SUV's. What's the attraction?

Tall tires make bumps smaller.

Wife has horses.

3/4 ton Suburban tows a horse trailer and hauls all her horse gak. 

Drivers around here suck mightily. Her truck has been rear-ended or hit from the side once a year for the past three years. Every time the other driver has been at fault and every time, they say "I didn't see you!"

How in the ever-loving-hell do you not see a 3/4 ton Suburban?

She drives a Sub because I couldn't find a 7.3 powered Excursion when we were shopping.

I like her driving a bank vault around, fuel mileage be damned.

I like to tow things and taking trips of any distance with 3 kids is much easier with 3 rows.  Plus, I like having my cargo on the inside instead of exposed to the elements and curious passersby.  Also, the heavier body seems to ride better than the pickup truck version of the chassis.

ebonyandivory said:

nutherjrfan said:

Tract home on wheels. Bonus addition - bully people in smaller vehicles.

I drive a full size pickup and a Yukon XL. I have a small hootus, I'm a bully, a have Napoleon Syndrome and every other stereotype you can make up.

I'll forgive you missing the 1,200 miles a week. The rest of your problems. Can't help you buddy. The bullying aspect is real.

I’m currently shopping for a Kia Telluride for my wife, to replace her Sienna. We looked at pretty much every SUV that seats 7-8. She wanted something that was not a minivan, with a high seating position. Ironically, she liked the Subaru Ascent, but it sat too low and drove too much like a car for her- which Subaru probably considered a plus. Now, she is not a car ignorant person. She knows it is a less useful dressed up minivan. She wants the Telluride because it is the closest of all the SUVs to her Sienna in people and cargo space without being a minivan. She knows it’s illogical, but it’s what she wants. Crossovers are replacing cars because the perform well enough now that the drawbacks Vs. cars are not apparent to normal drivers, while offering a lot more room and function in a similar footprint. 

Our family has continuously had a SUV in the family since a 2nd gen 4-runner, which really wasn't that good of a vehicle. The one that followed it (a 2nd gen Rav-4) was great, however.  

I like the better view, the level entry, the headroom, and a taller vehicle has the potential to be more space-efficient. All that said, unless you use them offroad, a minivan is an objectively better vehicle if you take out the style factor. 

In reply to nutherjrfan :

I drove aggressively long before I had a suv, as does most of the traffic around me. This probably has more to do with being in an urban environment than vehicle choice. 

Because a minivan won't tow nearly 8k pounds and get decent fuel economy doing it, towing or not.   I realize this is more of a large wagon then a traditional SUV.

My wife does drive it over a wagon for a safety placebo.  And considering she drives other people's kids around for a living, I think her driving skills are up to the task, so "learning how to drive safely" is a bit of a red herring. 

Daylan C said:

yupididit said:

Nor do I generalize the entire wagon driving population based on one person and their stupid reason. 

There's a wagon driving population to generalize in 2019?

Hi there.

Tom_Spangler said:

Sigh.... are we really doing this again?

You know what else is impractical and doesn't make sense to buy? Sports cars.

People drive what they want to drive, it's not my job to tell them otherwise.

Thank you.


I never understood why a group of enthusiasts that is under attack already would be so dead set to divide and conquer itself.

In reply to Cooter :

Moral superiority. Almost everyone has a need to look down on somebody...

My wife drives a Prius.   The main reason for that is because her father owned it before he passed away this year, and to be honest, it is a great commuter to her.  We are planning to use it to drive from Chicago to Portland, Oregon this month to visit her son because 50 MpG, and even though it feels like a luxury sedan compared to our SWs, our backs are already screaming in pain from what we know will be 10-15 hour driving stints.   Neither of us have those issues driving her old '99 Wrangler.   Or most any other traditional SUV, like the Diesel Suburban we bought from Powar and promptly dove to Albuquerque and back.



The seating position in an SUV is just better for my destroyed lower back.  It is more like sitting in a chair.   My wife and I discussed this on a long road trip recently while trying to figure out why most cars hurt our backs, and decided that most cars are like trying to sit in a beanbag chair.  In a large dog crate.  You have to nearly fall into them while avoiding hitting your head on the way down and over.  And then your legs are out in front of you.   Now, I am a fairly large guy (6'2")  with very broad shoulders, but my wife isn't huge by any means (5'6" and maybe 135lbs) but both of us have difficulty with most cars for same reason of back pain.   But we deal with it in our Daily Drivers because of the aforementioned MPG.   

If we could, we would both drive large SUVs or pickups daily.   My wife because she has always liked trucks (she loves El Caminos and wanted to buy a Ford Ranger as her first car in the '80s, but her father talked her out of it)  And myself because I loved using my 2wd Ramcharger as a car.  It was comfortable, I could tow with it, two adults an my daughter could ride i it while still having easily accessible tool storage in the back, and driving and parking in the city was quite enjoyable due to the 106" wheelbase, and the lack of concern about the passenger dragging the bottom of the door across the curb after you parked.  

