Guy selling an economy car to buy SUV!!!
 

"1997 Geo metro - $2400 (Wisconsin)

Reply to: sale-739451680@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-07-01, 3:30PM CDT


1997 Geo metro runs well and looks great. Very minor surface rust on passenger door lower cant even really see it. get almost 50MPG on highway and 32 on city streets.

2400.00 cash or best offer must sell buying SUV as I have baby coming this week or next! "


Apparently Metros aren't big enough to carry a baby!!!

YA OK:rolleyes: He's NUTS! That or he's listing to the wife. (It's not safe for MY child) SUB! (Stuck-up B***H)

Haha, I'm having twins, time for the private jet!

Haha, I'm having twins, time for the private jet!

Good one:p

Apparently he hasn't figured the cost of the new addition to the family either. By the time he buys formula and diapers he will be wishing he had the Metro. A divorce and child support would be cheaper in the long run. LMAO

I'm not sure why he'd want an SUV, but assuming he wants one or thinks he needs one, now is the time to buy. They're piling up like cord wood and dealers are getting desperate to offload them. People looking to get out from under their loan on an SUV are finding it nearly impossible to sell the things. It's an SUV-buyer's market. Same way that it's a home buyer's market. Home values go up over the long term and in the near term I don't see how SUV depreciation could get any worse. Mid-term you might make out even on a low mileage used SUV if you keep miles off it and the SUV market rebounds in a couple years.

I understand that not everyone has the money, time, patience, or mechanical inclination to maintain and operate a disposable economy car that has outlived its intended service life. I wouldn't knock him for making materials available for those of us who do.

I feel the same way; I carry a 2 year old lots of the time in the golf and Supra non issue; other than all of the people who give me a speach that I need a SUV because of the child. One of these days I'm going to go balistic an kill one of them.

In other news today: A hyper miler strangles a 27 year old woman in Suburban after she attempted to "help" him.

Although; I've purchased several cars from people in similar "situations"

1) 91 celica gts Pregnant lady "Had" to have a new Tahoe to be safe with her baby
2) Friend bought her Diesel New Beetle because previous owner got married and now "needed" an SUV.
3) 95 Honda Accord Wagon from a Salemen who couldn't sell anything in a wagon and needed a Truck.

On a Side note; a friend sells cases he says he can sell %50 better while driving his 2001 F-250 powerstroke than his car 2002 Mercury (rwd thing that I can't name right now)

SUV - Not crazy
 

Back in February we sold our 11 year old Explorer and bought a Mazda5. It's amazing how many people think they "Need" an SUV to haul kids around when station wagons and minivans are a heck of a lot more efficient. I guess it's just the image thing.

That said, a small car like a Metro is NOT appropriate for hauling kids around in and if you don't understand that, you don't have kids. It's not the kid or the bulky child seat, it's all the extra crap you have to haul, from the stroller and diaper bag and extra outfits in case there's an "accident" to the pack and play if you're going to be overnight at your parent's house, etc.

Why did we have the SUV? It was paid off 9 years ago and there's always a few weeks each year the 4WD came in handy. We put so few miles on it (50K miles when we sold it) that even with $3 gas (back then) that it made no sense to trade it in. We had our third child in April and needed something that could hold three car seats, hence the Mazda5.

I can see this trade in making a lot of sense if this person drives fairly low miles, I imagine you can probably get a loaded SUV for a less than a Civic or Corolla these days!!!! LOL

You are ??? can I watch? LOL:D

So.... my life isn't as important as some person driving a Suburban, Escalade, Tahoe, Excursion etc. If I get this right, because I have yet to have a kid means some person in an SUV can destroy myself and my civic while they talk on a cellphone and drive 80mph to hurry up and get timmy to his play-date.

Anybody ever hear of natural selection? If you need an SUV to keep your family line alive maybe you weren't intended to reproduce in the first place.

A bit harsh Blue, but I can't really disagree either. My folks did fine raising me and my sis in econoboxes and sedans... of course, my dad got mileage like an SUV but that was as close as we ever got to one. :D

But Mech is right -- now is probably the best time to get an SUV from some dealer desperate to offload them (so they can bring in next years SUV... which will then sit on the lot). I wouldn't but I can see some people going for it. Not all SUV's are hazards on the road but the amont of fuel they consume doesn't make sense to me unless people really believe gas will drop to pre-Bush Jr levels?

