SUV’s – Yay or Nay

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OK folks, lets put a little perspective on things...

This is a total tempest in a teapot, and Splunge, I hold you personally responsible!

The best selling SUV's are essentially CARS . They share engine, drivetrain and assembly line with common popular sedans...I am referring to models such as the Honda CRX and the Toyota Highlander...each based upon a car design, the Civic and Camry respectively. Add a little sheet metal, a few extra ci of passenger space, all-season tires, all-wheel drive, and a bit extra ground clearance...and voila...SUV. To own and drive one of these vehicles is no different than a common automobile.

The second class of SUV, rapidly becoming less dominant in the market, is the truck-based SUV. A distinct frame, engine and drivetrain. True 4-wheel drive, large displacement engines, drivetrains that are designed to haul or generate low torque...these vehicles, characterized by the Suburban, Tahoe, Excursion, Range Rover and even the Hummer are the "true" SUVs. They are heavy, big, lumbering road-hogs. They cost more to buy and operate, and likewise the owner of such a vehicle pays more sales tax, higher registration fees, more gasoline tax (almost half of what you pay at the pump), high-vehicle weight luxury tax, and usually higher insurance premiums.

When it all comes down to the brass tacks...what you drive is a choice and you pay according to the choices you make. Leave people alone to make the decisions they want in where they live, what they do for a living, what they drive and what they do with their free time...and SHUT THE HELL UP!

I can assure you of two things...the person driving his 1985 Corolla is dumping far more crap into our atmosphere than someone driving a 2004 Expedition...and you are at far greater risk from the motor vehicle operator who gets behind the wheel after a few too many drinks, regardless of what they are driving.

One final note...if you can't see around the "big fat butt" of my Land Cruiser...then maybe you're too close!

 

Oh sure, blame the Canadian. But you're pointing the finger at the wrong person - it's Aikanaro's fault for demanding more non-you-know-what threads.

A couple of points - I agree completely with what Hacken Slash and others have said regarding the fuel economy of older cars vs. newer SUV's. And H.S. raises a good point on the different kinds of SUV's available. But the fact remains that, if you take an engine from a car, and put it in a comparable, but heavier SUV, fuel economy will decline.

Having said that, there are lots of larger cars that get worse milege than smaller SUV's, so I guess we could make the samer criticisms of large car owners as we do of SUV owners vis-a-vis fuel economy.

As a final comment - I think the SUV trend is partly indicative of what we are seeing in the automotive industry in general - the demand for larger, more powerful vehicles. Just look the the power output of today's modern engines - from what I recall of older cars, I'm guessing that, due to newer technologies, power output is up about 50% from what it was 15-20 years ago for the same sized engine displacement, while fuel economy has improved as well. Instead of increasing power output and keeping the engines the same size, maufacturers could have maintained power output by reducing engine size, and improving fuel economy even further. But we as a society like our powerful vehicles, so the auto industry reacts to that.

 

Maybe your butt is just plain too fat to see around, HS.

Rastor - I misspoke on the Viper - it's actually 500HP these days. But there's no chance of me owning an $80,000.00 car in this lifetime.

 

Off topic.

CHandos I say sell the house and move the family into the VIPER!

[ January 14, 2004, 04:21: Message edited by: Dorion Blackstar ]

 

I drive a sport utility vehicle. I use it on-road, off-road, I drive it to work every day, in the big city, and it's the easiest thing in the world to park. It gets infinity miles to the gallon and has no emissions. And yes, I feel pretty sexy when I drive it around. And powerful, too, particularly in the area of the legs.

I call it an SUV because I use it for sport and transport. Other people, however, would call it a bicycle, because that's what it is.

And if I need to go further than my SUV can take me, I either a)rent a car, b)take the train, or c)take my SUV in the train and ride it around wherever it is I'm going. No gas bills, no registration costs, no insurance, nobody bothering if I run the red lights...it's a riot.

I'm not about to enter into the safety-ecology-selfishness debate, because I think by now everything's been said.

I live in Paris now. I used to live in Houston. (And yes, I know all about 45N...and 59S, and the Westheimer exit on loop 610...) I was driving around with a Swedish tourist once and got all excited because I could take the HOV lane. "HOV?" she asks. "High Occupancy Vehicle," I replied. "It means there's more than one person in the car." She flipped out when she looked around and realized that most of the cars on the freeway in the fourth largest city in the country did not contain more than a single commuter.

Now, there are three SUV drivers in my family, so I'm not about to start slagging them. But I do think the most scandalous element concerning America's highways and by-ways is that there is no viable alternative to the internal combustion engine. No public transport whatsoever connects downtown Houston with the suburbs, and the city buses that run downtown are reliquaries for perverts and highwaymen. The French tried to sell a TGV to Texas a few years back, joining up Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, but it was successfully squashed by the lobbyists at Southwest airlines. Why take a quiet, clean, fast train when you can get in a jet, which expends enough feul taking off to heat an average sized home for a century?

That's what's missing in the heartland: trains.

Now, having said all that, I'm moving back to the states in about six months. I'll be driving from TX to CT. I can't afford a car, so Mom's giving me a parental hand-me-down. I'm not going to complain about it. It's a free car. It's also a Dodge Durango. (And I have to disagree with one of the links posted above...I don't care *what* they say, I've seen the car, and it in no way resembles a pouncing jungle cat.)

But I will continue to ride a bike or walk wherever I can...which brings up my last point. Wanna know why the French are thin and why there's an obesity epidemic in the U.S.? The French walk every day, and a great many Americans don't walk anywhere. Unless they drive to a park first.

 

Is it true that they burst into flames if they roll over? It was on the Simpsons but I have to confess to not knowing whether it's true

 

Most of my issues are not with SUV's per se, but with the fact that the government refuses to enforce anything other than outdated fuel standards on them. And Bush's so called new fuel regulations are just a cheat, since it is weight based (car manufacturers already have weight based emisssion standards and actually add weight just to avoid them - though emission's are indeed far less than they were even 10 years ago for all vehicles). SUV's could easily get better gas milage, but car manufacturers don't want the slight added cost to do so and will avoid it as long as possible.