And while I am a more aggressive driver than my wife (she is the absolute least competitive person I know), neither of us are the type to bully other people, especially with 2+ tons of steel.

Finally, living in Chicagoland has taught me that people in cars bully just as much as people in other vehicles.     It's just that no one takes them seriously enough to realize it. 

secretariata said:

In reply to Cooter :

Moral superiority. Almost everyone has a need to look down on somebody...

I mean, I know.

But I still don't get it.   We are all here for the same reason, I would think. We love vehicles- driving riding, modifying...  For the most part, I feel like GRM is a very welcoming place for anyone who enjoys Motorsports on the Grassroots level.     And then these sorts of threads pop up.   It feels like a Ford vs Chevy argument when that happens.

I too am tired of these new fangled, high riding, 4 door hatchbacks with upright seating and storage behind the rear seats!

 

Give me the good old days!

Wait....

In reply to STM317 :

I'm not sure whether to want you kids to get on or off my lawn at this point.

In reply to nutherjrfan :

I didn't miss anything but thanks for forgiving me, lol.

Shiny happy people are shiny happy people no matter what they drive. But go ahead and keep up the generalizations and stereotypes. The world needs more inflammatory rhetoric.

(I drove three different Samurai's, a Sidekick, an original Beetle, a Protege5,  a Prius for work and a motorcycle over decades and tens of thousands of miles. Somehow I never felt the urge to judge the big scary SUV drivers as bullies.)

I wonder what generalizations I can draw about young, female drivers in smallish imports. That's the demographic that appears most likely to bully me in my lifted 4x4 pickup by tailgating, merging out of turn and cutting me off.

In reply to Suprf1y :

Back in the mid 1980's I guess I was one of the early proponents of SUVs  my reasoning was simple. Towing a race car.  
I started with a  S10 Blazer. With a 2.8 liter V6 I could haul my race car all over the country.  Fuel mileage was three times as good as the race car hauler and I didn't spend 1/3 of my time maintaining it.  
There was room in the back for tools and spares plus once at the track I had a dry insect free place to sleep that wasn't on the ground.  

Then during the week I got really decent mileage ( for back then) and with 4WD I could go to where the contractors were without fear of getting stuck.  
Come  winter and the SUV proved its value again. It was extremely labor saving.  I have 120 foot long driveway that is 30 feet wide. Coming home from work after a foot or two of snowfall I just shifted from 2 WD to 4WD AND SAVED MYSELF A COUPLE OF HOURS OF BACK BRAKING SHOVELING. 
Not to mention I was at the bottom of a steep hill the city didn't get around to plowing until near the end because it was a Dead End.  
So early morning didn't involve tire burning climbs up a hill.   
What's not to love.  

Cooter said:

Daylan C said:

yupididit said:

Nor do I generalize the entire wagon driving population based on one person and their stupid reason. 

There's a wagon driving population to generalize in 2019?

Hi there.

You'll remember that I own a wagon too. Unfortunately haven't actually driven it yet though.

In reply to frenchyd :

Not that I'm on board with justifying ANYTHING you want and can afford to drive but you did a great job justifying it nonetheless.

I wonder how many that decry the size of SUV's and how they're soooo much bigger than the poor little import cars ever entertain the notion that maybe small cars are the liability?

Do these people also "look down" on me because of my height and weight and the fact that I work out to get stronger and more physically capable to handle the situations I may find myself in?

I read a lot to become smarter. Or maybe it's because I want to bully the people less inclined to learn?

I cannot fathom wasting time criticizing the choice of vehicle people make.

BOTTOM LINE: WHO CARES WHAT YOU WANT TO DRIVE? DRIVE IT AND ENJOY IT. 

I don't really know.  I come from a wagon family. My mother is on her 3rd.  My TDI wagon is my 3rd one as well.  Granted, her first wagon ('85 Subaru) was heavily influenced by me at the time as I've had a thing for wagons since I was maybe 7 or 8 - my father was initially against it, but eventually saw the light as it was better for the battlefield trips we used to take when my parents were together. 

Now, I am all about vans. Minivans or full-size vans. They just hold more and have a lower loading deck than a typical SUV.  That said, I do agree the 3500 lb towing limit is the biggest drawback of my Grand Caravan.  

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

Despite being firmly anti-SUV in the ways they are used by the vast majority of American owners, I absolutely agree that you have defined the places where an SUV is The Answer. 
 

Daylan C said:

You'll remember that I own a wagon too. Unfortunately haven't actually driven it yet though.

Oh, I haven't forgotten anything.

I count 4 admitted wagon owners in this thread.  

One of the reasons that I just switched from the Mazda 3 to the Ranger PU was that I got tired of practically everything on the road burning out my retinas by blasting these ultra white, 90 billion lumen headlights straight in my back window.  The headlights are still obnoxious (yes, I think they should be banned) but at least not they just burn the paint on my tailgate!

PS.  Another advantage to a Miata... the headlights usually shine right over top of you!