Maybe I was too search-lazy but lacking SUV-sedan data I found another pair with similar weight delta: fortwo vs. Astra. Road&Track tested the fortwo at a few happy meals short of 2000 lbs and the Astra similarly short of 50% greater mass. The fortwo stopped 60-0 in a reported 130 ft which I contend is passable but wholly unremarkable. With all the extra heft of the Astra it took….120 ft. The 80-0 stopping distance was more exaggerated (yes, the fortwo got past 80mph) at 230 for the smart and 213 for the Astra. You could almost fit a Tahoe in that difference in stopping distance.

For every additional pound of increased vehicle mass there is an equal amount of additional available tractive effort. Vehicle design, chassis construction, tire selection, and suspension tuning dictate how effectively the available tractive effort is utilized for whatever purpose.

While I dislike the H2/H3/Navigator/Escalade frenzy as much as any sane individual I find equally distasteful the proliferation of 30+ year old vehicles with 30″ wheels and 2 ft of ground clearance. It is equally stupid and non-functional but I would defend the right of another to own such an abomination so that I can do whatever it is they think is horrendous.

Personally I drive a full-size pickup V8, 5spd, 4×2 and average 18,000 miles per year at around 18 mpg (actual average, 90% highway). The truck is paid for and I would have to see sustained gas prices above $9/gal to make me go out and purchase a 35mpg vehicle (assuming $400/mo payment) so that I can park my truck. Since I don’t anticipate $9/gal gas anytime soon, I can’t financially justify buying a car solely to save on gas. I will, however, be factoring fuel efficiency into future purchase decisions when it is time to buy, much as I did when purchasing my truck since I went with the small V8/5spd and 4×2 instead of the profligate big V8/auto/4×4s on every truck lot.

That is my take on it after having seen this sort of question asked by many researchers in many ways.

So, in my limited statistical sample of one household, the price being $3.50/gallon is already making an impact on purchasing decisions.

Big SUV’s of today have mostly replaced oversized sedans of yesteryear which had worse handling and brakes to start with. Also, were less efficient even with the same number of passengers.

If you were to decide to legislate against certain types of vehicles on the idea that some are less safe than others then it would be sports cars and motorcycles who get the axe first.

If what you really want is for SUV’s to be outlawed then keep it up, but realize they will be gone long after the sports cars and bikes, so be careful what you ask for.

PS After they come get my favorite toys, I may be disinclined to protect yours. Hope you commies all like boredom.

SUVs don’t handle and brake near as well as cars, I agree. And Camrys don’t brake and handle near as well as a sports car. And both the drivers in their respective cars feel invincible while driving. I’ve nearly been run into by people driving SUVs, sedans, sports cars, compacts, hatchbacks, etc. I think safety equipment is to blame. If you had the chance of having the steering column impale you, you’d drive a heck of a lot safer.

I don’t have the links but I remember seeing studies, which show that drivers of large vehicles tend to drive faster than those in cars (freight trucks excepted). This is due to the diminished sensation of speed in a large vehicle, something I experienced myself. It’s easy to feel confident until the time comes to hit the brakes, at which point the laws of physics are on the Camry driver’s side…

I agree that when you are in a SUV the sense of speed is diminished. It has happened to me when I have had to drive them. The problem isn’t the car – it is the driver.

Physics is never really on your side when you run into something, since most wrecks seem to be caused by people doing other things (eating breakfast, doing makeup, talking on the phone, etc.) besides driving.

That fits my experience. People in monster trucks tearing out of the supermarket whilst jabbering on the cell phone are often a real menace. Often said people are also sipping a Starbucks while late for an important appointment at The Spa.

I don’t have the links but I remember seeing studies, which show that drivers of large vehicles tend to drive faster than those in cars (freight trucks excepted). This is due to the diminished sensation of speed in a large vehicle, something I experienced myself. It’s easy to feel confident until the time comes to hit the brakes, at which point the laws of physics are on the Camry driver’s side…

You’re missing part of the problem. SUVs don’t handle nearly as well as cars. They don’t stop nearly as quickly as cars. Yet, their drivers tend to feel invincible, high up, and surrounded by steel, so they drive even more irresponsibly than they otherwise would if they didn’t feel so safe.

