest. The middle seat is also a pretty darn tight squeeze.

Of course, as seats go up in an SUV or people-mover, so luggage space goes down. Obviously it stays unchanged in the back of a ute. It’s also a great place to throw wet, mucky and sandy stuff you’d prefer to keep out of the cabin, like beach gear. And if you’re into a sport like mountain biking then a ute makes a lot of sense.

One problem with the box is your valuables are often uncovered or only protected by a soft tarp. So if you have a pram to carry with you, it and anything else you put in there is exposed to the elements and at risk of theft.

Only the most expensive luxury dual cabs are fitted standard with a lockable roll-top hard cover, or you can pay extra for an accessory or go to the aftermarket.

Up in the front seats the most expensive dual cabs like the Ford Ranger Platinum, Toyota HiLux Rogue and Mitsubishi Triton GSR look and feel quite plush and modern. They have leather trim, supportive seats and, modern infotainment with smartphone mirroring and dual-zone air conditioning.

But for all the prestige feel, once you get moving, you know you’re still in a working vehicle.

The taller ride height of utes can also mean they're more of a challenge to get into, though in practice, it's more frequently the adults that complain about it than the kids.

Ride quality

Dual cab utes have come a long way in terms of driving quality in recent years, but they are still not the comfortable, quiet places to travel that vehicles designed specifically for on-road use are.

This is because utes are by their technical nature jacks of all trades and masters of none.

The one-tonners we’re mostly focused on here are heavy, high and set up stiffly to cope with huge load variations and noisy thanks to their clattery diesel engines.

Combine that stiff ride with the rear-seat shortcomings already noted and it’s easy to see passengers back there are getting a bit of a raw deal.

Around town, drivers don’t have that much fun either. Sure you sit up high and get a decent view, but because of their size, weight, big turning circle and the way they are set up, dual-cab utes can be unwieldy to drive in places like carparks and school pick-up and drop-off zones.

Aids like power steering, cameras and parking sensors help, but these vehicles are just hard work and occupy lots of real estate.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, dual-cab utes can be skittish to drive on rough and/or greasy bitumen roads because in many models their part-time 4x4 systems are only meant to engage on the dirt.

The exceptions are the Mitsubishi Triton and Ford Ranger, which have more sophisticated 4x4 systems that allow them to drive on bitumen in all-wheel drive.

Watch Alex test drive the 2024 Mitsubishi Triton through City Beach or read the transcript.

Many buy a dual-cab ute for the extra towing capacity, which can be rated at up to 3500kg. Whether you should tow a trailer weighing significantly more than the ute towing it is something you should consider carefully. For heavier trailers, you’ll also have to do your sums on gross vehicle mass (GVM) to make sure you’re not overweight.

Of course, there is also the ability of dual cab utes to confidently get off the beaten track. If it’s a trip onto the beach or to the outback they are a great choice. That’s because their 4x4 systems offer much-needed traction and their diesel engines have better range than petrol engines.

Safety for your family

We’ve left the most important point for last when it comes to choosing a ute as your family transporter. Safety has to be priority number one.

First the good news: nowadays, most mainstream utes have been safety rated by ANCAP and currently have the maximum five-stars, including the Mitsubishi Triton, Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, VW Amarok, Isuzu D-MAX, Mazda BT-50 and GWM Ute. An exception is the Nissan Navara.

Now the bad news; flip to used car safety ratings, an ongoing survey of real-world crashes by the highly respected Monash University Accident Research Centre, and not one qualified for its top 20 Safer Pick listing.

In fact, not one of the 30 ute models listed by MUARC could score the maximum five-star rating.

That’s because MUARC found the big and heavy profile of utes meant they put passengers in smaller vehicles they collide with at greater risk.

Beyond the various star ratings, there are some other key points to note.

If you’ve got young kids, you’ll need to check that the vehicle you’re considering has a top tether hook in the seating position where you plan to install a baby seat. Most utes do have them outboard, but not always in the centre. Some utes can be narrow across the rear seats as well, so a baby seat may make it squeezy for other rear passengers.

There’s also a fundamental safety consideration here relating to the driving. We’ve already mentioned that part-time 4x4 skittishness, but it’s also worth remembering these big and heavy vehicles just aren’t very nimble, which means they don’t respond with the same urgency to steering inputs in emergency situations as many lighter, lower cars.

Of course, most modern utes come equipped with a comprehensive suite of driver assist systems such as autonomous emergency braking that should provide added security.

But not all these systems are tuned equally. Some like the Ranger’s are brilliantly transparent in their support, while others are obviously intrusive, poorly calibrated and backed up by noisy and distracting audible and visual alerts.

The verdict

For most families, passenger cars, people-movers and SUVs make more sense than dual cab utes as day-to-day family transport. You’re buying a lot of versatility but also a lot of compromises if you choose a ute.

If you need to carry big loads, tow, or go seriously off-road then they become much more relevant.

As dressed up and improved as they are these days, utes still really come more into their own on the work site, on the open road and out in the bush.