Mission Impossible: Taming the Giants (Excursion/Hummer modding)

[mopo3]

I think what he is saying is that per gallon each person gets 20miles but since they are all using the same gallon it is 20(7)=140 where as if they each were driving separate cars at 20miles a gallon then they would be using different gallons so it is 20(1)=20. All it means is that if fewer vehicles are used to move the same number of people then the vehicles MPG wont matter so much because it will be more efficient than all those people taking there own vehicles.

[lovemysan]

Originally Posted by WTFM8

Fair enough, but I can think of quite a few pairs of vehicles that can do more with the same gas consumption and total weight.

Sure, 2 saturns could carry people around and burn less gas. But then I can't pull any one of his 3 trailers. I can't take water to the back pasture(rotational grazing). I can't sit 5 passengers comfortably for a trip over 2 hours. You should try to wedge yourself in the back seat of a saturn for 10-12hours with the bolster of a carseat stuck in your ribs. These people use 1 vehicle to do everything. They average 18 mpg in mixed driving.

Its not about commuting. For some people its about utility. My response was to the comment that a suburban or hypermiling a suburban was "pointless". Unfortunately a compact car simply won't work for everyone.

[elhigh]

This is what soothes my fevered brow when I drive my Forester. It only gets 28mpg - a big improvement over just a few months ago, now that the wife is hypermiling too - but we carpool to work, so most of our drive is 50+MMPG (man-miles per gallon).

[WTFM8]

Originally Posted by elhigh

This is what soothes my fevered brow when I drive my Forester. It only gets 28mpg - a big improvement over just a few months ago, now that the wife is hypermiling too - but we carpool to work, so most of our drive is 50+MMPG (man-miles per gallon).

Man-miles per gallon: this is the term I was searching for. Very nice.

[Chris D.]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

There seems to be an irrational pull to make something be something else that it isn't. Trucks aren't economy cars or sports cars. They are build to haul and pull. If you are hauling and/or pulling, use a truck. If you want to go fast, sports cars are designed for that, why not use a sports car? If you can serve your transport needs with an economical vehicle, there really isn't a good reason not to choose one in the first place.

But if you have no other choice than to have a truck, when your not using it you can observe hypermiling techniques insted of simply saying **** it like so many others do..

I dont haul or tow with my truck at all times either, its no hummer or fullsize, its a 4 banger.. It gets used as a truck when it needs to and when I'm commuting with it, I hypermile to get the most out of it..

Frank, your right on so many levels tho about the huge monstrocities and single driver ego crap.. As a whole, this nation wastes so much that it comes off as cocky to other countries.. One thing I think makes the US despised so much by others..

[ankit]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I have no opposition to the existance of trucks, and the use of trucks as trucks. Many people driving V8 or V10 powered monstrosities probably could fulfill their trucking needs with a taco like yours.

QFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In addition, many people driving guzzlers, could fulfill their driving needs with a family sedan.

Especially if the guzzler is a 5 passenger vehicle. Trunks and seating space is plentiful in new cars.

[dremd]

Sometimes I think that there should be an application process for large vehicles.

I amazed an F-250 Long Bed Crew Cab owner with the Golf yesterday. He wanted to drive back to his house, then back to the feed store to buy 10 "bales" or wood chips. I just folded down the seats and loaded the golf up with them. I was contemplating on the way home weather the golf had hauled more over it's life span, or the F-250?

On a side note, there must be something wrong with that truck, he gets 12~13 mpg (powerstroke, 2wd auto).

My dad has the E-350, if he drives it it is FULL Internally, + 2 sets of roof racks + Roof box + Rear Carrier. I'm not sure how to rate load mpg's but I'd guess he does decent (but I keep trying t get him to buy a sprinter anyways).

[elhigh]

Originally Posted by dremd

I just folded down the seats and loaded the golf up with them. I was contemplating on the way home weather the golf had hauled more over it's life span, or the F-250?

My dad has the E-350, if he drives it it is FULL Internally, + 2 sets of roof racks + Roof box + Rear Carrier. I'm not sure how to rate load mpg's but I'd guess he does decent (but I keep trying t get him to buy a sprinter anyways).

In the 70's we had a SAAB 96, a two-door sedan. It had a rear seat that folded and tumbled to make a flat load floor. Whenever the Scouts did their paper drive, there were three dads with trucks and us with the SAAB. The SAAB couldn't quite match the trucks, but it sure shocked the heck out of everyone who had to keep helping unload it, and unload it, and unload it some more. Surprisingly roomy in there.

When we were shopping for our truck, we weighed the options: lightly used fullsize, or new compact? We're still driving the compact. It is more than equal to our needs, and when we don't need a big truck, it gets decent mileage as a car, esp. carrying two people.

Another factor people don't consider is the energy bound up in making the car in the first place. It takes megawatt-hours and lots of them to make that thing: there's sheet steel, cast iron, cast aluminum, about 40-50 kilos of glass, rubber - all these things take a lot of energy to wrestle out of the ground, reduce to useable forms, then form into usable constructs. If you're going to invest in that, make the investment last. Drive it 'til it falls over.

[mnielsen1]

Originally Posted by tasdrouille

Those vehicles shouldn't even exist. There is nothing to justify their existence except the ego of their owners.

Well, that and the fact that I have a family of five, and live in the mountains where it snows 6-7 months out of the year.

[mnielsen1]

Originally Posted by bhazard

^^^ Im with those guys. Sorry.

I could MAYBE see the excursion as a tow rig that can also haul people/cargo. But thats it. I despise people that daily drive those sorts of vehicles.

Well, despise all you want, but with a family of five, living in the mountains where it snows 6-7 months out of the year, with hockey, ballet, scouts equipment, paintball groceries and all the other stuff we have to fit in to a day...I have never once gotten stuck. And even with the sizeable pricetag to fill it up, the tank lasts the entire month at the bare minimum.