I wouldn't take that bet.

Canadians have the answer: get a small car and a roof rack. Yeah the roof rack will cut your mileage the 1% of the time you use it... but the rest of the time you're golden.

Here in Virginia Bch, we get a lot of visitors from Canada... whenever we see a car with a roof rack, we joke: hey there go the Canadians. Amazingly enough, we're usually right.

honestly, i think for a child a metro is not necesarily a good choice, but then again an suv isnt either, i would go for a civic though, plenty of trunk space for extra gear and easy to reach back seat (easier if you have the 4 dr) and i am sure the same is true for most current econo cars (excluding the yaris and smart car of course :P)

My buddy with a Toyota Echo has a kid and 2 dogs and is selling the echo as he picked up a 97 Honda odessey. He gets half the mileage but doesn't usually drive to far so its not a big cost for him. He did talk about fuel prices for the first time though when he drove to a friends cottage though, he was used to filling up once a month but those days are over...

My two dogs stay at home so I'm thinking of getting a small enclosed trailer when I need a bigger vehicle. Some thing like the Goldwing motorcycle riders tow but bigger and with a longer tongue so backing it up wouldn't be a chore... I might have to build one but the market for something like this must be getting bigger all the time.

I do need my unsporty utility vehicle for its true 4x4 low range capability with a ladder frame (snow plowing) and I think I've got the most efficient one available but its still not very efficient compared to similar sized cars...

Ian

It seems that most of the members of this forum have a true hate for people who own or drive SUVs. I think it's more of them semi-anonymously venting their feelings to people on this forum. Why not go out and protest to people who live in any house that is larger than 1000sqft as this is all a person really needs to live in, the rest is a luxury.

My wife and I used to try to figure out why people liked SUVs until the day she was hit by a drunk driver. She was in our little economy Nissan Sentra XE and the other driver was in a early 90's Honda Accord. My wife suffered severe damage to her L4 and L5 disks. It took three years of surgery and physical therapy before she could even remotely get back to the way she was before. Her neurosurgeon told us to either get a much larger vehicle or the next thing she picks out would be a wheel chair. We tried a Toyota Camry wagon but, she was always afraid of getting in another wreck. I found our 2WD Suburban on ebay in early 2001. It's been paid off for four years now and we dread the day we have to get rid of it.

I would ask that all the people in this forum not be so judgmental to people in these things until they truly understand what is keeping many SUV drivers attached to their trucks. I think your time would be better spent resolving fears people have, making them drive a larger and safer vehicle. It's much easier for some of you to slam a Suburban driver than to go slam someone at a local bar when they get in their car inebriated. Get the drunks off the road and I will crush my Suburban!!!

Maybe you provide some examples to support your position.

I went back and read my post; what I get out of it is I have a hate (strong choice of words) for people who think that they are helping me by attempting to harass me in to purchase a vehicle over 6000lbs. And that I attempt to make the best of people who have decided to think that well.

"One of these days I'm going to go balistic an kill one of them."


Your words, not mine.

I feel as though that is slightly "out of context" given your position me / the group hating SUV drivers. My comment was regarding SUV drivers who try and push an SUV on me because I have a child.

Equivalent Example:

Disliking X Religion

Vs.

Disliking a Member of X religion who knocks on your door at 6:30 am on Saturday.

My problem isn't that they drive them, it's that (on that particular day) a late 80's Surburban driver used profane Language in front of a child indicating that I was going to "murder my child" and "should go straight to hell for driving such a small car". I would have better understood if it was in the midst of a discussion, but in Passing I had a real issue with it. I am certain that she left thinking that she had "helped me".

( I know I should have included this info in the original post)

I don't think I ever said I hated SUVs.

*quick check on post*

Nope. Some ad hoc humor at my upbringing and the mentality of car dealers trying to sell something tomorrow that isn't selling today. Besides, I can't hate all SUV drivers... that would mean I'd have to hate half of my relatives. :thumbup:

Plus I've been helping my sister get better on squeezing the juice from her highlander. :D

I Feel the same way; However I did say it, but I meant it as a joke, see the next line of my post.

I know I've saved more fuel in other peoples SUV's than I use, primary by inflating tires and talking 2 Expedition owners out of 50wt oil. Do I wish that they would drive a smaller, safer vehicle, YES, do I tell them that, No.

It's not every person on this forum, just a few, not all of them are in this post.

