OT Recent debates over SUVs

[overanalyzer]

Originally posted by simm
I think regardless what I drive "anything" supports terrorism so they say. you buy gas from several major gas suppliers in America your supporting the midde east which in returns gives money to Al Quida. So why stop driving an SUV?
I believe the whole idea behind the ad campaign is to get you to think about conservation and not about sponsoring terror. The idea was to use the flashy add campaigns to get people talking which as I said earlier:
"I think the overgeneralizing of the point of everything being plastics is a way to mask the arguement that SUVs are wasteful of natural resources. "
So you can say - well no one should drive and how everything in the whole universe is petroleum based and go one with the whole generalization arguement or you can beging to look at it from a standpoint of hmmmm should we start worrying now about conservation of our natural resources .......
gotta run out and polish up my whale skin hubcaps ...... (I miss the funny Dennis Leary ... where did he go??)

 

[broncofish]

Originally posted by overanalyzer
gotta run out and polish up my whale skin hubcaps ...... (I miss the funny Dennis Leary ... where did he go??)
Dude he was the voice of the ladybug in bugs life, and awesome as diego in Iceage. Man I'm turning into my 4 yr old, and did not even know it.

 

[fireeater]

Call us simple minded, but we got the Exterra simply because my wife liked the style.
I got the Durango for the same reason, big motor and the style of the vehicle.
I made a monster 4x4 out of the S-10 because it is fun to drive. I have been building big 4x4's since the early '80's.
I will eventually raise the durango up on top of 44 inch tires.
You buy the vehicle you drive because it is appealing to you. It is the one you like and want and can afford.
"I think my vehicle looks so ugly, but it sure is safe and gets 100mpg!"
This is America with people who have thier own taste. We see that everyday on this board. We are not robots and never will be. Everything we buy and do in life is because we can.
I live in a truck state. Almost every vehicle commercial is based on buy a truck or suv. Everywhere I look they dominate the roads here. Again peoples preferences.
You only go through life once, so make the best of it and enjoy.

 

[barry769]

The car companies are not behind some stupid conspiracy to get rid of all of the new fuel technologies, the oil companies are. The car companies are not doing research just to meet some 2006 deadline unfairly imposed on them by the government, their research is far beyond what the governtment requires (which really isnot much and never is) The car companies know that the internal combustion engine is dying, they are researching other types of fuel. Soon fuel cell cars will be available, it is getting your refueling stations that is going to be the hard part. The hybrid car is a great start, it runs on gas, in many cases is actually faster off the line since the movement starts from electricity which is instantaeous, and they have the same top end as gas cars because the gas engines kick in on the highway for most of the models anyways ( every company has designed their hybrids differently )
Within a couple months they are going to have tanks which can support up to 1200 psi i believe, this will make the range of a fuel cell vehicle about equal to the range of a modern gas powered car. But guess what??? The "energy companies" as they want you to call them are doing some research too. Guess where they are planning on getting the hydrogen to power your perfect car of the future??? PETROLEUM. Thats right, they are researching on how they can extract hydrogen from petroleum. So even if you get your car made out of recycled cans and milk cartons, powered by hydrogen, emitting water. The plants used to make your cars and fuel will still be using oil regardless.
Someone mentioned ethanol as a good fuel. Ethanol is only slightly better than gas. It burns too hot for most cars and is not cost effective for the slight gain in effeciency. My mothers minivan can run on ethanol as can many other cars. This was to meet the stupid govt standards. They put extra work into researching a useless engine that can handle the heat of ethanol when they knew that it would never be utilized. Most of the time the govt standards hamper the progress towards something that is actually beneficial because some politician thinks its time to make his mark and save the world. They push something because at the time its all they have. Even if it isn't being used because it isn't worth it.
Rollover tests are a joke, I have a friend who works for ford and is responsible for doing tests such as rollovers. It took them a day to teach him how to rollover some of the sSUVs out there. He couldn't do it until they taught him the correct maneuver, but since they eventually got the car to flip, it is now going to be labled a hazard. Sure if the car got hit on the side by a semi it would flip but so would the precious little civic, in fact it would probably be airborne. Maybe we should put a sticker on the visors of civics that say "Caution this car may become airborne in certain driving conditions, always wear your seatbelt."
And one final thing. Someone before said something along the lines of Why did they have to pick the SUV, why couldn't they have gotten an BMW mercedes or sports car, they don't need the SUV. So you're saying that the person would need a luxury or just as gas guzzling sports car? Just because a person doesn't go offroad means they don't need an SUV right? So why would they need a sports car if they don't drive 150mph? Why would anyone ever need a luxury car? I say we all go out and buy little GEO metros, and if we really want to go offroading which apparently is the only reason we would ever need or want an SUV we should get a chevy tracker.

