Well, I agree with that. Sorry I missed your meaning.

I have no problem with anyone driving an SUV. What I have a problem with is people buying that SUV for no reason and then complaining to me about how much they have to fill up and how upside down they are now that they are trying to sell it. If they had been fiscally responsible in the first place, or had enough discretionary income to actually afford it, then they would not have this problem. Frankly, I don’t care if they’re fiscally responsible or not. I just want them to sit down and stop complaining about their bad CHOICE (and that is what it is) and blaming the market solely for a fiscally irresponsible decision on their part.

The point of the story about my mother was that she chose not to overextend herself on the purchase of a car just because it was possible. She is not in bad shape now that gas prices, heating oil, groceries, etc. are higher and money is tighter in this recession. Again, I have no problem with anyone buying a Murano (or anything eelse) if they can afford it. However, many who buy these things can’t.

If you have an SUV and can stand the fill ups put up and shut up. If you bought an SUV to be the biggest mofo on the road/ be a ‘baller’, then the joke is on you. I singled out the Hummer because the large majority of people in these vehicles due it to copy the celebrities that won’t have an issues with spending a bit more on gas. The Suburban that it is based on is a much more useful vehicle for people who need to use an SUV.

I singled out towing because this is what large SUVs do best. Pickups move large cargo better and minivans move people more easily. People don’t only tow boats and personal watercraft. There are those who tow things that are needed rather than toys.

Bottom line: If one needed an SUV or could actually afford one, then people would not be lining up in droves to trade them in at huge losses. This spiraling market trend is due to people who made bad fiscal decisions because they wanted a large car and are now paying for it. Those in the two caegories listed above are keeping their SUVs.

There is so much wrong with this question, that I don’t even know where to start. It sounds perfectly legit, but it’s not.

The problem is that it presumes that people do or should buy a car based on “need”. You can’t get to where you did without that assumption. Everything you said flows from that worthless supposition. Knowing nothing about your mother, I would bet dollars to donuts she doesn’t need a CUV either. I don’t mean to make this personal, so please understand you are one of millions that falls for this line of thinking every day.

Ask yourself, why did you leave out towing? Using your logic, shouldn’t you question what all this towing activity is about? Do people who don’t live on the water need those watercraft they are towing? Camper trailers? Need? And how about those landscapers and other workers who could likely get all the tools they really need in a van.

Why are we limiting our scope to transportation? What about food, clothing, furniture, and housing? Why don’t we go after those choices as well. They all have an environmental impact. Everything gets shipped from somewhere.

I have been over this a zillion times on this site, so I will zip to the end. Either you are for gas taxes (and other consumption taxes), or you are not. Nothing else will work, and most of it is really presumptuous and rude (like insulting hummer owners).

Someone here recently stated quite succinctly that it’s no business of anyones how much he spends on gas. He was right.

Gas is no different from any other good that we all compete for use of using our dollars. If I want to ride around in a Landcrusher, that is my business – whether I need one or not. Ask yourself why should you criticize my choice based on what you think I needed? Why is my choice of car a problem for you? What things do you have that I get to disapprove of?

I think my mother is the best example of the decision that many make when purchasing a car (often incorrectly). After her ‘99 CR-V was totalled in an accident, she was down to two replacements: a new CR-V and a Murano. She chose the CR-V. Her reasoning was that she didn’t need to spend $6-8k more than a CR-V for the privilege of higher insurance rates and gas bills with the Murano. Smart woman…most people make the other choice. I have used the CR-V to move an apartment worth of stuff, a double bass, the coffee table I just picked up off of craigslist, etc. There is nothing that this thing can’t take care of with a thule luggage rack that two people could lift reasonably. The extra ground clearance helps in flash floods, snow, etc. I don’t think that driving a CUV/SUV is bad, but that does not mean you need a V-8 behemoth for less than four people. Aside from towing, what is it that a large SUV can do for most people that a smaller CUV or minivan could not do? Hummers are the biggest joke of all since they aren’t even as useful as traditional SUVs.

I have to agree with you Mike. I made it successfully through 2 winters in the Iowa snowbelt in a 2WD pickup with a 360 and a posi with 3.92 gears. There were times when the rears woud start spinning as soon as I let off the brake. I could do it again, if I had to. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The best mod I ever did for my Dakota was the purchase of a 1992 S-10 Blazer 4X4 as a winter beater.

