by Lori Straus

With so many options out there these days, finding the best pickup truck, whether for work or play, can seem like a daunting task. You may have your favorite brand, but many brands have multiple models, each with advantages and disadvantages, depending on your needs. In this blog post, we’ll summarize a few key lists of the winners of various awards for best trucks. But we know those can be limiting. Did you know that there’s an online list generator for Top 10 and even point you to a list generator that you may not be aware of to help you in your search for the best pickup truck for you.

U.S. news rankings

Media outlet U.S. News has been ranking vehicles since 2009. To achieve its used car rankings, U.S. News gives weighted scores in six categories: critics’ opinions, performance, interior, total cost of ownership, safety, and reliability. They add each score up to a total of 10.

We’ll list the top five full size pickup trucks from its rankings for model years 2016 to 2019:

2019:

1. Ford F-150. Score 8.8
2. Ram 1500. Score 8.7
3. Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Score 8.4
4. GMC Sierra 1500. Score 7.8
5. Nissan Titan. Score 7.7

2018:

1. Ram 1500. Score 8.6
2. Ford F-150. Score 8.3
3. GMC Sierra. Score 8.3
4. Chevrolet Silverado. Score 8.2
5. Nissan Titan. Score 8.1

2017:

1. Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Score 8.7
2. Ford F-150. Score 8.5
3. Ram 1500. Score 8.4
4. Nissan Titan. Score 8.0
5. GMC Sierra 1500. Score 7.9

2016:

1. Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Score 8.9
2. Ram 1500. Score 8.7
3. Ford F-150. Score 8.6
4. GMC Sierra 1500. Score 8.1
5. Toyota Tundra. Score 7.5

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

The IHS is an independent, nonprofit American scientific and educational organization that dedicates itself to reducing deaths, injuries, and property damage from motor vehicle crashes. Supported by the American insurance industry, it achieves its goals through research and evaluation and educate educates consumers, policy makers, and safety professionals. The IHS also releases each year a list of what it considers to be the safest vehicles on the market. We’ve included the safest trucks from 2016 to 2019 here:

2019

• Top Safety Pick: 2019-20 Honda Ridgline Crew cab pickup
• Top Safety Pick+: 2019-20 Ram 1500 Crew cab pickup

2018

• Top Safety Pick: 2018-19 Honda Ridgeline Crew cab pickup

2017

• Top Safety Pick: 2018 Ford F-150 Crew cab pickup and 2018 Ford F-150 Extended cab pickup
• Top Safety Pick+: 2017 Honda Ridgeline Crew cab pickup

2016

• Top Safety Pick: 2016-17 Ford F-150 Crew cab pickup and 2016-17 Ford F-150 Extended cab pickup

Need More Data? Try Kelley Blue Book’s Listicle Maker

This blog post is about finding the best pickup truck, but what does that really mean? Without getting too philosophical on you here, we can probably all agree that it at least means different things to different people. For one car buyer, it could mean a very fuel efficient truck. For another, owner ratings are a priority consideration.

Kelley Blue Book, a highly respected market resource for vehicle value, may have the list you need. Visit their list generator to look up things like the top ten most fuel efficient trucks in 2014 or the top ten trucks with the highest horsepower from 2017. These lists are American based, so keep that in mind if you see any prices. But the lists will give you lots of useful information when deciding what the best pickup truck for you is.