If you don’t need a bed maybe a Toyota 4Runner or the even bigger Toyota Sequoia would work. Everything locks inside, no dust, and a roof rack can help haul extra cargo if necessary. My mom has a Sequoia with over 300K miles on it. The thing won’t quit.
I agree with Mulepacker that it’s hard to go wrong with just about any vehicle these days.
The design, machining, and tolerances are so much better than they used to be. Some of us remember the Merle Haggard song Are the Good Times Really Over? One of the lines goes “Wish a Ford and a Chevy would still last ten years like they should.” Well that song came out in 1981 which was if not the low point, very near the low point, of American automobile design and manufacturing. (Those of you who remember the Chrysler K cars will understand.)
That’s when the Japanese got their foothold. Post-WWII Anti-Japanese sentiment had started to fade, the Japanese cars were cheap and once purchased, proved reliable and long lasting, and, as Merle Haggard observed, American cars were lacking,
The media would bemoan the decline in “American workmanship” like it was the workers’ fault that American cars tended to be uninspired and unreliable. That always pissed me off. It wasn’t American workmanship that declined. It was American design and engineering that declined (no doubt assisted by the bean counters who saw more profit in designing a car that needed more frequent replacement). That trope of the decline in American workmanship was proven false when Japanese companies started manufacturing some of their cars here. Those vehicles, assembled by Americans, were just as good as the ones assembled in Japan.
My family is originally from Michigan and it used to not be an issue of buying an American car, it was a matter of which American car you bought. If your neighbor worked for Ford, you bought a Ford. If they worked at the GM plant, you bought a GM.
I agree with every fiber of my being that it's important to buy American goods whenever possible but in a globalized world, the issue is nuanced.
My 18 year old, 1st Gen. Nissan Xterra is still my daily driver and huntin’ rig. I had the transmission rebuilt at 200K miles but it’s still chugging along. (When I bought it, I wanted a 4Runner but couldn’t afford it.)
When I bought my Xterra, my dad gave me a hard time about buying “Jap crap” I told him my Xterra was made by Americans in Tennessee. When I asked him where is Chevy Tahoe was made he had to admit is was made in Mexico. So which is the American car?
So here’s my preference, in order:
Made in America by an American company (Obviously)
Made in America by a foreign company (I value American workers over American CEOs)
. Made abroad by an American company (I value American CEOs over foreign workers)
Made abroad by a foreign company
Not only is this a preference, meaning it will break a tie if the choice is close, but I’m willing to pay more, significantly more, to support American workers.
For those complaining about the decline of America today, I’ll post a link to the Merle Haggard song. So if you want to go back to a better time, you’ll have to go back more than 40 years because Ol’ Merle was complaining about the same thing back then. Enjoy: