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I used to be a Republican, but the assholes have ruined that title for everyone else. Still conservative about some things (but not others- I love choice & gay marriage), so I guess I’m pretty much Libertarian now.
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We have two, but you can’t blame any Detroit idea for mine!
British Steel, baby- both Land Rovers- a 2002 Discovery II and a 2000 Range Rover. -
Suburban dweller who drives a lot.
- Left-wing
- Yes
- Small town/rural/bad weather
Minivans do not have particularly good fuel economy. If you compare the best fuel economies from minivans and SUVs you’ll find the SUVs are better.
Since there are more varieties of SUV than minivan, comparing the worst to the worst would put the minivan on top.
So, a blanket “you should drive a minivan instead!” is goofy.
Yep, it’s much easier to get into and out of a taller vehicle. I mentioned in an earlier post that I took the running boards of my Pathfinder because they where in the way. Just tripped me and got my pants dirty
I’ve an 06 Pathfinder. It came with shitty tires. I have been ruminating for about a year about what would be the best rubber for the car for where we live. Sometimes it comes to that. Not all, but many people think about the best set up for their situation.
Some don’t. I don’t care too much about them.
Over and over again the aniti-SUV crew seems to think that since they have decided what is best for them, that everyone else should just fall in line.
I’d be perfectly happy with a smaller car if it did what I need it to do.
A decent station wagon? A mid sized SUV is nothing more that a station wagon of old. My Pathfinder has more room, is 4x4, is safer and gets way way beter milage than my folks ’72 Chrysler Town and Country wagon.
That’s progess.
I do. Though the 4x8 stuff goes on the roof(ususally).
Considering a need for our dogs for road trips and anything else that we might want to carry is important.
Including my Wifes $10,000 worth of road and tri bikes that we try to keep safe from weather and theives. Hell, the large mid-sized SUV Is just enogh room for us. Just. It’s what we need and what we use.
Use.
Didn’t see six grand worth of bike in the back of our SUV while we where driving to a race?
Good.
Our dogs can travell with us and we are all happy and comfortable. Good.
I can get to work and home though 2 feet of snow. Good.
These things need to be thought about whever anyone looks at anything and says “I don’t need it, so they don’t either.”
Really? We throw sacks of concrete, drywall, plywood, and all kinds of other building materials in ours all the time. It’s a little awkward sometimes…as I said before, I wanted good gas mileage, so I got a small SUV (it had to be good for communting to work). Sometimes stuff has to hang out the gate, but it works pretty well for that purpose…I should have put it on my list. We are rehabbing our house, and doing 90% of the work ourselves, so we have had to haul an awful lot of stuff in it. When you fold the seats down, you can put many bags of concrete in it, actually.
- registered Republican, but much more Democrat in practice.
- No, I don’t own a vehicle at all right now. My SO drives a Chrysler Sebring Convertible. I doubt we would ever have an SUV, we tend to prefer smaller cars.
- Yes.
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No official affiliation, but I always vote Democrat.
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I drive a 2006 Honda CRV (“compact SUV,” oxymoronic as that sounds)
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I live in Seattle.
SUVs aren’t a pick up(been there, for many years, it’s now the plow truck), but with a little thought, you can carry a good deal. 8 6"x6"x8’ landscape timbers? No problem.
8 sheets of plywood? Been there done that.
Pull 4000 lbs over the continental divide? Can, and have done. And my Pathfinder is a V6.
I don’t get great mileage. I know that. Though I do get to work and back every day. Something that I could not do in a car.
It will be a warm day in hell when my next vehicle won’t be a 4x4 and doesn’t have move ability to just get me to work and back (which requires a 4x4 now).
To lighten it up… When my Wife and I rent cars to visit her family back in Pit PA, we usually get a big Grand Marquise, or Crown Vic. Comfy cars. And we can pile 6 people in if needed. You never know. I usually end up being the chauffer, cause, well we had the forethought to get a big enough car to chauffer everyone around.
The family sometimes wonders why we spent so much more money on a big car? (It’s not that much more expensive.) We all pile in and I can drive away with a smile on my face… And my Wife and I have our own ride. Family passengers accepted to a limit of course.
Case in point…. – 6 adults and 2 teenagers in a Chrysler K car for 150 miles is not what we meant by ‘get together for a family gathering’. That’s a bad movie.
A) Socialist
B) Of course not.
C) Urban.
