Trucks & SUVs
 

I went to a crafts show this past weekend and being a bit bored I waited outside for the wife to finish. I started counting vehicles in the lot. Out of 9 vehicles in a partial row, two were "cars" (e.g. sedans, coupes). Out of 25 vehicles in a full row, two were "cars". Out of another partial row of seven vehicles, three were "cars". Generally, looking out over the whole lot, this is representative of what I saw. The rest were trucks (up to 3500 HD duelly and one over-the-road tractor) and SUVs.

That's about 17% cars in a lot full of vehicles. Guess people aren't worried about gas yet. This is the Gulf Coast of Texas.

That sounds like here. In the military areas, with lots of single guys and steady paychecks, you will find lifted trucks, SUV's, kids with F250/350 diesels and no real reason for them. Granted, it's their paycheck, but they could save a lot by not spending $1,000's on lift kits, stacks, tires, wheels, superchargers, etc just to commute.

If only I wasn't what I just described when I was a junior enlisted person, I'd have a nice retirement fund.

It's not even saving money. I mean, if I were inclined to spend that much on a vehicle, it'd be a Lotus, Porsche, or even a Miata.

Lol everything is bigger in Texas.

Three or four years ago, that is about the same ratio I saw around here. I would be sitting in line at a stop sign, and out of the ~30 vehicles in the line, only 4 or 5 or so were cars, and the rest where minivans, SUV's and pickups. Now there are a lot more CUV's (compact/crossover utility vehicles) and a lot more cars. The largest SUV's are now few and far between - maybe 1 out of 20 or 30, and one can actually see around most of the vehicles at intersections.

I am not speaking on the average of unneeded huge vehicles, but if I am going to a craft show or something like that, I don't take the Mustang or Insight, I take our Escape.

Not saying these are all fuel conscience people, just that it may not be fair to evaluate a % at a craft show, home supply store, so on. When I get supplies I do take the Insight unless it's too heavy/big, then the Escape- since the Mustang doesn't have the ability anymore.

Heck, on Black Friday the TV I bought wouldn't fit in the Mustang, so it sat at the store until the next day.

Tried... Some of us tall *******s don't fit in them little sports cars... or big sports cars for that matter :D
Mind you... I won't fit in any make/model/size pickup with a sunroof either...

Different people spend (or don't spend) their money on what they want... and in all fairness, I'd take my KLR to the craft fair and have someone else cart home their "eclectic purchase..."

You can spend your money however you want, after all, it is your money.

I think the point was, how many trucks and SUVs are owned by people that don't need them for what they are able to do? Sure, a Suburban has lots of room, but if you don't need a full size SUV/truck to pull your boat or camper, why spend the money on it? A minivan will hold a lot too, get better gas mileage and probably cost less to purchase. But, it's all about how a person wants to spend their money. I can tell you for a fact that people in my area often buy 4x4 pick ups to commute. They don't own boats, campers, or trailers. They "need" trucks because they own houses and claim to be buying sheets of plywood (How often do homeowners need plywood??). Or they "need" a truck to haul their one or two kids around. They "need" four wheel drive because it snows in their area, but don't realize a front wheel drive car with good tires is almost just as good in the snow as a four wheel drive (At least in most of the US). After all, the four wheel drive is only good for accelerating. It does nothing for stopping.

I used to be someone who "needed" a truck. I regret owning three different trucks and an SUV. I wish I had bought an economical car way back when and paid it off. Those $300-500 payments I have lived with for the past 14 years would have made for really nice IRA contributions.

I am not picking on you since you own a truck, I am just throwing my thoughts :).

;) Hard to see, but under the hay are 3x 50-lb feed sacks.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1392318384

I've also hauled a MASSIVE full-grown 250 lb potbelly pig (in a plywood crate). It took three grown men to load it. Another time I carried three grown sheep together in the same crate.

A coworker drives a truck with a trailer hitch on it that's still factory shiny. He's never towed anything in ~4 years.

I almost bought a Fit. When we decided to get rid of our beloved 2006 Hemi Durango 4x4, we test drove a Fit. My wife said she bounced around a little in the back seat, but it wasn't too bad. We decided on the Mazda5 as a Durango replacement. We needed something that could hold two kids, luggage and my 70lb dog for our trips to NJ five hours away. The Fit was big enough to hold Duke, but not with luggage.