 

[fireeater]

barry,
They can just send the Geo my way and I'll turn it into an offroader!

 

[broncofish]

Originally posted by FireEater
I live in a truck state. Almost every vehicle commercial is based on buy a truck or suv. Everywhere I look they dominate the roads here. Again peoples preferences.
You only go through life once, so make the best of it and enjoy.
Of course your state went from one the best environmentally speaking to one of the worst in a matter of like 8yrs, so you might want to leave the state part out if it is supposed to be a plus in your argument.lol I'm just giving you a hard time(the enviroment thing is true though) Don't get offended I love going to texas(especially corpus)

 

[barry769]

I know that the tracker is not an SUV, half of my suggestions were made as sarcasm. Geos and trackers are two of the most worthless cars out there, but boy do they ever get good mileage.

 

[overanalyzer]

Fireeater - hear what you are saying on the whole truck state thing - I think it is epidemic from Nebraska south!!
I hate my vehicle - it is a two wheel drive pick-up with no AC and is a maroon color. I would love to drive something else but I just can't bring myself to buy another vehicle .....
Yes this is America - and as you say:
"This is America with people who have thier own taste. We see that everyday on this board. We are not robots and never will be. Everything we buy and do in life is because we can. "
But we also have the right to question whether what we or others are doing is right!! I personally believe gas-guzzling vehicles driven for no reason other than to show off .....
ANYONE FROM EUROPE on this board??? How is driving handled in your country??

 

[drkegel]

overanalyzer -
i never made claim, nor has anyone in the automotive industry made claim, to an internal combustion engine whose "exhaust" is water. That technology lies in the fuel cell, which uses nothing that even remotely resembles internal combustion.
If you are looking for more information about the truth, I can suggest a couple of Pulitzer Prize winning novels, which are based on factual research, not conspiracy theories. Or, I can suggest a subscription to Popular Science or Popular Mechanics for good lay information about new technologies.
I wasn't aware you could buy personal aircraft on ----, but that is pretty funny/interesting. But, again, not what I was getting at. ;-)
If the gasoline tax went up, what other repercussions do you think there would be, other than the ones you mentioned? I can think of a couple: unemployment would go up, because less oil would be consumed. Think about it, how many people work in the oil industry? Lots. If the oil industry's #1 product were to suddenly sell a lot less, jobs would be lost there. Also, tourism would likely drop off becuase of the increased cost of road travel, not to mention air travel. Jobs would be lost in the tourism industry as well. Prices of many of the products necessary for living would increase as well, due to the added costs of shipping. What about logging type industries that depend of large trucks and mining industries which depend on large trucks? Their costs would go up as well. What about general contractors and construction crews? Who gets to be exempted and who doesn't? And large families already likely under a higher finanacial burden who need the large SUV type vehicles jsut to move people? How would that adversely affect them? Are you going to punish them for having a big family? If you exempt them, then wouldn't you be punishing people with small or no families?
As you can see, raising the gas tax doesn't only affect you at the pump, it affects you in other places as well.
The solution is the path the auto-industry and the EPA have currently undertaken: make internal combustion obsolete. Develop alternative power plants for cars that outperform internal combustion in both horsepower and efficiency. As I stated previously, if you introduce a product that is cheaper to operate, goes faster, and promotes the environment, who wouldn't buy it? That's the fuel cell, and it is coming.

 

[broncofish]

Originally posted by barry769
Rollover tests are a joke, I have a friend who works for ford and is responsible for doing tests such as rollovers. It took them a day to teach him how to rollover some of the sSUVs out there. He couldn't do it until they taught him the correct maneuver, but since they eventually got the car to flip, it is now going to be labled a hazard.

Back about 5 years ago part of my job for the airforce was driving a massive suburban out to isolated locations in montana. One day I was lucky enough to go through the driver safety class(held because to LT's rolled a subruban over going 60mph) They had these big arm attached to the Suburban and said go roll it. Big no it all 20yr old me said that will take alot. I did it in ten seconds taking a turn that I would normaly take in my mustang at about 65mph, I was doing 45 in the suburban. I'm glad I was on a closed course with those safety arms. Now that have been driving the Bronco for a while I know I would never take a turn like that(but I bet a 16 yr old kid would try it)

 

[barry769]