When a person drives an SUV in any other environment than off-road, they’re proclaiming their active renunciation of society’s unspoken rules of mutual safety and respect; to drive an SUV is to willfully endanger and inconvenience other drivers.
Neither of which I wrote. How we got from “I think most SUV owners would probably get the same utility out of other vehicles” to “Bayard is claiming no one needs an SUV” is a mystery to me. Goofy, even. In fact, I went out of my way to stress “most” and “there are good reasons to own an SUV”. Oh well. I’ve got a couple of Excursions to spray-paint graffiti on, so I guess I’ll be back later.
a) Democrat
b) Nope. My car is a bicycle.
c) Yes.
I didn’t say you said no one needs an SUV. You suggested that those who don’t need SUVs should drive minivans:
But there is nothing about a minivan that prevents it from being a gas guzzler. That’s your blanket statement I was referring to.
A) Conservative Republican
B) No, but I have in the past
C) Suburban/rural (I have two residences I sleep at frequently, my primary residence is mostly suburban)
I’m still not entirely sure when the “SUV craze” started. I know when I had a Jeep Cherokee (this type) the term wasn’t in popular use, although I guess that would be considered an SUV. I bought that vehicle because it just seemed handy for going off road and when I wasn’t using it for that, for hauling stuff around in the back. The fact that it was fully enclosed was kinda nice because of the type of stuff I’d often have in there when I’d use it on hunting trips.
At the time I didn’t have the money to have more than one vehicle and it suited several purposes all at once.
I’ve always preferred cars to trucks/etc because I always found them to be “cooler.” But I was the guy who had no real interest in auto shop growing up, I know I think some cars are cooler than others but I don’t know much about the technical specs of a car. I usually do some research on reliability/safety now when it comes to buying a car and then I’ll search around town for whichever one seems to be nicer/more suited to me on the lot.
I primarily drive sedans these days and I have a pickup which I use to haul around an ATV which I use for hunting–I find this superior to having as SUV because the pickup is more ideal for pure hauling in my opinion because truck beds tend to be able to haul construction materials and such better than the back of most modern SUVs. Since I have the money to have multiple vehicles and an ATV it just makes more sense to do it this way now.
I can see buying an SUV if I had less money and wanted one vehicle which satisfied a bunch of my needs, but they’re basically a solution to a problem that I don’t have right now. In my ideal world I don’t take my pickup into heavy traffic in tight quarters because it can be a bitch to move around and it just won’t fit in some parallel parking spots, I’d get annoyed driving around in an SUV all the the time because I’d feel crowded in traffic and I also don’t care for how they handle on the interstate.
a) Republican (somewhere to the right of the NRA – probably morphing into libertarian)
b) Ginormous pickup truck* (is that an SUV?)
c) 'burbs
*we tow big trailers, won’t bore you with details
Right. We know where we stand now.
What station wagon do you speak of? A ‘large-ish’ sedan will have no where near the utility of a modest SUV.
The important word here is ‘Utility’.
I wrote that the SUV is the new station wagon. With the advent of reliable 4x4 it’s better.
We are probably talking past each other. Where I live the idea of not having at least one 4x4 in the stable gets you one of these :rolleyes:. Said owner does one of these in about a year - :smack:
You want a front wheel drive, fine, you can drive it maybe 6 months out of the year. 4x4 car? eh. Ok. It’s light enough that it’s gonna be easy to pull out.
I here you there. We had to look at many different options. I damn near bought another 4x4 truck. Glad I didn’t. With two big dogs and plenty of road time for family and my Wifes bike races, the SUV was the best bet.
We also get about 12 feet of snow a year. That rules out a lot of choices right there.
A) I almost always vote Democrat, but I’m very vaguely socialist these days
B) No, and I don’t plan on it
C) NYC
I’ve got no need for a huge, expensive gas-guzzler. If I ever need more room to carry stuff, I’ll rent a freakin’ Ryder truck.
- Independent, socially very liberal on most issues, except for gun control and taxes.
- One 4x4 Explorer (other car a mini-van)
- Used to be rural, but definitely suburbs these days.
Sometimes I wish the gas bill was less, but I hang on to it because I need at least one vehicle we can use for the cross-country, off-road escape when VC03 learns about our 401k balance and shows up with an axe.
Jammer
a) no party affiliation
b)yes
c)small town
It’s so sweet of you to notice! 