The Mazda5 has been saving us a lot of gas money and holds plenty of stuff, while getting an average of 25 mpg. Not bad for an automatic that seats six.

You can eliminate or minimize that variable by doing the survey at an employer's parking lot- should be mainly commuters- or a restaurant parking lot, or even just counting vehicles out on the road or in my case, the constant ******* parade on the street in front of my house that I thought was a residential area (guess it's a thoroughfare :mad: ). I think the ratios will be so similar it doesn't really matter where you survey.

Gas is cheap and people will spend their money the way they want, right? Won't stop 'em from whining about the cost of everything; won't stop 'em from lining their suvs and trucks up in front of the food shelves because by golly they have to feed their trucks first; won't stop 'em from losing their homes to foreclosure either cuz ya gotsta have your priorities. :rolleyes:

So the moral of the story is, if you drive a truck or SUV and your home forecloses it is because you chose to drive a truck. Wow! Don;t know what to say to that :rolleyes:

Hi
where i live in very far north of scotland has many crofts and winter usually brings lots of rain and icey roads so 4wd are very prominate. suv and saloon/estate cars fitted with 4wd. subaru legacys audi quttro saloons etc. front wheel drive is mainly found in towns as view up here is keep going no what the weather throws at you floods blizzards 4ft of snow and strong winds. go to nearest city 120miles away and it is filled with normal cars. Shows that people buy cars here to do what they need. i mudt be the only oddball in 10000 square miles. i drive a motorhome to commute in. dont ask but has attrated lots of postive comments. have had offers from friends to rent it for weekend trips. could start to earn money from it.

I don't think it is money.

I think it the desire to show you have money more than anything else.

As an example A-Junior went to a state "primary" school until aged 10 here. It is in a "nice" area and at school events the car park would be full of brand new, top of the range Range Rovers, BMW X-5s etc. - more of less £30-40K ($50-65k) each. A couple of families would always turn up in a Maserati once or twice and one guy insisted on driving his Ferrari alone and having the family join him in their Range Rover.

We moved A-Junior to a fee paying school at age 11 for various reasons - and no we are not rich we are just spending less on other stuff...

You would think that this would mean given the fees and the profile that even fancier cars would be present at school events ?

Nope. Honda Jazz (aka Fit), Civics, Audi A4s, Mondeos etc. - more or less cars in the £10-20K range. Some (like me) running older mercs and Audis too.

The parents are more interesting too.

Mr Ferrari at A-jnrs old school was a car salesman. So yeah, cars, expensive cars... :rolleyes:

The guy in the 8 year old Subaru Forrester I got talking too one evening at the new school is head of security for an international charity. Another (in a £12K second-hand Freelander) is a director for a worldwide biotech leader and his wife (no car) is involved in a worldwide charity at a high level.

No need to show off though, none of them. :cool:

There are many brand-new pickup/suv owners around here that live in apartments or mobile homes (I snicker to myself every time I walk past the crappy apartments where some chick has her $60,000 Escalade parked outside). It does not tax the imagination at all to see their truck costs more than their place to live. Then there are those who are in such a position as to lose their homes that also MUST put on airs and have that new truck too. Priorities...

A friend of mine lives across the street from the Food Shelf. You'd think the clients would show up on foot, bicycle, or beater car, right? Because they are in such dire straits they can't get their own food... right? Wrong. The parking in front of the Food Shelf is taken up with ginormous pickups and SUVs, most of them quite new. Go figure. :rolleyes: And the clients... well let's just say, they don't LOOK malnourished. :eek:

If someone chooses to drive a truck or SUV when they don't really need it, the truck/SUV is probably just one of many bad financial decisions.

If only it were that black and white...

In Calgary, probably around 80% could drive something much smaller and efficient. But then again... we have a pretty decent public transit system so in reality 60% of people here could probably get away with not commuting at all.

The same could be said for sports car owners who do the speed limit, Prius/Smart car owners who do 85mph, couples who take out a 35 year morgage on a $500'000 house while barely being able to scrap the payments together every month...

