SUVs plunge toward 'endangered' list

Well, no surprise there. The only thing that surprised me was the same "news" agency that reported on the evils of sneaky quiet Prius cars mowing down little kids crossing the street - would now comment on this

I'm sure there are a handful of ignorant - but very vocal - folks who believe that somehow the gummint and emissions controls are causing this. No, supply and demand is causing this.

We've had a free ride for a long time. Now we get to start paying for it

 

endangered? they're so easy to find! parked in driveways, parked on dealer lots, parked on the side of the road because they ran out of gas...

it's not like they're about to disappear anytime soon, we can't un-make them.

i'd say that was a poor choice of title.

 

SUV's and trucks will still be needed for the carry capacity just as 18 wheelers will. They may no longer be the transportation of choice for a single individual with no need for the capacity. The current hype has the market saturated now with LARGE vehicles. Most have short memories. If oil takes even a slight drop many will saddle back up. Losing thousands on a SUV or Truck and buying a hybrid at MSRP and above may not be that great of a financial decision IMHO.

 

"Ford announced Thursday it was shifting production away from its longtime hallmark of pickups and SUVs in favor of smaller cars. In making the decision, Ford said it believes gas prices will remain in the range of $3.75 to $4.25 a gallon through the end of 2009."

People who own an SUV should trade them in as soon as possible. They are an investment that will only decline. No one wants to buy them, and each week, more and more of them are off-loaded. If I owned a car dealer, I would probably tell people that I don't accept SUVs for a trade in. Maybe it will lose a few customers, but I wouldn't be able to sell the SUVs. It would be a complete loss!

"SUV sales plummeted 32.8 percent" Who are the other 67.2% that are actually buying SUVs TODAY???? HUH?

 

Keep your eye on the prices of those SUV gas guzzlers, because if the bottom drops out of the speculative oil futures market, as it just might, there might be some great bargains to be had if gas prices drop by a buck a gallon.

 

I agree with you. My dad has ingrained this into my head since I was a kid. Cars are the worst investment; they only depreciate, and the ones that are old enough or rare enough to appreciate require a lot of maintenance. Although Not an investment itself, because the value of your capital/asset does not increase over time, I will redefine a vehicle as a "financial decision."

Trading in an SUV for an equal price Prius is a wise financial decision. ($460 per month in gasoline versus $125)

I just searched for used Priuses and Expeditions on Yahoo autos in my area, and I found 18 used Priuses, all asking MSRP or more. Interestingly, compared to the 18 Priuses sitting on dealer lots, in the same area there were 455 Expeditions sitting on dealer lots. Although there were some exceptions, the majority of Expeditions were approximately HALF of the original MSRP. A 1999 or 2000 Expedition could be bought for $4900. A 2003 Expedition (current body style) could be bought for $12000, and there were about a hundred to choose from.

Take home: Next time you see one of those fancy SUVs, realize that your car is LITERALLY worth more money than theirs.

 

Don't forget the attitude of some big car owners--"I can afford it"

Which always makes me wonder--if you were smart enough to have a well paying job why aren't you smarter in your car purchase? Or are you "compensating for something"? (quote by Shrek)

 

I never have worried about my cars as an investment. Being somewhat the enthusiast still, I've tended to write it off partly under the category of entertainment. This makes it amazing that I own a Prius at all. When I bought this car, it was for the full high-tech trip. The day I decided to buy mine, I looked at a new one with nav, then looked at used ones. Had there not been a used Prius with nav, I would likely be the owner of either a Pontiac GTO that I would have expected about 19mpg out of, or a VW Passat, where I could have safely expected about 30, as test drives in both cars were just a bit less than that, mainly on city streets. Similarly, my test drive in the car I bought yielded a 48 mpg average (the previous owner got only 42). The only things these cars had in common were that they were around 20 K or so, and that they interested me. Any of the three would have been bought as much for the driving experience as anything else.

I feel little sympathy for those who drive these vehicles, but, I suspect, hardly for the same reasons most people on this forum would have. Aside from the fact that I think they're of little real use to most of their owners, they were always in my way on the road, especially on off ramps. It's not my real concern that they waste gas, or are otherwise harmful to the environment. Of course, in the end, the young, single men who drive them here would be better served by a Mustang or a 350Z. Most of the families who drive them would be better served by a minivan, particularly the latest Dodge or Chrysler minivans. All of the above, while not as thrifty as a Prius, would save fuel over a Escalade or a Navigator, or the cheaper versions, for that matter, and would likely be more satisfying to their drivers.