As for the original post about someone selling their metro to get an SUV, who could really blame them? Which do you think has a survivability rate when involved in the same type of accident? A metro or SUV. Although it really doesn't say what kind. It could be a new tahoe that beats the camry for city mileage.

I know over on SUV.com there are many owners who total their suburbans and turn around and buy another one. There was one poster who put up pics of a wreck where his 2500 suburban was t-boned @ 55mph by an f150. the Truck driver ran a red light and didn't survive but, the posters wife and three kids walked away. Sometimes it's things like that which put driving a smaller, outdated (safety) car into perspective.

My take is that if it doesn't have airbags, I don't need to be driving it. It's more of safety technology that goes into the design of cars produced in recent years. Is it really worth a few mpgs? I have obtained very good mileage with my suburban and really don't fit into the stereotype of "SUV driver" like so many people portray. Does anybody here know what other GM platforms have interchangeable parts with a 2wd suburban?

If you look at pure efficiency, we are all hypocrites for even driving a vehicle. Unless it's charged by solar energy, we have room to improve.

Could you please provide SOME insight in to a Tahoe Getting better citty mpg than a Camry. I tried a worse case Camry vs Best Case Tahoe, and th Camry still won by 5 MPG.

Do you think that just because you say it up it makes it true?

http://www.chevrolet.com/hybrid/articles/index.jsp?id=6

Google is your friend;)

21, 22 MPG is "good"? Where? My Sherman tank used to get this "good"....:eek:

Perhaps your sherman tank didn't have to pass emissions? It takes more fuel to get cars to burn cleaner in the US. People always forget that when looking back at mileage they used to get in "X" car. Bring that car in to a testing station today and they would be in for a surprise.

You are correct, of course. My "older" cars got better mileage than my newer cars DID ( they have since been MODified). The point I was attempting to make was ... it shouldn't take more gas to "clean up" the combustion of gasoline.
Efficiency is the name of this combustion game. If 100% efficiency is achieved, we still are left with a CO2 by-product of this combustion process...as well as the heat of combustion forming NOx ( similar to lightning forming NOx). CO is an indicator / measure of incomplete combustion, as is unburned HC.
This CO2 is a tough nut to crack. I am proposing C & O2, even though connected by a double bond, are both "re-combustable". C is carbon ( coal is C) and O2 supports combustion. It's the double bond which creates a "difficulty". :cool:

i call bs on that, besides my 98 taco have a 07 camry se i4 and a 06 tc.
the camry has the 18 inch trd wheels, with wider tires and my worst tank to date was 25 mpg. my to day best is 33 mpg, i do not hypermile this car i drive the hell out of it.

but yeah:thumbup:

This thread is a little more emotionally "hot" than I would normally post on, but I could not resist.

I think that everyone has choices to make and individual concerns and tastes to consider. I feel that it is my patriotic duty to get the best FE I possibly can. Think about how much of our gas money ends up in the middle east and how little they like us and you will understand that point.

That being said I must admit that my wife and child only ride in the Buick. They do not ride in my Metro, nor do I have any intention of them doing so. I do, however, mod my wife's Buick to get the max FE possible.

I happen to love the Highlander Hybrid. In fact, I'm trying to encourage the New England Collage Dept of Campus Safety to ask for a grant so that we can replace our Fix-or-repair-daily Excursion cruiser with a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Yes, an SUV really does make sense for our safety department. The variety of duties and weather that we deal with make an SUV very convenient.

Just to start off, I don't have any agenda behind this post, I do not have stock with the Honda Motor Corp. or any other company, and I'm not insisting on everyone running out and buying a new smaller car. I just wanted to post this info here, as I felt it's relevent to the discussion of SUVs vs. compact cars. Earlier this year I wrote a report for my college on how I feel SUVs should be banned from the roadways. I don't have all my sources still listed, but this info is still fresh in my head. If you don't believe me, or want clarification I can try to find my paper and find my sources, but most of this is common sense, or can be found by a simple Google search :p So here goes...

