An open letter to poseur4x4 and EarthOnEmpty re: the "ticket" you put on my Cherokee

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Uuuhhhh, matt? That’s also only true south of 60. The rail line up north, all one of 'em, has been pretty much shut down for the last twenty years. 'Cept for running tourists from Skagway to Summit during the summer.

And it only went from Whitehorse to Skagway anyways. Wouldn’t getcha to Tombstone, or the Tatshenshini River. Or Dawson City, for that matter.

Public transit here in Whitehorse definitely has some issues, primarily because the management staff is from down South and have some pretty persistent misapprehensions about how long it takes to drive the routes. It would seem that they are doing their planning from maps and subcompact car reconnaissance. Like a Tercel compares to a metro bus. :rolleyes:

Tisiphone, regular transit rider and not a possessor of a drivers license. I’m gonna get one. Eventually. Before I die. Maybe.

42

Bummer. We’ve got two within 3 blocks. Not that I ever go.
Maybe you could convince the gym to give you shower-only privileges for a cut rate. I know some cyclists do that here in Vancouver.

43

Poor SUV owners. They get no respect, I tell ya, no respect. [adjusts tie]

For every SUV owner who utilizes their vehicle in some fashion that other existing vehicles couldn’t conceivably replace it, there are several more who do not.

I know this because they live on my street, and work next to my office, and generally exist all over the city. They get in my way in the mornings. They take up my parking spots at night. They block my sight all day.

They do not require an SUV of any kind. For every OP who got one of these unapplicable messages, I’ll bet at least two someones who deserved it got them, too.

True, I can’t make you stop driving it. But you can’t make me stop saying what a stupid vehicle it is. So :stuck_out_tongue:

44

What is a Willys?

45

Willys is a name for the ubitquitous WW2 jeep. It’s probably applied to other jeeps as well, I suspect.

46

This is my Willys.

Willys was a car maker in the early part of the last century. After WWII they made the Willys CJ (“Civilian Jeep”) series. They were Willys-Overland, then Kaiser-Willys, then they were bought by AMC, which partnered with Renault until AMC was bought my Chrysler, which was bought by Daimler and is now DaimlerChrysler.

erislover: Stupid for you to have one, but not stupid for everyone. What I object to is being “classified” as a resource waster. I don’t like prejudice. Would you say, “That man is black, so therefore he ______.”? Of course not.

47

Neat car!

I wish I could afford something like a large hatchback or a PT Cruiser/very small van. There are a few places around here that offer rentable space to come set up a mini-shop for the afternoon (art shows, things like that). Being able to set up something in the back of my vehicle would be cool.

As is, I drive a Tercel. But here in TX it truly is impossible to function without a car. It’s four miles each way just to the post office from my house, and in this heat biking/blading/whatever are not an option.

I do get mad at some SUV owners since it’s obvious that they don’t have a real need for the vehicles they drive. You can usually tell an SUV that’s being used to haul stuff from one of the ones that are just for vanity purposes. I’m real sick of having a huge tank tailgate me less than three feet away from my rear bumper.

One of these days I’m going to slam on my breaks and let them buy me a new car. :mad:

48

I’m still not entirely clear on how an SUV is superior to other vehicles, so my jury is out on whether anyone needs one or not. Not that my modus operandi focuses on need, per se. Just that I don’t like them, and I ain’t afraid to say it.

Of course, we could follow the government’s lead on cigarettes and tax them at over 100% just for kicks. :mad: (mad at the government, not SUV owners)

Sorry, I truly dislike SUVs. They don’t comment on their owners but themselves. I could give a shit about the owners, really. Some people like to draw lines around specific brands of vehicles, or even specific manufacturers. I stick to types. They need a stupid pseudo-Calvin pissing on an SUV running over a pseudo-Calvin pissing on a “chevy” logo. Make two statements with one sticker (the latter statement being how much I hate those pseudo-calvin stickers, not how much I hate chevy which is, last I checked, not at all).

I’m marketing it right now [runs out door]

BTW, anyone see last Saturday’s MADTV rant on SUVs? I thought it was funny, anyway. :slight_smile:

49

Ummm, I need one. I use 4-wheel drive every day for 4-5 months of the year.

Some of the other reasons -

· Higher ground clearance for snow and off road.
· Room for my dog and luggage (oh, and the Wife). I also need room for construction material, and going to the landfill. Try putting 8 sheets of plywood on the roof of a Honda. I always have projects going on at home.
· Towing ability (I need more than it has, but, I make do).
· Pulling tourists out of the ditch. I get at least two a year. Not a necessity, but karma must count for something.
· Generally tougher than a van. Not that I have any need for a van - no kids.
· Easier for me to get in and out of. Sedans suck.
· I can lock my stuff up inside. Need a topper on a truck to do this. I hate toppers. Limits what a truck can do.
· I can put 4 people in it when I rarely need to.

I have owned three 4-wheel drives since 1977. I still have my 1976 4x4 Chevy truck I had in high-school (its my plow truck now). I had an ’84 CJ7 (I could afford it at the time). Now I drive a 1993 Pathfinder. My Wife has a brand spanking new Grand Jeep Cherokee (took us a year of looking at SUVs before we choose it).

We live in a community that is supported by winter recreation. In 10 years, I have never been told not to come into work. We don’t shut down because of snow. Doesn’t happen. We would be pretty much screwed without our 4x4s.

Does John and Mary McSuburb need an SUV? After all it never really snows. And they only have one child. And they only go camping once in a blue moon. What about the boat they take to the lake? Would the SUV work better for them? Do they need seating capacity for eight?