Back about 5 years ago part of my job for the airforce was driving a massive suburban out to isolated locations in montana. One day I was lucky enough to go through the driver safety class(held because to LT's rolled a subruban over going 60mph) They had these big arm attached to the Suburban and said go roll it. Big no it all 20yr old me said that will take alot. I did it in ten seconds taking a turn that I would normaly take in my mustang at about 65mph, I was doing 45 in the suburban. I'm glad I was on a closed course with those safety arms. Now that have been driving the Bronco for a while I know I would never take a turn like that(but I bet a 16 yr old kid would try it)
I agree, there are some SUVs that are ridiculous in how top heavy they are, but most made today are quite the opposite, the auto companies know this fault and work hard to get rid of it. Don't get me wrong, some of the cars he was testing were probably easier to flip than your old suburban. At the same time however, just a few months ago, I saw a stupid 18 year old kid flip a neon. The neon had extensive work on it too so that it could handle hard fast turns, but in the middle of an autocross race, he sure managed to roll over completely on a hairpin curve. All I'm saying is that any car can fail a rollover test with the way they drive those things. You'd have to be a dumb!#@ not to know that at 65 your going to flip a tall car. Hell before you even got to the middle of the turn, the centrifugal force should be enough to let you know to slow down, but stupid people do stupid things and the rest of us have to suffer through mindless rants like this because of them.

 

[barry769]

Ever wonder just how much oil our armed forces spend fighting terrorism?

 

[drkegel]

Barry -
Interesting you should bring that up.
A big reason why the Nazis and Japanese lost WWII was due to their oil reserves drying up. Hitler developed a program for converting coal into gasoline, the Nazi's had dozens of these factories. The Allies would bomb them, and completely decimate them (you should see the pictures), and three days later the same factories would be running at 98% capacity.
The Nazi's couldn't break through during the Battle of the Bulge due in large part to the severe gasoline shortage that crippled the advancement of equipment.
THe Japanese were so desparate as to send civilians into the mountains to collect a type of pine and boil the sap down into a form of gasoline. The Japanese empire distributed a highly detailed set of instructions to the populace in an attempt to supplement the severe oil shortages. Whether these attempts were ever used in any military vehicles is unknown, but after the war, the US Army tried to use the same tactic, and couldn't get it to work in their trucks, and subsequently abandoned the research.
The above anecdotes are paraphrasing from the book "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize. A phenomal book, very well researched, and very well told story.
A typical M1 main battle tank has a top speed of 45 mph, and uses 1 gallon of diesel per mile, if I remember correctly.

 

[overanalyzer]

Originally posted by DrKegel
overanalyzer -
i never made claim, nor has anyone in the automotive industry made claim, to an internal combustion engine whose "exhaust" is water. That technology lies in the fuel cell, which uses nothing that even remotely resembles internal combustion.

Neither Did I - someone else did - just pointing out that there are a lot of conspiracy theorist who belive this type of engine exists and is being repressed by THE MAN
If the gasoline tax went up, what other repercussions do you think there would be, other than the ones you mentioned? I can think of a couple: unemployment would go up, because less oil would be consumed. Think about it, how many people work in the oil industry? Lots. If the oil industry's #1 product were to suddenly sell a lot less, jobs would be lost there. Also, tourism would likely drop off becuase of the increased cost of road travel, not to mention air travel. Jobs would be lost in the tourism industry as well. Prices of many of the products necessary for living would increase as well, due to the added costs of shipping. What about logging type industries that depend of large trucks and mining industries which depend on large trucks? Their costs would go up as well. What about general contractors and construction crews? Who gets to be exempted and who doesn't? And large families already likely under a higher finanacial burden who need the large SUV type vehicles jsut to move people? How would that adversely affect them? Are you going to punish them for having a big family? If you exempt them, then wouldn't you be punishing people with small or no families?

See this kind of thought is what the add campaign was driving towards.
Not sure how unemployement would rise - that is ussually the first item thrown out in any tax raise debate. How many people in the US work in the oil industry? I said earlier that along with tax hikes you rely less on foriegn oil and start drilling locally ... taking the money and improving mass transit would create jobs.... switching the automotive industry over to constructing higher efficiency cars ..... Sure SUV salesmen might decline - and yes with any tax raise there is usually a bump in the unemployment ... but people & the economy would re-adjust. So some long haul truckers get laid off in favor of using more rail - hmm the railways would need to hire people to pick-up the extra work. (I dislike the tax and spend philosophy in general though)
Some more points - I said exempt certain groups like farmers from the large vehicle tax - I think mining industries and other industries would be exempt. The average guy who drives an SUV back and forth to work by him/herself - should be taxed.
Do construction crew guys need todrive a pick-up to the work site? Watched them build a convention center -saw literally hundreds of Pick-ups in the parking lot ..... and they just sat there .... doing nothing - they would arrive - one persone would get out and go into work ...no different than an office worker.
People with large families need to plan for lots of things - if the only item they do not plan for is vehicles then there are a lot more issues. My wife is one of 7 kids and they had two vehicles - an impala and a VW bug .....
Jean Paul Sartre wrote about the constraints of freedom - yes we are free to pick and chose and drive whatever we wish - but with that freedom comes responsibility .... is driving a gas guzzling SUV the most responsible choice? Is needlessly wasting natural resources showing we - as a nation - are maturely handling our gift of freedom?
PS - the personal aircraft thing is just cool - will have to see if I can find the link and post it here