The wording is ‘give up their [full size] SUVs and buy something more sensible’ I don’t like the idea of singling out SUVs as not sensible when there are many other types of vehicles that aren’t sensible. Like I’ve said before, replace SUV with any other vehicle and the argument is the same for some subset of people in the world.

That is not what I said. You seem to have missed the part about the SUV drivers’ delusion that they are driving a normal car.

No, I read that. Someone driving a Camry thinking they are driving a sports car is same argument. There are bad drivers all over who think they are driving something more powerful/better handling/whatever than they really are. I see it everyday – you can’t single out bad drivers in SUVs.

I call bullshit on this. Unless you actually enjoy looking at the back-end of a Navigator, let’s stop pretending that _ALL_ design is purely subjective.

In my opinion, most contemporary large SUV’s are excrescences on wheels and owe their existence more to the sphinkters in marketing than to automotive designers or engineers.

I don’t like the look of the Navigator (or the Excursion and its variant special editions or the Toyota SUV for that matter). I think the Expedition and Explorer look good. But, some people obviously like the look of the Navigator, Escalade, Hummer H2 / H3 (all ugly imo) because I sure see a lot of them. Design is subjective – how some one, or group, decides to accomplish a set of parameters is always subjective (Egg drop contest in school for example).

Different strokes for different folks.

Thinx:“In my opinion, most contemporary large SUV’s are excrescences on wheels and owe their existence more to the sphinkters in marketing than to automotive designers or engineers.”

A current sterling example being the Ford Excursion “Funkmaster Flex” edition, a $52k, red and black, gas-guzzling, rolling urban abomination, the use for which I have no idea other than to show how crass, indifferent, and tasteless one might be.

I call bullshit on this. Unless you actually enjoy looking at the back-end of a Navigator, let’s stop pretending that _ALL_ design is purely subjective.

In my opinion, most contemporary large SUV’s are excrescences on wheels and owe their existence more to the sphinkters in marketing than to automotive designers or engineers.

The sooner they rollover and die, the better.
(intentional spelling error to get around the filter)

lth said:
Replace SUV with sedan and normal-sized car with sports car or motorcycle or bicyclist and it is the same argument. Just because they drive something bigger than you doesn’t mean it is any worse or better.

That is not what I said. You seem to have missed the part about the SUV drivers’ delusion that they are driving a normal car.

I see you missed a subtle point here – I don’t think SUV’s are being singled out for gas-guzzling. The premise (which I agree with) is that a large number of SUV’s are just unnecessary for the _actual_ role they perform. Ergo, _anything_ that leads to a reduction in their number is a good thing – whether it is gas-prices, government CAFE regulation or a sudden epidemic of common-sense among the sheeple.

At the moment, the most promising candidate that could bring about the consummation of this ideal is higher gas prices. Folks whose lifestyle can really justify a large SUV will continue to run them – and the hope is that the chavtastic poseurs who had no business driving a 2.5 tonne Excrelade on public roads will abandon them in droves.

So, the problem is not that these rolling monuments to automotive bad-taste are gas-guzzlers. If anything, their need for cheap gas is the achilles heel, and this entire thread is based on the hope that $4-$8 gas is just the thing to finally cull their numbers.

“Demand for small cars, crossovers soar along with gas prices”:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_bi_ge/autos_downsizing_3;_ylt=AjLUEZWJWzBtypefnmAvZ7cE1vAI

One tidbit from that article:

“Sales of large SUVs plummeted 28 percent in the first quarter this year, while subcompact sales rose 32 percent, according to Autodata Corp. Thriftier four-cylinder engines, once despised by Americans for their perceived lack of power, are selling in record numbers.”

I can hear the customers asking: “Has that thing got a 4-banger?”

mikeolan:“Probably the same price that kills muscle cars.”