My needs don't justify me owning my truck, I could have kept my last car... My needs also don't justify me owning two motorcycles, do I really need to be on those rolling deathtraps?... My needs don't justify me living 30kms away from work, if I wanted to I could live within 10 blocks. I don't need to hit up Starbucks 3 times a week, either... :thumbup:

I'd like to think that most people are smart enough to realize the financial position they're in... but lets face it, not everyone thinks that way. I am in good standing! :)

But hey, if some people end up over their head, that's their problem not mine! Good luck to them!

Been lurking here for the past 6 months and have learned a great deal. Probably the best site for common sense fuel savings I have discovered. Even better is the suggestions do work!

I have a 1999 F150 with the 4.6 engine which many say is not a real fuel efficient motor but it is paid for and runs very well. Six months ago I started making small changes. One big thing was I had only used the trailer hitch once in 150 K miles. It was removed in less than 10 minutes and there went about 60 pounds. Seems trailer hitches are a big factory addition that many of us seldom if ever use. I believe more people would remove the trailer hitch if they knew it would save them fuel just by removing 8 bolts.

Goldenstate

My next truck is going to be a Ram ecodiesel, as long as they turn out to be reliable. I am also going to wait until the price comes down under $20k. I might be waiting a while.

Again, I wasn't trying to pick on you. You have the right to make your own choices. if you love driving your truck, that's all that matters.

*Ah I see thank you for straightening this out. I guess people who drive sensible cars never lose their homes to bad desicions and must really need the food more than the lady in the escalade as it's ok to be poor if you don;t have nice things. I now see that people who drive anything not 'acceptable' or frugal enough is a very evil person indeed and it seems they deserve what they get as long as it's bad.

*Denotes use of sarcasm.

Not here apparantly lol.

We all have our opinions, hence the reason this forum is interesting!

I think the points that were made thus far were valid, though not in every single case. I live in an area with low income, and while not all cars are too expensive for their owners, there are plenty of examples. Some specific examples would include large aftermarket wheels on SUV's, lifted Caprices with 28 or 30's, whatever size wheel they are up to now. Yes, there are some expensive cars parked in the section eight housing. Now, not all of them, but enough to make one wonder.

The main point of this thread is that Americans (and some Canadians?) drive what they want to drive and sometimes that can be a waste of gas and money. But, we have that right.

*Yes, it's too bad something so simple even needs to be explained.

*Denotes truth.

Sure, I think we all understand that. The interesting question, at least to me, is WHY they want what they choose to spend their money on.

As for the rest... Well, I have a 4WD pickup. '88 Toyota: hauls hay, feed, firewood, takes me & the dogs out on roads where Jeeps get stuck. Cost me $2800.

That's a miss.

I agree with this. I do see the points Lee was trying to make as well, it just got lost in fallacy.

Good for you. I think you want a pat on the back or something? Who cares that you cannot fathom that different people may have different tastes or requirements than you.

Different strokes for different folks. Don't be so hasty to judge.

I think you have a valid reason to own a truck and you picked a used truck at that. Used trucks save lots of money, plus you won't feel as bad if it gets bashed up in the woods or scratched loading firewood.

No one is arguing a valid need for a truck. If one uses a truck as a truck often, then no one can judge. But, the reasons some consider valid are not what others would consider valid. An example, someone needs a truck to hunt, but doesn't use any other abilities of the truck for the rest of the year. I took my Honda Civic hunting. Granted, I had to be careful on the dirt roads when they got wet and I would have had to get creative getting the deer in there, but since I only went hunting for a few months out of the year, it didn't make sense to own a truck. Now, Eastern Virginia deer are pretty small, so throwing one in the trunk would have been easy. If I had been hunting Iowa deer, I would need to reevaluate my hunting transportation.

Well, this turned into an interesting thread. The suggestion to do the informal survey at a business parking lot is a good one. The people at the crafts fair probably don't represent commuters. We have a lot of "winter Texans" down here and they arrive pulling their fifth wheels and trailers, which require larger and heavier vehicles. I'd bet that they even have a smaller car at home waiting for them. The only one I couldn't fully understand was the over-the-road tractor that someone drove to the crafts fair. This wasn't a 450 or 650 Ford, but a true tractor (didn't get the make).

