The person who says SUVs are penis envy type issues is a person who a) has no family, and b) has never ridden in one. Most cars are just too small to fit a reasonably sized family (I'll give you that we're all fat). They are also VERY smooth rides - something that most cars simply cannot match.

I've only got one because I used to live up the side of a mountain on a bumpy dirt road with a very, VERY high grade; another area in which a car just won't work. However, now that I have one, I'm never going back to this 'car' of which you speak unless I damned well have to.

On a side note, what happened to the notion that sports cars were penis envy vehicles?

 

Last I checked 4 year olds don't stand taller than the back of a Toyota Corolla, either.

 

Um, my family has fit fine into the numerious 'regular cars' we have owned and never had the -need- for an SUV. And even if, for some reason, you did need more room, you could always get a van. Still more annoying than a car, but not as annoying as an SUV.

That arguement only washes, if, as you say, you have a -really- fat family, or more than 3 kids.

Regular cars also give you smooth rides if you drive them properly. If you're a crap driver, then you won't get a smooth ride. So if you're going to drive an SUV because you're a crap driver and can't drive a regular car smoothly, then you're only reinforcing the idea that people who drive SUV are crap drivers.

 

So a car's suspension is dependent on how good people drive? SUVs are higher off the ground, so they have more room to absorb bumps - it's impossible for cars to offer as smooth a ride (unless heavily modified).

I'm also not saying that families don't fit into cars...they're just worlds more comfortable to ride in, especially if you want to carry anything in addition to your family. I've ridden in and taken long rides in both, and in the small vehicles (which was big by 'car' standards), my knees/legs always hurt by the end of the trip. Not so in my SUV.

Your hatred is one of ignorance; don't fear that which you do not know. Try it out...you might find that you like it...

 

No, a cars suspension is not dependant on how a person drives.

How smooth the ride is depends on two things: how good the suspension is, and how good the driver is. If you have the best suspension in the world and drive like a total loon, you won't have a smooth drive. Saying that you -need- to have the best suspension available in order to have a smooth drive merely shows that you're a bad driver. Saying that "it's impossible for a car to deliver a smooth ride" merely shows that you aren't thinking logically about the situation, because this is clearly not the case. We have a very nice $45,000 car that is very comfortable and smooth to ride in, depending on the driver.

Obviously if you jack up the suspension a lot, any crappy driver can produce a good drive, and that's my argument to begin with.


And obviously any long trip in cramped conditions won't be as comfortable as the same trip in less cramped conditions. But 90% of people who own SUVs never take them off-road, and I suspect quite a large group of that never use them for anything more than running around town.


And no, my hatred is not of ignorance. I know exactly how dangerous and gas-guzzling SUVs are.

 

Funny, not one person made a comment about anything yoga-related. And everyone commented on one throw away line.

As for SUVs, it's funny how they're defended as family cars, when they lose out to minivans or station wagons in almost every point of comparison. SUVs cost more to buy, more to insure, far more to fuel, have less interior room, fare worse in crash tests (due to their high center of gravity they're very easy to roll over), etc. If anyone were really buying with their needs, rather than their wants, SUVs wouldn't even exist, given that about 99% of them never face any terrain more challenging than a speed bump. Some people actually do need the room and the off road capabilities, and while they could probably get by with one of those spory 4x4 Subaru wagon things, the storage space might be an issue.

That's sort of beside the point though, since as we all know, car preferences seldom have anything to do with logic. Station wagons and minivans are ugly and wimpy. Hence SUVs. Regular SUVs aren't such a penis issue purchase; they're more about vanity over common sense, which is precisely why Malaya and I are thinking about getting a hybrid SUV when we need a car with room for relatives, children, a dog, etc. The Highlander or the new Lexus SUV are our current considerations, and yes, a mini van would be better for us in 98% of situations. We're just unwilling to be seen driving one, even though we never care what other people think.

Penis issues come in when you get into ridiculous vehicles like the Hummer, which takes every bad characteristic of the SUV and exagerrates it about 250%. Horrible rough ride, horrible mileage, extremely expensive, not-reliable, hardly any cargo space inside, etc. If Hummers looked like minivans, they wouldn't have sold more than a dozen of them in the past five years. But they don't, and lots of men have penis issues, and giant trucks with hard angles fill a definite consumer need, even if they do cost $65k and another $100 every time you hit the gas station.

As for sports cars, quality luxury models seem more to be show off vehicles, mostly for middle-aged men who couldn't afford them when they were 25 and would actually have driven them the way they were made to be driven. So I guess they're more about Viagra issues. The Mustangs and Camaros and other discount sports cars that are more loud than fast are a whole different ball game, and are sold almost exclusively to 18 y/o boys (well, sold to their parents and turned into graduation presents), who have enormous (so to speak) penis size issues. I have got to write my cars and drivers page sometime; there are just so many cheap jokes, insults, and stereotypes I need to use it to make.

Incidentally, what SUV has a smooth ride? I've been in several makes of them, and they've always been very bouncy and swayed terribly if you do anything other than drive them in a straight line. I think my little sporty Celica is a far better ride, except for being rough over uneven pavement, and that any mid-sized sedan with decent shocks is a much smoother ride than an SUV -- to say nothing of a luxury sedan.

 

So, given a person driving similarly in both a car and an SUV, an SUV will offer a better ride, right? Same goes with the cramped ride thing - SUVs have more room than small cars...that's all I've ever been trying to say.

Saying that "all SUV drivers are bad drivers" does nothing to support the argument that the SUVs themselves have bad rides, and it's a wholly unjust stereotype. The fact is that - ALL - people are shitty drivers...it's just a lot easier to wreck an SUV.

Incidentally, I've been waiting to actually muse on the real problems SUVs have, such as gas-mileage and the high-center-of-gravity deal. Gas mileage is a personal thing - mine gets like 20 or so MGP, and the tank of gas lasts no less than two weeks with regular use, with a $50 refill at current prices. Given how damned fun the behemoth is to drive, it's well worth the cost. High center of gravity seems to be something of a non-issue, too. I take some fairly hard turns (and I used to live on the side of a mountain), and the vehicle has never given me any trouble. I'll concede that given the right conditions, it will flip over when a car would not, but only a lunatic or a startled person will elicit such conditions.

If people only bought based on their needs, about 70% of the cars we have today would be gone, including SUVs. The market is based almost completely in want.

In my experience, normal-car-drivers were very pleased with my SUV, with respect to the quality of it's ride and just how fun it was to ride in/drive. These guys drove any number of different models of Toyota, a few Nissans, and even a Celica. If you're curious, I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, which is about as small as SUVs get (second to the Toyota RAV4, I think).

SUVs aren't completely useless to other car classes though. They're packages. They have good towing capacity, good cab space, great cargo room, high ground clearance, durability, etc, all in one package, not to mention the fact that they look cool and are fun to drive (subjective opinions - why most people who have SUVs probably got them). But it's a vehicle that will be able to do just about anything you need it to do, where you'll have to upgrade or rent something to do half of these jobs in a small car or a minivan.

And if you were wondering, when I see 2x4 SUVs, I get pretty pissed off too. I'm not saying that SUVs aren't abominations - definately not the smaller, sportier models (Even I think a suburban is too much fucking vehicle for one family), but there are ample reasons to choose an SUV over other cars.

Mleh, too much typing for one morning...