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That aside, I totally agree with this article. Very well written.

OTOH, the idea that you can lose under 2k per year on a car is just silly. There were folks about ten years back that thought you couldn’t lose money in the stock market too. Good luck with that. They want 2k off the minute you leave the lot.

Four wheel drive does not help you stop, and it doesn’t help you steer much, either. If nothing else, the ability to start out without slippage results in an unwarranted sense of self-confidence, one that can get many drivers in serious trouble. A high centre of gravity just makes matters worse.

If you’re driving on flat streets with powder-grade snow, front wheel drive with snow tires will be fine. Hell, I won’t lie- I’ve seen honda civics tread fearlessly on packed snow.

Try driving in the rust-belt snow/sludge (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania) , no matter of driver finesse will compensate for when your vehicle can’t regain traction from a stop or loses traction half way up a hill. Four wheel drive will make the difference between you getting halfway up the hill or through the bank. No questions about it, I used to have to help the drivers who’d get stuck going up the hill on my street in the winter push their cars out from my lawn. No all wheel drive vehicle (Subarus and SUV’s) ever managed to get stuck in the 6 years I lived there. Some were bad drivers, some were guys who thought their snow tire equipped BMW could go where the Pathfinder before them went.

Yes, many SUV drivers get overconfident, and snow tires do narrow the gap, but as someone who tried to make it through winters with a snow-tire-equipped Jetta (and Volvo, and Honda), I’m going to laugh at every idiot who thought buying a set of snow tires (which they probably won’t have on their car for the first snowfall anyway).

The extra ground clearance also makes a bit of a difference when clearing a pile of sludge that would otherwise drag along your undercarriage (a big problem with the Jetta.)

I get 18 MPG in my 1998 Dakota R/T with not just a V-8 under the hood, but a 360 cubic inch V-8 and that big motor is topped off with 3.92 gears which is geared for accelleration, not economy. There’s a big misperception in the gap in fuel economy.

They should drop that imperial gallon nonsence and switch to the US ones. That would shave at least a buck off the gas price!

Most of the fashionable ladies I see driving Escalades, XC90s and Cayenne’s around here are so skinny they would fit three across is a Smart forTwo.

Around here at least, the truck craze was driven by the fickle finger of fashion.

I was trained in child safety seats by the NC Highway Patrol. The NC child passenger safety law is way too vague. Height is a requirement stated here “Children may be secured in a properly fitted seat belt at age 8 (regardless of weight) OR at 80 pounds (regardless of age) – whichever comes first.” Properly fitted, are the key words.

Every time I see some idiot shelling out $25,000 for a Prius because it saves him fuel, it makes me smile. Heck, I get a good belly laugh. For me to trade in my SUV (Chevy Suburban Z71) on a Prius, fuel would probably have to be north of $10 a gallon. Even then, I’d probably buy another, more fuel efficient car rather than trade.

I do cost-benefit analyses on a regular basis to double-check my math, and a lot of it has to do with driving style. My Suburban mostly does grocery getting and kids to karate. I can put all their gear, all the groceries, all the kids, whoever happens to be visiting, and still have room left over. Its fuel mileage is only half that of a Malibu. The cost of trading in the Suburban easily offsets any fuel mileage gains and I get to keep the Suburban.

I’m one of the big guys y’all are talking about, 6′3″, 300 pounds. Played nose tackle, if you know what I mean. The Tracker (wife’s car) that I drive as a commuter because it gets 3 more mpg and the wife can haul the kids around when I’m gone on my biweekly trips to work, had tires that wore funny and now pulls badly when I hit the brakes. Every ‘car’ I’ve ever owned eventually did this, even the Isuzu Pup my dad used to drive. A shade-tree mechanic shimmed the Pup to fix it so my dad or I could drive it but lighter people couldn’t.

One thing I like about the Suburban is that it doesn’t do this. Another thing is that I can sit in the back seat. I’m big in every dimension, longish legs, tall sitting down, heavy. However, I have short little arms which make it hard for me to drive with reclined seats, which caused no end of elbow pain in my old v6 Camaro. I can sit upright in the Suburban and drive it with bent elbows. This is also true of the older Dodge Neons and some other cars, of course, but none of them have the capability of the Suburban.

