And do you honestly think most SUV owners do?
I don’t like cars in general and would love not having to need one. I generally don’t equate cars and penis size because I realize some people truly love their cars. The reason I SUV’s stand out for me is that you can’t see around them so I don’t know what is coming up. Their headlights are higher so I am more likely to be blinded by their lights. The way they are designed I am more likely to be injured if involved in a wreck with them.
You’d know more about that than I would 
Yes. choice is good, but I wish I had the choice not to have to have a car. While technically no one holds a gun to my head to own one, because of our poor, unrealiable (in the US in general) mass transit I have to have one.
Yes to both. Unfortunately now-a-days cars are so complex about all I can do is change tires. I would love to have something like the old VW Beetle, that I could do the basic maintenance myself or be able to learn how relatively quickly.
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Do you consider anytime your vehicle breaks to be a stomach tightening journey into the unknown? If so, I pity your ignorance, especially on THIS forum.
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Yes, because mechanics can basically say anything and I would have no way to know. I think the last line was really uncalled for. Not everyone has the inclination or interest to repair cars. Again with cars getting so complicated now I’d be afraid to try anything too complicated.
What you’re failing to recognize is: owning a vehicle has never EVER been about ACTUAL need. It’s been abouty selling as many vehicles as a manufacturer can build.
SUCCESSFUL manufacturers are the ones giving the buying public what they want. The PUBLIC, speaking with their pocketbook, is buying SUVs for whatever the reason, valid or not.
If YOU have a family to carry around, and YOU have some projects you think you’ll need a SuV for and YOU cannot afford two vehicles, then YOU will be commuting m-f in a SUV and the perception will be that you don’t NEED that SUV.
Now, a minivan is better suited, but if you DON’T WANT a minivan, for whatever reason, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY ONE. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?
I can’t speak for the people that you know, but the people that I know do use them. That’s about all I can say.
Casual observation of SUV drivers that you don’t know will not tell you if they use them or not.
Do they use them a tenth as much as I use mine? I think so. The people that I know that own SUVs, or trucks use them. No question about it.
I gotta go. My list is done and I have to run into town.
My problem with monstrous vehicles is when their drivers confuse want with need.
“I need one to pull my boat!” they vehemently cry. So people didn’t pull boats before the advent of Hummers? You don’t need a Hummer to pull your big-ass boat! You want one for this purpose. Just like a person wants a Mercedes for the purpose of grocery shopping. Stop trying to justify your consumerism with the wrong term!
“But they’re safe!” they say. They may be safe for the occupants, but not for the people driving on the roads alongside them. So then everyone goes out and gets an SUV out of safety, and the horrible evolution continues. The perception of “need” pertuates itself.
Hummers are monstrosities, people. Purty or not, they are monsters in the eye of the car gods. Before you know it, folks will be driving 18-wheelers out of a perceived sense of necessity. “I have two kids and a golden retriever and we get lots of snow,” they will say. “Of course we need a Chevy Monstro. Who are you to say otherwise?”
Landcruiser…tough as nails! Designed for australian conditions and have been improving on the landcruiser model for bloody ages. I’ve got a 100 series at the moment thats 4.2 litre diesel straight six. Bucket loads of torque, not the quickest beastie but i can launch and retrieve an 18 foot f’glass boat on a soft sandy beach and muscle my way back out with a few pounds of pressure let out of the tires. my other half is driving a prado with a 3.4 petrol V6 and that is a surprising vehicle aswell.
Not sure if they are availiable in the US or badged as a different vehicle but the nissan patrol 4.2 litre turbo diesel or the 4800 4.8 litre petrol pack a fuckn huge wallop. Almost indestructable and, hate to say this, seem to do a bit better offroad than the landcruiser.
Anti 4wd types wouldn’t understand. I don’t like cats but i tolerate people that have got the little bastards. Your just a bunch of little bloody whingers trying to force your ideas/constraints on other people.
