SUV's - big & dumb?

That is just utter nonsense......I'm the dude on the Vespa

There ya go....I love my POS 1990 dodge ram....she can get through just about anything. What always makes me giddy is driving by the owner of a brand spanking new bmw suv on the beach up to his lug nuts in sand waiting for the tow truck. The wife always has that I friggin told you not to do this look on her face. It is all the more funny when the tide starts coming in and I pass them a second time on my way back to the campsite. If it doesn't go offroad it may as well be a vespa.

LOL - Reminds me of the time a high-falootin' Land Rover got stuck in the mud at Lake Travis. The status-monkey occupants were visibly horrified by their comical dilemma. It took a beat up old Dodge Ram to yank 'em out.

SUV's are ridiculous. The only SUV that could possibly do the work any -professional- would want it for is a Jeep Wrangler, and then only if it's equipped correctly with D-44 axles and upgraded suspension and steering components. As was mentioned before, most SUV's bought these days are built on unibody car frames and suspensions, and equipped with high-revving, low-torque engine designs that make them virtually useless for all-terrain, bad-weather conditions, or hauling. They're vanity items.

Anyone who needs to do what an SUV is advertised for had better look at a three-quarter-ton or one-ton four-wheel-drive pickup truck, which are still made specifically for the conditions SUV's pretend to. (Along with certain varieties of the Wrangler. The Toyota Tacoma small pickup truck can also do well in certain conditions.) Since 2000, the best light truck made for severe conditions and hauling has been the Dodge 2500 or 3500 4x4 equipped with a Cummins 5.9 turbocharged diesel engine, but it ain't cheap and it ain't made for commuter traffic in NYC, either.

Never seen a Hummer rollin' on dubz! Never even imagined it (although it doesn't surprise me.) It always gives me a bit o' heartache when people choose the extreme vain wastefulness of reducing a useful 4WD utility vehicle into a shiny pavement-bound trinket... or destroying a brand new beautifully engineered machine by remodeling it (á la Monster Garage) or even putting one in a car crusher for commercial sensationalism (as I've seen occur to a brand new Porsche for an advertisement!) On some level I appreciate the artistic expression, but OUCH, I coulda used that beast!

I've been an avid off-roader for many years, and absolutely love a capable "monster" machine (Darko shows great taste. ) Although I do admit, I've personally relied mostly on affordable, reliable Japanese creations for this outback pastime, such as Toyota 4x4's, and Kawasaki quads, etc. I've been a big, long time fan of the Hummer H1, one of the most awesome rugged leviathans yet created. I suppose using these rare resource consumers in urban environments during an interim is cool, but on a regular basis just seems pretentiously wasteful. If one feels the the need to drive a Hummer about town, I'd suggest one of these "green" solutions...

Hydrogen Powered...


Hydrogen & Veggie Oil Powered...


Calorie Powered...

Many states do, as you've said. I think CA still makes some allowances for large SUVs and trucks - I could be wrong though.

I was speaking of Federal regulations. And, I also agree with you on the point about busses, but would also like to inlcude heavy duty trucks (aka big rigs, 18wheelers, etc). They are the worst polluters, yet the government continues to allow them to operate.

The small SUV's are usually built in a unibody construction technique, as are cars. This gives them they 'car like' driving feel. As for rollovers, every vehicle has the capability to flip over. My point was that SUV's are more likely to do so than cars mainly due to thier heavier weight and higher ride height. SUV's with wheelbases under 100" are more than 4 times as likely to rollover than a car.

Talen, cars can *help* the driver to avoid an accident. The big SUV cannot quickly avoid an accident as a car can. Period. High speed lane-change tests prove it, emergency braking tests prove it, skidpad tests prove it...

So, Talen, say both a car and an SUV rollover.. which passengers do you think are more likely to die from the rollover?

Hint: those in the SUV.

So, to summarize, *all* vehicles can rollover. SUV's are more likely to do so, and your chances of being killed from a rollover are much higher in an SUV than in a car.
Statistics gathered by suv.org from various sources

I don't get it. Where's the hot dude in the cabrio?

Driver error. The fool knew not what he was doing. Land Rovers are famous (as is Jeep) for thier 4x4 prowess.

heh. prowess. i love that word.

Head on out to your favorite Cat dealer, pick up one of these lil gems, and "rollover" anything you wish. At almost 700 tons without a payload, and outfitted with the largest tires made in the world today, who's gonna stop ya?

Then again, maybe you could slap on some dubz with spinners, load up a fully equipped concert stage on the back, and get your favorite bands to kick out the jams while you croose down the interstate, esé.

I have grown tired of the anti SUV spew I hear from people. Yes I am sure there are some SUV owners who suffer from "small man syndrome" and the attitude "I drive tank so I can act like a moron" In fact I have seen a few of those people. The reason we own one is that with out it, we wouldn't make it to work in in the morning. For a reason that still escapes me our snowplows don't hit the roads until 6 AM. Last winter we lived on a street that would go days with out seeing a snowplow after a big storm. Another reason is that it fits our life style. We are historical reenactors and at last we have something that holds all our gear
In a nut shell it's a good fit for the type life we wish to live. I have found driving it to be a dream. You sit up high and can see further down the road. Driving school 101 "The sooner you see it. the qucker you can avoid it" I can't count the number times this has been a life saver.