I will agree that the larger SUVs are horrid in snow and get lots of yuppies and those they hit killed, but in mud, water, sand, whatever else, they are pretty good compared to compact cars. I recently had to negotiate flash-flooded roads to get home, with as much as two feet of water to wade, driving past subcompacts stalled in the shallow end as i crabbed to keep on the road in the deeper end fighting the current despite 3 tons of SUV. A car stalled in Taco Bell and I had to get out in a hurry. Low range and a little deft footwork and I was on my way. An S10 Blazer tried it and got stuck with one wheel on the grass and one on pavement, spinning his tires.

And, yes, it can tow. Not only can it tow, but its greater weight makes it more stable than a pickup and the interior room means long trips with a family towing something are far more comfortable than in a pickup. If you have dogs, you know what I mean.

Mine is the seven seater with the walkway to the back seat. The toddler’s seat is silly easy to get into compared to every car I’ve ever tried with.

It has an entertainment system which is essential, but, more than that, it has room for each kid to have his/her stuff right next to him/her. There’s room to spread out and play.

As for safety, the misconception that small cars are safer is laughable. Small cars are safer to other cars. There is so much steel in this beast that it takes quite the impact to make it deform in an injurious way. On top of that, passengers are well away from most body panels, allowing for greater deform distance. The roof is stronger than most cars. On a front-end collision, there’s tons of hood to absorb the impact. Rear end has even more distance to absorb impact.

As for the comment about station wagons being just as useful, heck, what do you really think the Suburban is? It’s simply the latest iteration in the station wagon. It’s a large, body on frame vehicle just like my dad’s old Estate Wagon that I passed so many happy hours rolling around the fold flat seats with my toy cars while he drove in snow and ice, with nary a child safety seat or even seatbelt in sight. Ah, those were the days…

Sure, I admit to some chagrin as the beast eats a hundred dollar bill twice a month, but that’s less than a third of the total cost of ownership. And, to us at least, it is worth it.

I kept my Nissan Frontier 4×4, for when I need a truck, but my daily driver is an aging 94 Sentra that gets 30mpg. I just cant justify taking a loss on my truck to save money on gas…

All those people at work who recently used to drive crew cab dually diesel trucks to work as their daily commuter all now drive the biggest pieces of junk you’ve ever seen.

Seeing some redneck get out of a dirty grand prix or some other junk car one wouldn’t expect to see them driving is quite a sight.

Nope, they’re getting creamed because many of them don’t have much better mileage than an SUV while offering an ‘uglier’ look.

Case in point. Bought a 2005 Ford Freestar SES w/68k miles and already reconditioned by a VW dealer (who lamely tried to retail it for two months) for $4750. That’s nearly 80% depreciation in only three years time… and the Freestar didn’t have a single ding on it and was carpet cleaned.

Bought a 2000 Olds Silhouette with Leather and a TV/VCR and 103k for $1300. A 15 year old Geo Metro ratbox at the same sale was bought for $1600 while there was a loaded 1999 Durango with 150k that went for the same price. Right now the small cars are being bid up regardless of whether the model in question has a good or bad question. Heck, I sold a 2000 Neon with 170,000 miles and a rod knock for the same price I paid for the Silhouette if that tells you anything.

Overall, minivan sales can be ‘broken down’ this way.

The GM and Ford minivans are mostly as bad as or worse than their SUV’s in terms of resale.

The Dodge minivans are obviously doing better (as is the Kia Sedona), but the strangely optioned ones from a couple years ago are another story.

The Odyssey and Sienna aren’t as strong as they once were. But comparing those two to their competition for resale value is like saying that football is a bit more popular than baseball in Europe. A comparably equipped Sienna would have literally doubled the price of that Freestar. Although my buy was the best in the last three months if the Manheim Market Report is to be believed.

Drive an SUV because you like the ride height and apocalypse enduring style/utility, and do it proudly. We’re Americans gosh-durn, we don’t need to rationalize our actions. Don’t lie that it ’s for safety, or the children, or towing that one 10-foot boat you borrow to the lake once every two years. It’s about being the biggest and baddest MF on the road.

Now I return to my 26MPG Mitsubishi and 20MPG Ranger.