A person doesn’t NEED an SUV for that stuff either. Mr. S built most of our house with his own two hands and is always working on revisions, additions, etc. For several years he hauled lumber in his Chevy S-10 pickup. Lots of times he’s brought home 2x4s in our two-door Ford Aspire, stacked diagonally from the rear hatch area to the passenger-side footwell. We don’t have a pickup anymore, so what for what doesn’t fit in the minivan, he borrows his brother’s pickup. Or yes, God forbid, has it delivered if it’s something that humongous (not often). That’s what delivery trucks are for.
“Anti-SUV” does not automatically mean “people who don’t do anything for themselves.” And I do detect a bit of a “I’m a big he-man” tone there.
I cut this from the above so I could address your points one at a time.
An S-10 is ok for hauling a bit of lumber around. I do the same with my Pathfinder. The last big load was 20 10’ 2x4s.
Good for him. How does your Aspire handle 6"x6"x8’?
So it is OK that your brother in law has a Pick-up. What does he use it for? Oh, he lets people borrow it. It’s OK for someone else to own a large vehicle as long as it is a loner to you. Got it.
I can’t get anything delivered to my house 6 months out of the year. The summer is a bit iffy as well.
As fare as you thinking I have a he-man attitude, I’m just a guy that likes to be able to take care of myself, my Wife and my family.
Sure we pulled boats. We used somthing that is called a truck.
Did you bitch about trucks 20 years ago? Do you bitch about them now?
There isn’t an insane truck epidemic, enipla. Never has been. If I see someone with a truck, I assume they need one. I know a couple of people with trucks and they are either contractors or work on farms, lugging stuff. Most trucks handle well and they have street-friendly designs. I ain’t got no beef with most trucks.
The nice shiny Hummer I saw taking up two parking spots at the Pathmark this morning was NOT pulling a boat. It was not hauling a trailer. In the hands of most people, it’s an obnoxious statement of over consumption. It’s analogous to platform shoes with dead goldfish floating in them. Ugly. Impractical. Obnoxious. And scary.
To Humvee buyers and wannabes:
Do you think there is a glut of “larger size” vehicles on the road? Or are anti-SUVers just imagining things?
Would you happy to see more Humvees on the road? If everyone had a Humvee, would you be happy?
When Humvees become obsolete and the next gas-guzzling, space-greedy Monstro (like that name) appears on the scene, will you feel compelled to upgrade?
You obviously don’t think Humvees are excessive. What is your idea of an “excessive” automobile? What would it take for you to become “anti-SUV”?
I don’t hate SUVs individually. I hate them, though, when they dominate the road. Maybe all drivers should supersize it to level the playing field. Then there will be no one left to complain about obscured lines of vision, lopsided car accidents, and overconsumption of gasoline. Except for everyone else in world.
Hauling stuff home for projects?
Well I’ve done a bit of that let’s see now, The last trip worth talking about was when I brought home the eight 20’ pressure treated 2X12s for the patio. Along with a load of steel stakes, some shorter 2X4s and odds and ends.
That trip was in my Volvo S80. (You can put a shit load of stuff on the reomvable roof rack)
Then there was the night of high winds when my fence blew down. Two 10’ pressure treated 4X4 plus several sacks of cement. Again the S80. I didn’t have the roof rack on so this stuff went inside. (Fold the rear seat, and fold the front seat. There is just over 10’ from trunk lid to windshield)
Or perhaps we should talk about my complete bathroom remodel 10 years ago.
Cast iron bath tub,
Vanity
Vanity top
Faucets
Roll of sheet vinyl
Misc other crap necessay for the remodel.
All of that fit inside my Volvo 850 Wagon.
(I did have to cheat just a tiny bit, I had to move the driver’s seat forward about 1/2" to get the rear hatch to close.)
Point is, it is not necessay to have the largest truck on the block inorder to haul stuff home from the home center.
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eight 20’ pressure treated 2X12s for the patio. Along with a load of steel stakes, some shorter 2X4s and odds and ends.
That trip was in my Volvo S80. (You can put a shit load of stuff on the reomvable roof rack)
WOW. Where do you shop!