I was thinking the same thing, except muscle cars were never truly ‘killed’. After the first gas crisis in 1973, then even after the previous, inflation-adjusted high price for gas in 1981, there were always low mpg V8 Mustang, Camaros, and Corvettes being produced. Coincidently, it wasn’t long after that gas-guzzling SUVs began their climb up the sales charts.

The bottom line is that the excessive gas-guzzlers that Americans love, crave, and have been addicted to since the prosperity of the Eisenhower years, be they sixties’ musclecars or nineties’ full-size SUVs, will never really go away, at least not at any of the high fuel prices we’ve yet seen.

Frankly, I suspect that the price of oil/fuel will have to be really high to ultimately kill off the big-engined American gas-guzzler. Even then, should the price of fuel fall back substantially, the gas-guzzler will come storming back with a vengance.

I put those two figures at
- consistently above $4
- for over a year.

By that point, no more body-on-frame SUVs as passenger cars. (They have other, legitimate uses.)

If people get paid more, where does that money come from? Do you actually think that the owners of businesses are going to just gleefully pay employees more just because prices are skyrocketing on everything? THE RICH STAY RICH, NO MATTER WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO TO DO IT. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, business owners are going to cover their own asses first? I work for one who DEFINITELY will. He owns five McDonald’s restaurants in NC, is already a multi-millionaire, and raises his prices at the drop of a hat (or a bun…tee hee). You would think he is almost broke, as it is with all business people. Pennies here, nickels there. Damn, you’d think these people are bankrupt already!! And with the minimum wage going up again, which I am in favor of even though I am salaried, the “bun” will definitely drop again. No free lunch, bubba. The cost of everything rises except the working peoples’ wages. And that’s the horrid truth. Only the ones with “golden parachutes” and the power to raise their OWN prices/salaries will come out of this, and the rest of us will be thrown to the wolves. Count on it.
(By the way…the Owner here used to drive a Sequoia, but now he just writes a check for a Lexus LS whatever (currently 460, but not the stretch) every two years.

Or will they call Washington and say “Enough! Fix this” (this being the price of gas), by messing with the market.

Top Five MPG:
1: No surprise. Honda Civic M4, 29.1 mpg
2: Surprise. VW 412 wagon M4, 27.9 mpg (possible reason: it was fuel injected!)
3: Toyota Corolla 1200 M4, 27.1 mpg
4: Lotus Europa Special M5, 25.2 mpg
5: Datsun B210 M4, 24.9 mpg

A few random cars from the middle of the list

Ford Pinto wagon A3, 16.6 mpg
AMC Gremlin M3, 15.6 mpg
Ford Maverick A3, 15.6 mpg
Chevrolet Vega Panel Express M4, 15.4 mpg
BMW Bavaria M4, 13.8 mpg

Some of the worst

Ferrari 365GTB-4 M5, 6.5 mpg
Oldsmobile Delta 88 wagon A3, 7.6 mpg
Chevrolet Chevelle Laguna M4, 7.6 mpg
Lincoln Continental A3, 7.9 mpg

This car is a “COMPACT”
Pontiac Ventura A3, 9.9 mpg

OK now the “rest of the story”. The entire list is only the MOST EFFICIENT variants with any given transmission listed. There were larger, optional V8’s on most of these American vehicles which used even more fuel.

Appalling, isn’t it? Especially when you recall that a 15.4 mpg Vega or 15.6 mpg Pinto, would each last about as long as a newspaper in the rain…

So as I mentioned in other posts, it was more than appalling to see Detroit Inc go back to pushing monstrosities which are lucky to obtain 12 miles per gallon, like my buddy’s Chevrolet Tahoe with the smallest V8 available. Or a colleague who owned a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe 3.5 which couldn’t get over 13 mpg.

ITH: Agreed with a lot of points; the world would be a remarkably boring place if we all felt the same way and liked the same stuff. I just wish that people would think more about the ramifications of their choices first…

Manufacturers will quietly whittle their offerings , and perhaps already are making plans to do so. That is the logical step to take, though my guess is that GM is planning to increase their SUV offerings.