For those of you debating the SUV vs. Econobox safety issues, there are several key points you're all overlooking or not mentioning. First of all, most of the fatal accidents that occur involving motor vehicles are single car collisions (ie. skidding off the road into a ditch, hitting a tree, telephone post, etc) where having a 6000lb chunk of metal around you is not going to do any more help than a 3000lb chunk would. More so, most of the single car collisions are involving SUVs. Their large mass, high center of gravity, large tires, and poor overall design (when compared to cars or vans) all lead to being less able to stop before, manuver away from, or otherwise avoid a crash, and are therefore more susceptible to the laws of physics than safety features can provide. The next most common collision is the rear or side impact, where once again, having the ability to manuever or avoid an impact is severely reduced by driving an SUV. The least common of all accidents is the head-on crash, yet this is the reason most people buy large vehicles. Taking two objects of different masses, and smacking them into each other will result in the smaller object taking more damage than the larger object, but then again, the head-on crash is a very rare occurrence, and usually takes place at lower speeds, not highway speeds.

The most dangerous part of driving an SUV, however, isn't the clumsiness of it's handling or it's inability to avoid a collision, it's the high center of gravity that leads to rollover accidents. As I mentioned before, the most common collision is a single car crash, and when a vehicle goes off the side of the road, it has a high risk of rolling over. This is usually where most injuries and deaths occur in automotive collisions. Most cars and vans are lower to the ground and provide a lower center of gravity compared to SUVs. That means that a car or van involved in a single car collision is less likely to roll, and safer for the occupants. I can't say this as a fact though, as there are way too many variables with modern automotive engineering and safety equipment. We don't have the same designs of the 50s and 60s where more car = safety. That's why you can see so many different results from crash testing. However, a particular car that has similar design standards to a particular SUV (ie not 2007 Mercedes SUV vs. 1994 Chevy Cavalier) will be safer in a single car collision, and rollover avoidance.

Over the years, as the popularity of SUVs has increased (most notably in the 90s and more recently) and more SUVs have taken to the roadways, the number of automotive related fatalities has increased in a similar fashion. More SUVs = more deaths.

-More than four in ten Americans think they are safer in a sport utility vehicle (SUV) than in a regular car. (National Consumer Survey, Opinion Research Corporation, January 2005)
-In 2006 SUVs had the highest occupant fatality rate of any vehicle type in rollover crashes at 7.77 per 100,000 registered vehicles. This compares with 6.98 for pickup trucks, 3.10 for vans and 3.18 for passenger cars. (Insurance Information Institute)
-8,062 SUV occupants died in 2006. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute)
Increase In SUV Rollover Deaths Prompts Call for Passage of Safety Provisions
SUV Deaths Up, Other Highway Deaths Down
(check out the National Highway Traffic Safety Association's website, and check out some of their reports. Namely "2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment -- Highlights" and
Latest Releases | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA) | U.S. Department of Transportation


Now that I'm through with my babbling, and I'm going to step down from my soapbox:D I'd like to include a personal note. I've crashed two cars in the past 3 years, a 2005 Chevrolet Maibu, and a 2004 Prius. I walked away from both accidents, and both times the cars were claimed as totaled. If I had been driving an SUV where I totaled my Malibu, I know I would have wound up in the hospital, there's no question about it. I was beaten up pretty bad, but it would have rolled for sure (and this spot is definatly not a place you would want to roll a vehicle :)). When I crashed the Prius it actually rolled 3 times, but it's only because the car was sliding perfectly sideways before it even left the road, and the way the ditch was shaped made it flip over. Surprisingly though, the rollover felt rather smooth, and wasn't as scary as I thought rolling a car would be. I know had I been driving an SUV, with how large and boxy they are, the roll would have been much more violent and I don't think my fiance or I would have walked away from it. I now drive a Honda Civic day-to-day. My mother has an Explorer, and my brother just bought a Cadillac Escalade, and I don't feel safe whatsoever driving either one of them.

Hey Twerp, here's a couple articles I had come across when I was researching my report on the benefits of making it mandatory to have all law enforcement vehicles be hybrids ;) And like it says in the article, they use the Prius the exact same as they would any other patrol vehicle, and it's here in beautiful IL... and we all know Chicagoland is famous for our nice MILD winters:thumbup:

Hybrid vehicles serve as workhorse for NIU police
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09...lowing-review/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...eencops28.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/au...l/25fleet.html


**Oh, and I'm sure you meant "College Dept", not Collage, right? ;) That would be something completely different.... unless they have a lot of spare time, and found a hobby to fill that time :p

Thank you very much for the research. ...And yeah, I must have slipped and hit the "a" key instead of the "e" key... either that or I'm doing some cool stuff with scissors and paste...