 

[overanalyzer]

cool info on WWII - always thought we won because we dropped an A bomb on Japan ....
point taken - someone asked about the US troops and us of oil ... during the last gulf war there was a great article written aboutthe irony of it all that listed out the avergae rate of usage ....

 

[fireeater]

Originally posted by broncofish
Of course your state went from one the best environmentally speaking to one of the worst in a matter of like 8yrs, so you might want to leave the state part out if it is supposed to be a plus in your argument.lol I'm just giving you a hard time(the enviroment thing is true though) Don't get offended I love going to texas(especially corpus)
You got me there....rats.
Plus is does not help that I live in a refinery City. Though everyone know the Refineries are not to blame....
Originally posted by overanalyzer
But we also have the right to question whether what we or others are doing is right!! I personally believe gas-guzzling vehicles driven for no reason other than to show off .....

Not true for me, I drive my SUV's simply because I enjoy them. I like the models and makes.
On the big trucks, like the S-10 pictured on the first page, I happen to really enjoy building and driving them as a hobby.
Of course everything has to be bigger in Texas! hehe
Below is another big toy I sold about 2 years ago. It only had a 4 banger in it. Does that make it a gas hog SUV?
Pictured at my friends shop.

 

[rsd]

My company is in the business of moving lots of heavy gear over many miles. We usually rent Trucks but own a 20' topkick. It gets nine miles to the gallon (unloaded) and worse when it is loaded. I support the economie by providing jobs.... patriotic. I support the oil companys by spending @ $1500.00 on gas every quarter....unpatriotic?
I don't think owning a SUV is unpatriotic... My only question is.... can you park it?
My drivers and myself routinely drive large vehicles through very tight spaces on a daily basis. I can park this vehicle rated at 24000 pound into a single parking space (if there is a grass area behind it to "overhang" the tail.... or 2 normal parking spots that are head to head with plenty of room for other vehicles; yet it is hard to find a parked suv that fits within the lines.
Saw a bumper sticker in Bellevue (yuppie capitol of western washington... not that its a bad thing. Lived there quite some time and enjoy spending lots of time on the east-side) The sticker read "It seams if you can't drive/park.... buy an SUV!"
No offense. I own a 4-wheel drive truck and get the same fuel economy etc. I also drive a compact car, a jet boat, company truck, truck rentals, soon to add a motorcycle, convertible (again)... someday an airplane.... I love my fossil fuel burning toys!
man its late and I should quit rambling!
Finally your fine with the suv.... just remember to leave room in the parking lot for the rest of us.

 

[justinx]

It sounds like this has strayed from the original topic a little, but i saw on the news this morning here in detroit, the woman who has started this whole antiSUV thing. The clip that they showed of her was her GETTING INTO HER SUV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She parks it on her neighbors sidewalk!!!!!!

 

[u235a4]

I'm not going to act my age on this one and i hope i don't make anyone upset BUT!!! F--- the tree huggers and gas guzzle this!!!!!

altho i am for saveing the enviroment i just think there are other ways in which to do it...

 

[overanalyzer]

Originally posted by JustinX
It sounds like this has strayed from the original topic a little, but i saw on the news this morning here in detroit, the woman who has started this whole antiSUV thing. The clip that they showed of her was her GETTING INTO HER SUV
There was a big article on this ad campaign in USA Today - the organizer used to drive an SUV and a friend of her started the conversation with her about conserving fuel. I believe the article said she now drives a hybrid.
Yes this has strayed quite a bit.
U235a4 - nice ride. Hey I am all for people owning gas guzzling vehicles - as long as they are willing to pay extra taxes for them. Read some of my earlier posts on that topic.
Tree Hugger?? Not me - I have a well used chainsaw ..... and I am clearing another quarter acre of land this winter ... TIMBER