I have no particular beef with SUVs, but I do find Escalades, Cayennes (the Porsche SUV), and other of the same ilk reeeeaally annoying. Like you’re going to put peat, manure & hunting dogs in one of those. 
VCNJ~
When I only need to haul 2 pins, I use the little Nissan. If I really need to move games, I fire up the 65 Ford F-250. I can move em 4 at a time. Theres room for the dolly, too.
Hey, who let all these crackers in here?
Well, in all fairness, we bought up all the good pickup trucks and Chevy Cavaliers. There wasn’t much left for black people to choose from.
Yeah, I already tried the walking around with a big ol’ gnarly cross on my back, didn’t even get noticed.
No real car or truck people have any respect for escalades. (I’m not even going to capitalize it because it’s such an ugly piece of shit.)
I used to love off-roading on the dirt trails. I had a 1990 4Runner with a 2 inch lift, grill guard, roof bars, offroad lights, good Toyo all-terrain tires, the works. My friend who I used to go with had an '85 SR5 pickup with about 7 inches of lift, much bigger off-road tires, etc- (he would pull me out when I got stuck!)
REAL 4x4s are a lot of fun. A rugged Jeep, Toyota, or a pickup with some off road modifications can be a very useful and practical vehicle, not to mention much more unique than 90% of the vehicles out there, and there’s nothing ostentatious or pretentious about it.
The kind of people who actually use the “utility” part of a sport utility vehicle would never drive an escalade.
Well, maybe they were in the passing lane?
I love it! The handling is great, the ride is smooth, and I’ve yet to have any problems (of course, the car is only a few months old). We negotiated pretty hard and got a gret deal, but our Toyota dealership is one of the larger ones, so I think that’s why they were willin’ to bargain.
But yes, I totally love the car. All my friends love it too- they say I have the most comfy car to ride in. The rear seats not only slide backward and forward for various leg rooms, but the rear seats also recline! It’s pretty neat, actually. I’ve never used my third row of seats, so they are still nicely tucked down in the depths of the car.
Anywho, the point is that I’d highly suggest a Highlander Hybrid- they’re great!
If you had asked “Who the HELL drives an Escalade?” I would have answered “Edie Sedgwick.”
However, with the way you have worded the question, I’m at a loss.
cf’75
I can’t stand Escalades. Possibly because of the name - the very name bothers me on some level - but mostly because I have yet to have met an Escalade owner who wasn’t a total jackass when driving. I’m not saying that there aren’t road-conscious Escalade owners, I’m just saying that I haven’t met many of them, and there are a lot of Escalades around here.
Next time I get almost run off the road by one of those cell-phone-talking motherfuckers, I’m taking a baseball bat to those nice, shiny, gated-up taillights.
(in my head)
~Tasha
Nothing wrong with a Jeep. (jeep wave)I have a jeep wrangler and I love it. I have a friend with a jeep cherokee and he apparently loves his car. He usesit to haul crap around.
I think escalades are ptretty ugly though. I knew a guy with one and after talking to him one day I realized that he only had such a huge freaking vehicle because it was “the hip hop thing to do” so to speak.
I think but can’t be certain that in one of the Escalade commercials, it was driven by Mimi Rogers, who is way up on my personal MILF-list (the ad featured various women dashing in slow motion to their vehicles in a sudden rainstorm in a supermarket parking lot).
I know nothing about the vehicle, but I still want to nail Rogers.
Now, now, steady on old chap. That’s just not cricket. My Land Rover has served me extremely well. Built like a howitzer, she is. And the natives think she’s quite spiffy, too. Hah!
My friend drives a Big Ol’ Thang (I forget which one, but it’s one of the top two or three gigantic vehicles) because she has three kids under six and it fits all the baby seats and still allows for cargo area. Could she have gotten away with less? Probably…but the kids were the motivation.
My seventy-eight year old mother-in-law drives one. She probably drives about 3,000 miles a year.
I’ve gone offroad in my '99 Cherkoee for fun. Nothing like going over motorcycle trails after a rain and trying not to fall off a cliff and getting the Jeep completely covered with mud. But gas is too expensive for that now.
