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Originally Posted by slowmover
Your chart isn’t even half the story. It’s 20-years out of date. Keep researching. An inaccurate reflection of reality is shown. Worse than biased (the questions presupposed). A pickup-based live-axle vehicle is WORST. Can’t steer, can’t maneuver, prone to rollover. When one carefully words WHAT to match a severely narrowed question, your reading of that chart is “the answer”. (The Avalon is roughly peer to my point about sedans). There’s more and better out there.
Avoiding serious death or injury is the criterion. Not which vehicle can best take a hit.
The vehicle able to get out of its own way AT SPEED is in the first tier of choices. What are the tech specs that make that so? Look into it. (Fred Puhn)
Second are questions of curb weight & wheelbase. Able to take multiple hits. I posted above where that graph peaks for efficiency. (And don’t knock the better ride qualities). A Prius and it’s cousins can’t take more than one hit.
The Charger (Mercedes) design is that result. It isnt by any mistake or coincidence. Its Science!! (It’s also available AWD, but that kills FE).
Basic design trumps electronic bandaids. Which all SUVs are dependent upon. The physics of the thing should be obvious. 8th grade.
(FB, it’s no mistake that this chassis has the ability to put up to 700-HP to the ground. As you know, one can drop an engine like that into a Suburban, but the chances of seeing even half of that transmitted to the ground for a significant percentage of time is ridiculously small).
OP, cheap-to-run is part of low cost ownership. Do the rest of the math on all aspects. Insurance, tax, finance, depreciation and the rest. Fuel is less than half.
Length of ownership is “true” economy.
The well-designed sedan with the FE drivetrain (and fleet market) has ALWAYS been the economy choice. Long-lived, easily repaired, and low cost per mile of operation.
As before, a bad commute was your choice. How will you compound that mistake (is what you genuinely want to avoid)? Others move where opportunity exists. How many compromises can you make in the name of (whatever) before the risks outweigh feeding ego?
The fuel expense ISN'T the problem. All weather roads plus subsidized fuel have led you and many others to make decisions not warranted by better assessments of family well-being.
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You have good points, I must say. But you haven't proved or convinced me that the Charger is the safest car out there and if it's really so much safer that it's hands down the only car to buy.
- You can take fun facts and simple statistics and make any vehicle the safest vehicle out there. The Charger has a lot going for it, but there's more to it than just what car takes a better beating or is easier to maneuver. Those facts you mentioned don't prove beyond a reasonable doubt it's any safer than any other car. Maybe it does in your mind, but try telling my SUV loving brother that, and he'll tell you a million reasons why you're wrong. Where did you get your information? How can I be sure it's not biased?
- Overall total statistics are important for identifying the safer car and shows the car's safety in the real world, not just on paper. For an example, car A may get better crash test results than car B, but you still could be more likely to die in car A than car B. For an example, the Astro got terrible ratings for crashes and maneuverability and yet you were 1.5 time more likely to die in a Buick LeSabre or a Mercury Gran Marquis than an Astro back then. So are the LeSabre and Marquis safer than the Astro? In real world results they weren't.
- Then there's the question of "how much safer?" For an example, in the graph the Camry protects its drivers better than the Avalon. The Accord, Jetta and Maxima aren't that much more dangerous to the driver of the car either. And as far as protecting the vehicles' occupants goes, the Caravan did better than anything else. But is the Caravan so much safer that I should buy that over a Camry or Avalon? Last I heard a school bus was the safest form of road transportation. Should I buy one of those?
- People also have other goals and purposes in life than just safety. For an example, what if someone feels they need to "save the planet from global warming" and therefore prefer to drive a scooter or a bicycle than a car. That's their priority and shouldn't be judged for it. It doesn't mean that safety isn't important to them, or less important than other things. But you can't guarantee that you'll never die in a car accident by driving a certain vehicle, or that you'll certainly die by driving a different vehicle. You probably have more of a chance of dying from what eat or where you work than from what you drive.
I am interested in looking at the Charger and it's statistics. If twice as many people are dying in the Pri as they are in the Chargers then I'll definitely think about buying one. Still I need facts, proof, test results, statistics, not just somebody's word for it. I can't just tell my wife, "hey I decided to use our son's college fund for this gas guzzler because some guy on some forum said this was the car we should buy."
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowmover
As before, a bad commute was your choice. How will you compound that mistake (is what you genuinely want to avoid)? Others move where opportunity exists. How many compromises can you make in the name of (whatever) before the risks outweigh feeding ego?
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This is the one comment that is uncalled for. Let me tell you something. I live just a few blocks away from where I work, from the only place where I make money. In reality, with work, school, stores and everything my family needs for living within walking distance we don't even really "need" a car. But what I do, actually, what my family does is something we volunteer to do. We don't have to drive 150 miles per day, but we want to, it's our family's goal and desire, and whatever it is that we do is our family decision. And whatever it is, whether we're out saving the whales or trying to run for president or making sure Grandma takes her medicine, and whether or not you think that's important, it's our family decision and we have a right to do that.
And the same goes with time and money. I work part time so that I can have time to do what is important to us. Sure, I could be making twice or even three times what I make right now, at the same job where I work right now. But that's not my goal, and my family isn't suffering financially from my decisions. Sure, if I had kids that were malnourished, lived in a condemned home without heat or if we were only getting into more and more debt, sure, I see where I would need to check my priorities. But saying that I have to buy the absolute safest car in the whole world regardless of the cost and regardless of how that will affect our family's goals and decisions is just plain unreasonable.
Yes, it would be terrible for anyone in the family to end up dead or maimed for life from a car accident. But it would also be just as cruel to sacrifice what's important for us simply in the name of slightly decreasing our chances of getting hurt. I might as well as make sure everyone in my family uses a helmet everywhere they go and better get to work on that nuclear fallout shelter.