Posted on 05/09/2005 6:52:14 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
It's a Saturday morning on San Leandro's Marina Boulevard auto row, and the big SUVs have been sitting on the lots, waiting for someone to come in and start that dealer dollar dance that ends up with the customer slightly bewildered but paying a lot less for that vehicle than he thought he was going to.
Once in a while, there are takers, although the dealer has to discount the SUV heavily just to get it moving.
Salvador Sotello, for example, recently paid F.H. Dailey Chevrolet in San Leandro $41,000 for a new Chevy Tahoe LT (yes, with leather) SUV that had a sticker price of $58,000. The sale was an anomaly in what is otherwise a pretty dismal selling season. "It's been pretty quiet," saleswoman Crystal Gonzalez said the other day. "Been pretty slow."
At Broadway Ford in Oakland, the grilles of the Mustangs, SUVs and the lone Thunderbird smile at the passing traffic, but the showroom is empty, it appears, of customers; several salesmen are in sight. Up at Albany Ford-Subaru, salesman Myers Howard, sitting a few feet away from a big Ford pickup truck, says things on the Ford side of the showroom "are slow." That might be the understatement of the day.
Just this past week, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. underwent the humiliation of seeing their credit ratings reduced by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services to the status of junk. The reasons are becoming clear -- the two big companies can't sell much of what they produce.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I guess it would be a safe bet to assume that you own and drive a SUV. Given that assumption, I would say that it might be hard for you to put yourself in the position of people who drive normal-sized passenger cars.
From the perspective of one of those people, I can tell you that it is not true that by buying an SUV, you enjoy exclusive ownership of the roads. There are plenty of us normal-sized car drivers who also use the road, and are not happy about the proliferation of large vehicles. You may never notice it, but believe you me, the folks that drive normal-sized vehicles definitely notice when there are more SUVs on the road.
It makes a substantial difference. The more you deny it, the less likely anyone who drives a normal-sized car - to whom all I have said on the effect of SUVs on the road is self-evident - willing to listen to what you say. If SUV drivers in general had consideration and understanding of other vehicles without regard for their size, there would be no problem. But the reality is otherwise.
You construe me too literally when you think I am calling for some government agency. In literal terms I am saying that it is proven by experience that people won't drive SUVs responsibly and courteously, and that because the roads are a public utility, the right to drive a vehicle on them has to be dependent on sharing the road equitably. In Nowheresville, maybe it makes no difference what vehicle is on the roads, but in a city, or even a dense suburban area, it makes quite a large difference.
Giving everyone the free choice to drive a SUV or not is a failure. It is the same as demanding the right to drive drunk, as long as you can keep the car on the road. A a libertarian, normally I'd be right beside you complaining of government agencies, but in the case of the roads, a compromise must be enforced, not only because they are a public utility to which every citizen (and certainly those of us who pay taxes to create and maintain those roads) has an equal right, but also to preserve the freedom of travel. A person in a normal-sized car has an equal right to travel safely as a person in an SUV.
By 2007 maybe Volkswagen will have all the bugs out of the Touareg.
I drive a Ford Crown Vic. It's my third in a row and I'll be getting another. Unlike you, this issue is not personal to me.
Anti-SUV drivers are normally not adequately competent to handle the modern highway, and need a scapegoat for their inadequacies. The road was filled with line-of-sight-blocking vehicles long before the tinted SUV came along. The "morally suspect" SUV has not changed that.
People need to grow up and adapt to road conditions. The phrase "proven by experience" is completely nonsensical: anecdotal evidence is not proof.
The crybaby attitude of the anti-SUV crowd is beneath adult behavior. Grow up.
Other types of view-blocking vehicles were subject to restrictions - places they could not go, lanes they could not use - to which SUVs are not. 18-wheelers don't crowd the grocery parking lot.
Professional truck drivers are the best drivers on the road, that's why there's no problem with them. They know what kind of vehicle they have and handle it appropriately. SUV drivers are the worst, because the precise opposite is true.
I know someone who felt he was forced (some freedom!) to buy a SUV just to be able to see adequately on the roads. Is forcing everyone to buy a SUV any less of a restriction on liberty than prohibiting people from doing so? Anecdotal or not, these anectdotes span enough years and enough places to be statictics.
The arrogance of the SUV crowd is as juvenile as the playground bully. Just like we don't let the folks with the biggest guns force everyone else to do what they want, nor is it right to let those with the biggest vehicles impose their will by force on others. At some point we start shooting back. Resort to government is the last step before resorting to force.
so I think I can say fairly that there are way too many SUV's and big trucks on the highways....
Trucks and big SUV's used to be for people with large families or for guys that needed to haul stuff around....
now, we get every other yuppie and every other young buck driving these huge vehicles....
nothing like being behind an SUV or Ram truck in traffic.....you might as well be riding behing a moving wall......
what's the price?.......I am definately going to get a car with better gas mileage next time, even if the price of gas goes down, and even though my present little car does pretty good....
Wow, I missed your threat there. You're getting scary. I suggest driving school and psychological counseling.
The Touareg diesel is impressive. Decent mpg and wicked power.
Thanks for that link on the Jeep Liberty. I'm liking mine pretty well. It's not the diesel version but it gets 25 mpg on the hwy, sits up high, short turning radius, peppy six cyl, and is perfect for the hill country i live and work in. Plus it matches my FReeper handle ;o)
Bought a '93 Explorer (V-6) to pull the boat with...my wife still uses it day-to-day.
The article mentioned Mustangs not selling? !!! Have a 2001 GT Mustang (V-8) for those special occasions. Know what I mean!
Day to day vehicle for me is my '89 Nissan small bed pick-up (4 cylinder). My daughter keeps wanting to wash it but I tell her that it took a long time to get that dirty.
"You sound as the one that wants everyone to adapt to your beliefs!!!!!!!!!!!! Get over it! People will choose to buy what they want...you sound like a Democrat!!!!!!!!"
People will choose to buy what they want as long as the nannies don't force the people to buy what the nannies want them to buy. My entire point has been that if you want to buy a small car, fine, buy one. But, you have to accept the consequences of that decision. You have no right to force others to buy small cars.
There have been those who prefer to buy smaller cars on this thread who have been insisting that others should be forced to buy smaller cars as well since that would reduce their risks in a crash. It is these who have been trying to force every one to adapt to their beliefs. They are the democrats.
Exactly my thought and I'd observe that the station wagon was killed by CAFE which required/allowed the car makers to game the system by building "trucks" which weren't covered by CAFE mileage standards.
Funny how the free market can jerk around a bit but eventually is the best way to let things sort themselves out rather than have the gooberment come in and "fix" things.
Those guys are a fact of life, they pay more raod tax, they have the right to use the road just like I do, but an SUV doesn't come close to blocking vision like a big panel or box truck.
Amen.
WWII gave us wage controls which led to "fringe benefits" (Medical Ins) which, over time, has led to out of the universe medical costs.
I panicked and sold my twin engine fishin' boat back in the Jimmy Carter days and lived to regret it. ;o)
I paid just a little more $12,000 for my Echo. The car is made in Japan.
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