I could get a Prius or something, but I don’t think I could put two full-size video cameras, two light kits, a couple of 2K lights, a Flo-Light, C-stands, a skateboard dolly, a doorway dolly, large tripods, camera jib, props, etc. in it. And I’d be leery about backing into salt water when I’m launching my little boat. I’d question whether it would handle a trailer with a motorcycle or two on it. And towing a 5,000 pound trailer is right out.
I could carry my kayak on top of a small car, but I don’t know if I could carry two. And if I decide to take the 45-mile washboard dirt road to Bamfield I think it might shake itself apart.
My Cherokee is about the size of a Honda Accord. Only it has more useful space for carrying stuff.
Still, I don’t like driving the Cherokee if I can help it. I get up to 43 mpg on my R1, and it’s a lot more fun. I’m lucky to get 18 mpg in L.A. traffic in the Jeep. (With no traffic I can get 22 mpg or more on the freeway.) If I had the space I’d get a small, fun, efficient car for everyday driving (when I’m not on the motorcycle) and save the Cherokee for when I need it. (Or I’ll just wait for the MGB to be finished, or drive the Triumph.)
I disagree- my experience has been just the opposite. We’ve had three so far and they’ve run like champs. They were made during LR’s BMW-owned days, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Of course, all hell breaks loose (literally) around 100,000 miles, but I can name several other non-Japanese car makers with similar problems.
No, I recommend Land Rover Range Rover & Discovery models without reservation (for those who can afford the maintenance costs of a high-end vehicle).
I’ve never owned one so I don’t have personal experience, but I did just read a recent survey of cars and problems after X months (don’t remember), Land Rover was dead last at somewhere around 400 or 500 problems, and either Lexus or Infinity was near the top around 200 problems.
I used to have a Land Rover Discovery. And I bought it because it was a toy. It had a 4" lift and huge knobby tires. It got horrible mileage and was a piece of shit. Whenever the Lucas electrics weren’t failing the Magnetti Marelli stuff was. Cargo space in the Discovery is a joke, you can’t fit jackshit in them.
But it sure was fun driving through mud up to the windows and driving down forgotten, overgrown trails in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, winching fallen trees out of my path. And I used it to pull at least 9 people out of the ditch or median when it was snowing or icy, so I didn’t ONLY do asshole things with it.
Now that I actually have a farm I drive a Subaru Forester, which is called a SUV but come on, it’s a wagon. And for farm stuff I have an old beater Chevy diesel pickup truck.
I always read these threads because they’re fun, and I’ve noticed something common to all of them. There seems to be some sort of disconnect between the people in the thread complaining about obnoxious SUVs and their owners, and the posters who come in to defend their own SUVs and how much real work they do with them.
I’m going to guess that the posters who complain about SUVs are mostly people like me, who live in urban areas where there’s very little need for anything with power or off-road capabilities, but the roads are swamped by wealthy urbanites who drive them for show. Like my bosses, a divorced couple. She’s been driving an Escalade for a while now, and he just bought a Land Rover. Why the Land Rover? Because it’s big enough to drive the three kids around! WTF? The stylish (and much smaller) German station wagons were all sold or something? These are the kinds of people that piss off the anti-SUV crowd (or at least me).
But then all you Dopers who have real “utility” vehicles come in on the defense, saying how much work you get done with it, and have to haul your boat and your six 150-pound mastiffs or whatever. At least in my book, you guys get a pass, you have a big, strong vehicle because you need it.
But like elmwood said, where are all the Escalade owners coming to defend their choice? I never see them in this kind of thread. Are they out there, but unable to defend themselves? Or are there really no Hummer-driving Dopers?
Dopers who really use their SUVs, we’re not complaining about you. Aeschines’s rant was clearly against the Escalade, which is by most Dopers’ standards (at least judging by the deafening lack of defense in this thread) an obnoxious and overpriced vehicle. But so many of you have still come in to defend your Jeeps and Land Rovers. And complainers, I know you must understand that some people do really have a use for a big truck, and try to leave the broad brush in the drawer. (This mostly applies to other such threads, Aeschines’s brush was nice and tight.) Can’t we all get along?
Man, I’ve been wanting to say that for a long time.
Go drive a Cayenne sometime and tell me there aren’t a multitude of reasons to own one other than to haul peat. Mind blowing handling, performance and safety for starters, well beyond the ability of all but a few sedans plus extraordinary off road skills (Paris to Dakar, perhaps?)
Please, don’t even mention it in the same paragraph as a fookin’ Escalade.