Perhaps, as well, automotive fashions change. Once, every American car maker sold personal luxury coupes in six figure numbers annually. In 1975, if a friend invited you to go out to lunch with him in his new Chrysler, the chances were 50/50 that it would be a Cordoba, vs the entire rest of the Chrysler lineup. The Cutlass was, at one point, the top selling car in the country on the strength of the sales of Cutlass Supreme coupes. Perhaps it was time for this trend to die anyway. Like today's SUV owners, owners of these cars often took big hits when it came time to trade in. This is partially because of the late '70s to early '80s economy. But it could also have been because about that time, things like landau roofs, opera windows, and coach lamps eventually went out of style, as we went from rococo to Bauhaus in our automotive tastes. If a Chrysler Cordoba was a good example of a mid to late '70s American car, a good definition of where we were with cars in the '80s would have been a Pontiac 6000 STE, or certainly a Ford Taurus. Both of these cars were subtle, not really flashy in their design, with a definite European style, more or less.

 

where's malorn to tell us that this isn't really happening and that 20 mpg is a huge improvement over a gas-only Tahoe?

 

Just a small point, but SUV's really don't fill a 'needed' niche. Trucks, absolutely. But a truck that can also part time haul a half dozen people is a convenience item, with a pickup (perhaps extended cab) being better for hauling and a minivan or station wagon better for carrying people. The SUV didn't exist for a long time. It is an invention of marketing necessity, not really behavior necessity.

I wonder if any of the SUV's out there would make decent EV platforms? If you can slip in a full ton of lead-acid golf cart batteries you can probably give a brick a usable range. Cheap source of mediocre gliders perhaps?

 

The monster grocery getters and the huge land Yachts will make their way to the dark corners of most car lots.
They'll be left to slowly rot in driveways and backyards.

 

It's a buyers market--just like Florida condos. Make an offer at 10 cents on the dollar.

 

The car makers are discovering quickly that the car market depends wholly on the price of gas. At $4 a gallon, the market drastically changes. At least they know that much now. It's a learning process.

People don't really need SUVs. They got along without them for 80+ years. They do feel safer on the highway next to all those big trucks--which is maybe what women like about them. But around town, they are energy wasters.

 

SUV's do fill a needed niche. My department at work has two vehicles, a suburban and a F250 turbo-diesel. We use the Suburban when we need to transport people and pull a trailer. For example, we used it when we went to the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville. We use the F250 when we need to pull a 40 ft goose-neck trailer with equipment on it. Both are work vehicles and are used to transport people and equipment.

BTW, SUV's are not a recent invention. Chevy introduced the Suburban in 1936. From Edmunds.com:

Introduced way back in 1936, the Chevrolet (and GMC) Suburban was based on a commercial panel truck, but instead of having a huge, windowless cargo area there was a large passenger compartment. Basically truck-based station wagons, the early Suburbans had two doors (not counting the two-piece tailgate) and three rows of seats that seated up to eight passengers.

The use of trucks and SUV's as personal transportation is a combination of marketing and the exclusion of trucks and SUV's from CAFE regulations. The role of the SUV used to be fulfilled by full-size station wagons until they were killed off by CAFE.

 

Trucks and SUVs are NOT excluded or exempt from CAFE regulations. Light trucks (including SUVs, minivans, some vans and pickups) with a GVWR of <8500 lbs. are counted as light duty vehicles and are therefore tested for fuel economy and their results count against a manufacturer's light truck CAFE mileage. Light trucks have to meet a lower standard than the passenger cars "27.5 mpg".

Trucks like the Ford F-250 and F-350 and monstrosities like the Ford Excursion and Hummer H2 along w/some extended length large SUVs are over the 8500 lb. GVWR and therefore exempt.

Unfortunately, all trucks, light or not are exempt from the gas guzzler tax.

Regardless, I suspect that the vast majority monstrosity class SUV buyers (curb weight >5000 lbs.) couldn't give rats nice person about CAFE regulations and probably don't even know how the system works.

As for the role of the SUV being fulfilled previosuly by full-sized station wagons, that's not totally true either. Some were medium sized (think Old Cutlass Ciera or Chevy Celebrity wagons) and that niche was also partly fulfilled by minivans, which have been in steady decline.

It's distressing to see (per Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2007 - Executive Summary | Cars and Light Trucks | US EPA) that we've fallen significantly from our gas mileage peak in 1987, to see the amount of vehicle bloat and to see light truck sales having gone from 19% of vehicle sales in 1975 to 49% in 2007.