We own a two bedroom, two bath home. Just my Wife and I! . Could we manage with one bedroom and one bath? I suppose. But It would be a bitch for storage and when we have company. Actually, It would suck most of the time. That’s the best corollary I can draw.

Not everyone needs one. Not everyone needs a Mini-Van either. I don’t think that the Anti-Suv realize just how different these two types of vehicles really are.

One more point - I have driven Mini-Vans. My Pathfinder is much easier to see out of than a Mini-Van. And I can’t believe it’s any harder to see around it for other drivers. Gets about the same mileage too. But that’s my business. That’s what this is all about.

50

Nope. When I picked up the last rep’s car from storage, it was packed from floor to ceiling, literally, and the trunk was stuffed. And that was a '99 Taurus, much bigger than a Neon. The guy who did some of my training just switched from a Caravan to an Intrepid and is cursing his desicion.

Not to mention that this is also my personal vehicle, so I can’t load the backseat–I’ve got a pretty regular passenger in a 7-year old who can’t sit in front of the airbag in the front seat.

51

My mileage has gone down on the Cherokee. When I started this thread over a year ago, I averaged 22.5 mpg on that day. Since then, I’ve bought a kayak. I don’t have a garage, and I have to take out a window if I want to bring it into my apartment. I keep it in the carport during the non-paddling season; but it’s hard to get to it when there are other cars in the way, and I have to move the CJ and the two bikes. So I keep it on the roof rack of the Cherokee.

The extra drag is costing me a couple miles per gallon. Also, I was until recently in great need of a tune-up and trhottle body cleaning. Well, I got the tune-up and the throttle body cleaned, new spark plug wires, frint differential service, and new tires. I haven’t driven it enough to pay attention to the fuel economy (spending, as I do, so much more time on the more fuel-efficient bikes), but I had been getting 20 mpg with the kayak on. I’ll have to see how it does with the servicing.

One thing I do to save gas is to drive it very carefully. I don’t speed in it. But I’m kayaking in Canada in a week, and I’ll be in a hurry to get there. I’ll only average about 17 mpg on the trip because I’ll be speeding. That’s still better than the 12.7 mpg claimed by the EarthOnEmpty “ticket”.

52

I used to live in North Florida, and due to my upbringing, I will be driving a personal automobile until the day I die or go blind.

When you live in a cluttered, suffocating city, the expense makes a car a greater burden than benefit. However, if you, like the majority of Americans, move to outlying areas where one can own at least a half-acre yard without being a millionaire, the cost of a car is well justified. If you are using major shipping corridors on freeways into the city, you are not going to want to drive a Econoputter while being overtaken by 18 wheelers. How much would it cost to run light rail to every subdivision of every suburb of every city? The versatility of a freeway (18 wheelers, busses, personal autos, emergency vehicles) is by far superior to a Disneyworld Monorail.

Johnny L.A. lives in LA!!! He lives in a city where mass transit isn’t an option because the city has not been engineered for it. The entire city of LA, as well as many cities across America, have been engineered for the automobile.

The city in whichI grew up (Tallahassee) is rather small (130k-ish people, only 250k in the county), but spread out… city limits are around 7x7 miles. In the summer, heat typically reaches the upper nineties, with near 100% humidity and afternoon thunderstorms being the norm. Biking anywhere (even with bike lanes on an increasing number of roads) is not feasible if your apperance on arrival is a concern. Even standing at a busstop for more than 5-10 minutes will have you covered in sweat.

I’m stuck in a little town now, on the tip of the Monterey peninsula in CA. It blows. The whole city is a new urbanists wet dream, but I’m forced to drive through miles of 100 year old, narrow streets to get to a freeway to take me to a super-walmart.

However, I realize that this is America, and there is room for both pigheaded, ‘big-is-better’ red meat eaters like me, and the organic granola crowd. Just don’t try to limit my rights, K dude?

53

If my Dodge Ram gets 15 mpg and I drive it 15,000 miles per years that equals 1,000 gallons of gasoline.

But if someone with a little car gets 30 mpg and drives it 30,000 miles a year, that still equals 1,000 gallons of gasoline.

Where’s the savings?

Does it make me a bad guy that I live in town that’s only 5 miles wide instead of commuting 30 miles to work each way?

And no offense matt mcl, but you gotta get out of the city more. Today I loaded my 13 foot raft and 6x6 rowing frame in the truck, along with a 60 pound husky, two coolers and 5 people and traveled 100 miles to spend the day floating the Clark Fork River. Wanna tell me how to do that on public transport or with a car?

Whistlepig, who’s glad he lives in an area where we actually use our pickups and SUVs.

54

We have light rail in my city (Atlanta). However, I still have to get TO the train station somehow.

55

I drive a Dodge Stratus and I don’t think the mileage is all that great. In fact, doing the math, I get worse mileage than the OP. If I’m lucky, I average roughly 20 mpg, but it usually runs around 18. One time I got 23 mpg, but that was because I had to drive to a meeting 150 miles away. I got better mileage on my previous 10 year old Infiniti.

56

With my Cherokee I average 20mpg, dipping as low as 15 under some circumstances and rising to as high as 23 under others. When I filled the truck to capacity (it was a solid mass of possessions from the front seats to the hatch door) and drove the 1700 miles of highway to move to Texas, I averaged 20.2.

57

I drive a full size SUV. I don’t get 20 MPG. It would be nice, but it just isn’t realistic. Oh those few and rare ocasions when someone comments to me about the gas guzzling nature of my truck, I simply point to the volunteer firefighter sticker on the bug guard and ask them if, in this snowy climate, they would prefer I drive a Yugo. That makes the vast majority of them slink away without another word.