20 foot 2x12s?. Go back and look at your plans.
Or, any other car that you’d like to have. SO many people complain about things that other people do or buy, etc. Maybe you should look into those post-communist countries where, for the most part, people had to buy some half-assed, tin-box, “automobile” and they had NO other options. Maybe then you’d be happy.
Really, let people own the car that they want to own. I see no difference than one person owning an SUV versus me buying green cars. Same difference. Might as well complain the functionality of my green colored car. Why don’t I just buy a red car?
Because, I don’t like red as a car color.
In high school, I had a friend whose grandmother gave her an original Humvee for her 16th birthday. From what she’d told me, it took $40 to fill up the gas tank, which didn’t last overly long, and her father had a penchant for running it into things and breaking it. The last one I recall was him backing it into a rather large tree and denting the rear “trunk” door in so badly that it could not be opened and had to be taken into the shop to be fixed.
I wouldn’t recommend it for its sturdiness, and who really needs to spend way too much money on a gas-guzzling monster that they don’t need? It’s almost as bad as the yuppies in flat-as-a-piece-of-paper south Florida that own monster trucks.
The difference is that a green* car does not have any social and economic cost. An SUV creates more pollution (including CO2) poses a greater danger to other cars and pedestrians in case of collision.
Not that I oppose SUVs in general. My main gripe is that SUVs are used as a loophole to build vehicles with poor gas mileage and sell them to people who don’t really need those capabilities.
*I’m assuming you meant green-colored cars, not green as in environmentally friendly.
I’ve yet to understand what snow has to do with an SUV. I’ve negotiated Calgary snowstorms, ice and snow clogging the roads, just fine in my Grand Am. 
More often than not, I can stop where the guy beside me just slides on by…
Anyway, count me in for excessive waste and consumerism. And I’ll throw in a slightly selfish ‘Hey, thanks for helping kill MY planet’ just for kicks.
Home Depot. Why?
2X12’s half buried in the ground around the perimeter of my patio to hold the gravel, sand and brick in place. (I had the gravel and sand delivered by dump truck BTW.)
The pattern is similar to this picture
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Why get a Hummer when you can get a Deuce and a half . Nothing says macho like 6X6 
and some of them can burn anything from gas to diesel to beer to kerosen and probably used cooking oil.
I haven’t driven a civilian hummer but I do have a lot of time in the military version and yes, they can get stuck (I have pics of hummers in ice) and when I win the lotto I might get an H1 that will use biodiesel or grassolene. Nothing like a big vehicle with the aroma of fries.
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HERE!HERE!
Thank you all very much who hate my wont of an SUV! I work very hard for the things I have. I live in a society that allows that. I’ll probably not get the hummer for very practical reasons. But I’ll be damned if you’ll keep me from shopping at the Land Rover or Toyota dealerships - or Chevy for that matter. My Avalanche 2500 4X4 does a great job right now pulling the things I need it to pull.
An excessive automobile? I think humvee’s are excessive. As I stated on the first page. I own an Avalanche, most hate them, I love it. What would it take for me to become anti-SUV - or the proper nomenclature - a non-enthusiast? I would never get that way. Personally, I use an SUV because I believe in what they should be used for. A UTILITY vehicle. And what is utility? Tome: something useful, designed for use. I use my avalanche…I’ll use the nest SUV I get as well. Do some people buy them for status and look? Of course. Will I. Never.
heh. A Grand Am ehh. Well I can garentee you that If you lived where I do you would miss about a month of work a year. And, your stuck car would be ticketed, towed or run over by a grader a couple of times as well.
I tried it. When I first moved here I had a two wheel drive car. I put studded snow tires on all four wheels. I also had, and still have an old beater 4x4 truck. I would try to drive the car to work, or try to get home after a storm, and I would end up walking. I would go get the truck, and drag the car home. After three times of this, I got rid of it an bought a CJ. Then, after being abused by that Jeep for about 2 years, I bought my Pathfinder.