Yes people will spend the money they have on what they want. Best example was what appeared to be a $1M+ bus motor home with a Jaguar as their tow vehicle...:) seen last summer driving through town.

Love the Nebraska signature...Luckily I've never had hallucinations while driving to visit the relatives.

Joggernot

HA! I'd love to see a Jag pulling a bus! :p

I had 3 does in the trunk of the cobalt in December, first 2 I got them in & out before they got stiff, the 3rd one was stiff before I put it in, took a little more work.

I could probably squeeze two big does in my trunk, with the tree stand in the back seat. I don't know about a buck with a decent rack, that'd be tough.

I did better in Iowa winters in my SRT-4 with snow tires than I did with my 05 4x4 Ram with Nitto Terra Grapplers. Half the vehicles in the ditch were trucks during the bad storms. I always thought that was funny since people assume 4x4 is so much better. It's not better if you can't follow the basics of driving in snow...

Well, I guess I misworded that one!!

Went for my daily constitutional (the walking one, not the other one :rolleyes: ) and it occurred to me part of the way to my destination to take a traffic survey of the vehicles passing me. I made two classifications, cars and others which was all pickups, minivans, and SUVs.

First leg saw 90 trucks and 57 cars = 39% cars. Second leg saw 110 trucks/55 cars for exactly 2:1 when I stopped counting, because that leg had been running pretty much 2:1 the entire time.

Perhaps if I do another survey before nightfall I can count how many zombie drivers have phones stuck to their heads.

Frank has a very good observation on the ratio of trucks to cars on the roads. I just completed a 5000 mile road trip from Ca to Indiana and return in 8 days. During that time I had plenty of chance to see what America is driving. Almost never saw a Prius outside of a major city. Did see one on an auto hauler in the middle of Wyoming. Many times all that was in view outside of major cities was big OTR trucks and standard size pickups. More interesting was the increasing number of big OTR trucks with aerodynamic tractors. The amount of trailers with aero skirts underneath was about 50 percent.

In all cases, no matter where we were, the use of cell phones while driving was alive and well. Signs in all states claimed it was against the law to drive and use a cell phone, but we live in a society where risk taking seems to be acceptable at 75 or 80 MPH.

Whyever not? You are - hasty to judge, that is.

Now about those requirements... One of those shiny new trucks might cost say $30K (more, with the interest on the loans most of their buyers have to take out). So my $2800 Toyota can do anything the new truck can, I don't worry about scratching it or getting the bed dirty, and - remember we were discussing house payments? - I can make my house payments for over two years on what they spent on the fancy truck. So assuming similar income &c, which one of us is going to be the first to lose his house and go looking for a taxpayer-funded bailout?

No house payments, haven't paid interest in decades unless it was to finance the construction of a new home, which I built myself, even drew up the plans myself, and made $100 per hour.

Just replaced the original timing belt on the Ranger as well as the serpentine belt and idler pulleys, at 130k miles. I paid $1650 for it a year and a half ago. 300 miles since 1/8/14. A third of that today.

Bike insurance bill came in today. less than $100 a year. I like my ugly, faded, dented up and beat out truck. My fashion statement is "This is all I want to risk driving around with all of you idiots". Go ahead make me a new dent, I'll collect the money, bang it out myself, and if the estimate is high enough, might even get it painted, ON YOUR DIME.

The following comment was NOT directed at forum members, but at the stupid drivers around here.

That reminds me, it's time to try another one of those Oreilly blower motor resistors, this will be the third, lifetime guaranteed, I guess I just live too dang long.

regards
Mech

I saw a Subdivision (Frank's term for Suburban) on the auction list with 432,000 miles.
That's about $100,000 in fuel costs (todays prices) alone. I'm sure the neighbors were impressed.

regards
Mech

That's an interesting metric that almost never gets any consideration.

Yep. Paid $8500 for the Insight, collected a bit over $7K insurance from the idiot that rear-ended me (stopped in a line of vehicles in a left-turn lane), spent at most $500 on DIY repair. I figure one more idiot, and I'll be ahead :-)