Things I consder to be pure b.s.:

"It rolls over" Any car or truck will roll over. This not the fault of the SUV it is the driver.
People fail to notice one small fact, It's not a sports car. It was never designed to handle like that. I think is media hype to sell newspaper. I say that because I saw a segment on a tv news show about the "roll over issue" They ran a suv up to 50 MPH and turned the wheell hard to left. Yep you guessed it went up on two wheels. You could do that with most any car on the market.

"I'ts not fair when in a accident the other car gets the most damage" No kidding. Your talking about a big car v.s. a small car. Yes the little car will get more damage. I remember when sub compact cars were the rage. No one raised that issue when it was small cars v..s 2 tons of Detroit Iron. Never heard "let's get those cadillacs off the road"

There are some things that confuse me. One of them is the Yuppie puppy driving the H1 and never leaves the city streets . What the helll do you need something that will climb a cliff and go through swamp with out breaking a sweat? I think the H1 is more status symbol than SUV. Give me a Chevy Suburban anyday. Which leads into a gripe I have about the SUV craze. I grew up on a farm with people who owned a SUV becuase they needed them. From I have been reading that since the beautiful people have discoverd the SUV that the working people are being priced out of the market.

Sorry if this has been a bit rambing but I have grown tired of anti suv rhetoric from the freinds of the earth crowd and the saftey nuts. Not to mention the media who likes to drag out the suv issue on a slow news day. Never mind the fact they never tell the whole story.
I will admit there are people who are on the highways who don't do a good job of representing the suv. The same could be said for all types of cars on the roads. If you look in rear view mirror and see a suv 6 inches off your rear bumper. I would be willing bet this guy would be 6 inches off your bumper if he was driving a Geo Metro.

Thanks for listening. Just had to get this off my chest.

Rox

I have a 1990 Jeep Cherokee Laredo and *LOVE* it- and i'm truly annoyed by people who lump it in the same category as an H2, cause it's not. my Jeep is smaller than most of the SUV's out there today, plus it gets better gas mileage. anyway, it was built in the day when Jeep was all about being Jeep and not being all "ooh, lookit, we've got a POS Liberty out there made entirely of plastic." anyway, it's got chrome bumpers which have been great in fender benders cause I come away without a scratch. try doing that in an SUV with plastic bumpers.

i think that the cars aren't the issue, it's the asshats who drive them. if you have an H2 and bother to know where your bumpers are, then the reason you have it is soley your own. also, just because you have 4WD doesn't mean you're invincible- ice is ice and you're not getting across it in a car, unless you've got one of those snowcats they use on the ski slopes.

"Give me Cherokee or give me DEATH!!"

Your Cherokee is based on the same frame, suspension, and engine/tranny as the Jeep Wrangler. Main difference is that the angles of approach and departure are not as good as the Wrangler and there's more metal body parts to bend. But all-in-all, the Cherokee is a much more capable off-road and severe-service vehicle that nearly anything out there except for 3/4 ton and 1 ton 4x4 pickup trucks that are still specifically designed for such things.

btw, the Liberty isn't really that bad. While it does have an IFS, it also has a heavy frame, good supsension and steering components, and better angles of approach and departure than your Cherokee. Daimler-Chrysler may be putting a turborcharged diesel in the Liberty next year from what I hear, and if it does, that vehicle could rock off-road.

But I agree, the Liberty is designed to "look" like an SUV. And the H2? Less said the better. I've had to rescue three of them from conditions that didn't even challenge Wranglers or Dodge trucks. Bad axles, cheezy, low-torque GM drive trains. Based on Chevy Surburbans, btw, a "truck" that loves to break.

edited to heap abuse on H2's

Boy.. it looks like this thread touched a nerve.

People drive what they drive for many reasons and there are plenty good reasons to drive an SUV. I'm not arguing that point at all. However, most people I see driving SUVs where I live (SF) rarely use it to go offroad, drive through the snow, haul all kinds of gear, etc.

I drive up to the Sierras in the winter frequently, so all-wheel drive is a must. We also have two dogs, so cargo space is needed. But both Cyrus and I don't care for SUV's so our solution was all-wheel drive cars. We have a Passat 4-Motion wagon to take skiing and run the dogs around and we have an A4 Quattro. Dogs and small children with shoes are not allowed in that car.

Roxie, the rollover tendancies of SUVs isn't b.s., it's fact. *All* vehicles can rollover, but SUV's are far more likely than cars to do so. I wasn't saying SUV's do it and cars don't, I was saying they are more likely to rollover than cars are.

Oh, and all Hummers are poser vehicles. You want a serious off-roader, buy a Jeep or Land Rover. All a Hummer says is that you've got a fat wallet and no penis. OK, maybe just a very small one.

Land Rover? 20 years ago, yes. Today, they're near-posers, too. A serious off-road vehicle would be a Jeep Wrangler with maybe $3000-5000 worth of aftermarket work done to it. Or a Ford F-250 or Dodge 2500 with the same sort of work, if you haul anything off-road.