My 1997 Saturn SL1 now has 416,000+ miles on it and still gets 40 to 42 MPG.
I commute with it most of the time to save gas so I can drive my "SUV" (see below) that gets 12 MPG.
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 ...
We've been down this road before (no pun intended). SUV and low fuel mileage vehicle sales typically fall off every time gas prices go up.
As soon as the price of gas stabilizes and/or retreats to a lower level, GM, Ford and Harry's Hot Rod Shop won't be able to produce enough vehicles to meet demand.
In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy with my 3 SUV's and have no plans to downsize to a hybrid anytime soon.
I don't think he was advocating making SUVs illegal. He was just voicing his opinion on why he doesn't like them. Hell, I can't stand the really big ones, but even I don't want to see them made illegal (maybe be forced to drive in the right lane period, no passing, nothing, but not made illegal).
"As a result, people who want full-size cars have to buy SUVs."
I drive a Bonneville. I have a hard time not viewing it as a full-sized car. I guess if you're talking about the old Electra 225 land yachts, yeah, the Bonneville is small. I can fit 4 adult males with 4 sets of golf clubs in the trunk. It could hold 5 males, but 5 sets of clubs would be pushing it. How big do you really need?
What year is your Explorer?
Thank you to post 43!!! The anti-suv crowd are falling for the liberal agenda. The suv is a pickup with a top on it and an open interior! We love our suv's! My jimmy gets 20mpg and the qx4 gets 18.
Ford and GM are terrible at dealing. Nissan is very accomodating, willing to deal and 100x the vehicle. Ford is arrogant and GM will not rectify the dex-cool horror. This article is nothing but the big 3 whining.
Shame on you suv nitpickers on a conservative site!!
2002. I bought it used last year for about $15k.
SUV's are preceived safer because they are bigger. I like to think of it as a lazy person's safety. Safety for those who are too lazy to learn how to drive the damned things properly. Most SUV drivers just point the things in the general direction they want to go without regard for anyone else on the road. Simply because they are big they think they can get away with it.
I drove a new Pathfinder on work trip a couple of months ago. Great vehicle! Only problem was that it takes premium gas. Ouch!
thanks for reading way more into my own personal opinion than I said. If I were running things, SUV's would at least have a minimum gas mileage requirement, at least the same as a pickup truck. I know people can choose whatever they want. I just wish they'd chose something that would help lessen our dependancy on people who'd cut our throat the moment our back was turned.
Gee whiz, fellas...I drive a Harley-Davidson Road King. I get ~ 36 mph in town (I'm quick off the green light...I like to get to 40 mph quickly else I'd do better than that.) Plus I don't have to wait in traffic (Kalifornia allow lane-splitting) and I don't have to waste my time in traffic. I can waste it at the time and place of my own choosing. If more people drove motorcycles traffic (and the world) would be a far, FAR better place. The Road King handles great in town and also is a comfortable cross-country ride. I'll never go back to a cage.
My 1997 Saturn SL1 now has 416,000+ miles on it and still gets 40 to 42 MPG.
I commute with it most of the time to save gas so I can drive my "SUV" (see below) that gets 12 MPG.
I know of at least one fatal accident caused by blocked line-of-sight; the SUV in question suddenly changed lanes and the car behind him plowed into the vehicle stalled in the lane.
Doom and Gloom! The sky is falling! Oh, woe is me!
Nine out of every ten SUV's I see on the road are not being used to 'carry around my ten kids and 15 bags of groceries' as they like to tell us but are being used as in-town transportation by a single, solitary 5' 3" female yakking on a cell phone who can barely see over the dashboard.
That is funny, but not to the persons riding in the Geo
Metro who collide head on with my 7,000 lb. Chev Diesel truck.
Which would you rather be riding in?
Of course, you're contributing to this problem...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.