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 ...
The mileage on SUVs is bad, but if one has the wherewithall to pay for the gas, go for it!
I do find that your daughter's Element with only 25 MPG isn't much of a fuel miser-but it's not a hog either. I have a 318 CUIN Dodge Ram that will get 20 MPG on the highway and I had to get a "go-to-work" car that has about 34 MPG because I drive over 100 miles every day.
I do find it ironic that I see housewives out in 4000-6000 lb behemoths with 10-12 MPG, 4 wheel drive, all the off roadability stuff, and the only time their tires have been off the road is when they back over the grass off the driveway at home...god bless em!
I bought a small car with good gas mileage. The money I save I can put towards somebody else doing the home improvement projects that require a truck. Or I can rent a Home Depot truck for 19 bucks. Either way I don't need a gas guzzler.
Its quite amazing how threatened people feel by the Prius. I got into an extremely nasty flame war a couple of years ago on a Prius thread, where I said they were neat, and that it made sense for Americans to use less gas if possible. I was immediately accused of trying to ban SUVs.
"People who PAY THEIR OWN WAY with money they earn can spend it on anything legal. "
Ding, ding, ding! Winner. We have the first indignant SUV owner post. It is your right. It's also my, and other's rights to see people who buy an SUV simply for the status as being selfish, and not thoughtful.
Read an earlier post... the SUV gas consumption causes us to be more reliant on Saudi oil.
How do you reconcile selfish wants versus the security of our country?
My wife and I have an '02 as well. I know the ride in the '02 is 100 times better than '00 we had previously, but have never driven an Outback to compare it.
I agree with you. In CO some Democrats have been writing a bill to require kids up to 12 to be in a car seat. Nothing has come of it....yet. These people are obsessed with safety of everyone else. It's a pet peeve of mine.
Also, if the Prius and other hybrids really start selling in huge quantities, the added load on our mostly-coal-powered power plants will likely mean added cost for the required expansion of local power plants and added pollution.
An employee of one of my clients just got a super deal on a 05 Jeep Laredo. I think he said the 06's come out this summer and they had a bunch of 05's still on the lot and they were wanting to get rid of them.
We have a Tahoe, and I love it more than any vehicle we've ever owned. If gas prices stay as high as they are (currently about $2.29 in Phoenix), I wouldn't mind a smaller SUV/minivan, also, for short, in-town errands, but we travel quite a bit and love the comfortable ride and leg room.
I have a regular Legacy, not an Outback. The Legacy sits closer to the ground. It's pretty much like any small car except it doesn't lose traction. I only have it because I live in a steep hill and we get snow.
We are not reliant on Saudi Oil because of suv's. What a moron liberal suckup you are.
I don't much care for cars. I have three adults driving and fourth real soon. Cars are becoming a necessity.
Marketing departments have evolved to. Have you noticed everything has to be "cool"?
Also, station wagons were simply longer cars. They fit into traffic well, they got decent milage, and were as easy to drive as a car. I can't tell you the number of laughs I've gotten trying to watch some little soccer mom try to park her oversized SUV.
Before there were "soccer moms", you know the original mom, they also had a difficult time parking those long station wagons. Some of those 60's wagons where pretty big. Take a look at the 30's station wagons. Fuel mileage was also low in comparison to other vehicles of the time. Call it what you want, station wagon or SUV, it's just marketing.
And, frankly, it's not for you or anyone else to decide what someone else "needs."
As for me, I don't drive a full size car or an SUV (although I am considering a Jeep Liberty CRD at some point). But for some people, they are obviously useful.
I have a theory that the size of the vehicle is inversely proportional to the size of the driver. Not only do you have diminutive women driving monstrously-huge SUVs, you'll find those dinky little Ford Fiestas usually have some 900 pound man behind the wheel...
I don't like them, personally, but let's be accurate.
"I will buy the vehicle best suited for me and my family, and no one should be able to tell me I can't"
Somewhat inaccurate. If I determine that a Sherman tank, (minus the ability to fire weaponry), is the right vehicle for me am I allowed to drive it on PUBLIC roads? The answer is No. Driving, and the ability to use the public roads in America is a privilege, not a right.
Therefore, the government can and does regulate what can be driven on the roads today.
SUVs are currently an option. As with most things in a society, when the option is abused, usually the option is removed.
Simple paranoia on their part...
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