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Barring those who buy above their means, it comes down to needs & preferences.
Being a life long city dweller, I always went small as I had to street park & also never bought a beautiful car as it was often vandalized, dented, smashed, dinged, etc, while parked. So, I had a Fiat, Yugo, Geo Metro, Cabriolet. Decades ago, I also had 2 car accidents where I was broadsided & hurt terribly... tiny car, big injuries.
Bought a Honda CR-V in 2011, which felt like a boat to me for years. Now, I feel much safer in it... not low to the road like in the other cars & as I'm headed towards 50, I don't want to have to heal from severe injuries again... it's not gonna happen fast. I'll keep it 'til it needs burial at sea, most likely, then will buy a bigger SUV. I often don't have enough room in my current SUV, but for financial reasons, I'll just deal with it for now because it's a good ol' workhorse, safe & reliable.
Barring those who buy above their means, it comes down to needs & preferences.
Being a life long city dweller, I always went small as I had to street park & also never bought a beautiful car as it was often vandalized, dented, smashed, dinged, etc, while parked. So, I had a Fiat, Yugo, Geo Metro, Cabriolet. Decades ago, I also had 2 car accidents where I was broadsided & hurt terribly... tiny car, big injuries.
Bought a Honda CR-V in 2011, which felt like a boat to me for years. Now, I feel much safer in it... not low to the road like in the other cars & as I'm headed towards 50, I don't want to have to heal from severe injuries again... it's not gonna happen fast. I'll keep it 'til it needs burial at sea, most likely, then will buy a bigger SUV. I often don't have enough room in my current SUV, but for financial reasons, I'll just deal with it for now because it's a good ol' workhorse, safe & reliable.
Why are you so fired-up about defending SUVs and their owners? There are pros and cons to both SUVs and sedans. Just because you may happen to drive an SUV, doesn't mean anyone is directly "attacking" you. I don't begrudge anybody their decision. I don't need to interview every SUV owner. That's a silly statement. All you have to do is look at the figures I quoted earlier vs. the number of SUVs and full-size trucks on the road (which, yes, do cost more) and realize there are a good number of people spending money they don't really have on a vehicle. Drive around the lower-income areas of your city, and you can see the same thing.
I don't drive an SUV and don't feel anybody has attacked me. Nice try though. You talk about not begrudging people's decisions on what vehicle they choose to drive, but then make a statement about how people are spending money they really don't have on a vehicle. Sounds begrudging to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by djsuperfly
Also, calling out someone on an online forum for making poor financial decisions is in no way "infringing upon" anyone's freedoms (not that I'm directly doing that anyway). They still have the right to do whatever they're going to do; I have the right to say my piece on it. That's not stopping them from it in any way.
What right do you really have to talk about someone else's on private choice of vehicle? Who decided that you need to sit there and judge people's financial decisions? Maybe you need to worry about your own and stop worrying about other people's choices so much?
No. I only know one person in real life who had one, one of my student's graduation gift. It was problematic almost from the beginning for him.
How did yours do? And I realize they were, well, troublesome.
I remember that Fiat color.
I lucked out (well, I think it was lucky) in that mine had problems from the beginning (not the major safety issues others had, where they had to roll them to get them started, then jump in), but Yugos came with a fantastic warranty... I was just a teen, so that was convenient for me. But, therein lay the issue for the dealers... since most owners had problems, they quickly stopped selling & servicing them.
Unfortunately, I bought my car 25-mi from my home, as I worked north of Boston at the time... was laid off 1-wk later. Took 2+ hrs to drive 1-way in traffic. When they stopped servicing them 6-mos later, I had to drive from Boston to RI for service... 2-hrs 1-way in no traffic. 6-mos later, there was no nearby dealer... I think the closest was somewhere in VA or WV, so I had to get rid of the car.
But, the big boost was the warranty included some sort of odd plan that paid my car pmts because I was laid off, then I had a long illness/hospitalization & the pmts were taken care of all that time, too. Never heard of another car co offering such a warranty. So, all in all, it really didn't cost me a whole lot, but it was a major inconvenience.
Yes, Fiat green was an unpleasant murky lime concoction. Fortunately, there was more rust on the car than paint, so it wasn't as much of an eyesore.
SUV's everywhere in Australia. Hardly a fad, although some hoped they would prove to be so. We purchased our first SUV, last year. Likely no going back.
Depends. Some people have a valid need for crossovers and SUVs. These people will continue to buy them. Some bought them because it was the latest fashion trend. When the trend changes they will too.
No, it will be another Subaru for me- I deal with horrible weather most of the year, (60'' rainfall and 25'' snowfall), and go to the Snowbelt areas of the US often. I'd prefer to wait for an all electric AWD vehicle with longer range, but battery storage technology needs to develop further on that end.
About the same, across the board.
First of all, the Forester to the -250. The -250 does what the Forester can't. Otherwise, other than practice runs, it generally sits in the garage.
Secondly, when I got the Forester, I wanted a car that 10 years later I would still be driving. It's a 2002 and it still gets 25 mpg as it did when I first got it.
Third, if gas gets very expensive, then I will probably get an electric car to handle the trips that the Forester does now in relation to the -250 ........ and up my stockpiling requirements at the same time as well.
When it comes down to it, the subcompacts can't do the tasks that I have.
Now, on the other side of the coin, remember the consumer created gas crisis after hurricane Harvey? Well, regardless of how it was created, it was there. That crisis put all non essential trips as post phoned to canceled. Why? Because if both cars ran out of fuel and couldn't be refueled, I was stuck at the ranch. I wouldn't be able to get to work, I couldn't hitch a ride from another due to my work hours, and riding a bike really isn't an option along narrow country roads with no shoulder.
So all appointments, such as a one time ballet performance that I said months ahead I would attend, were cancelled. Maybe others could attend for a total out of gas situation wouldn't be that critical to them, but I couldn't.
The point? One has to manage their life as their life requires.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victimofGM
Depends. Some people have a valid need for crossovers and SUVs. These people will continue to buy them. Some bought them because it was the latest fashion trend. When the trend changes they will too.
When it came time to replace my Corsica because it was wearing out, I was doing a lot of field work. The Forester was the logical choice for that. At first, it was just an SUV question and at first, I was looking at a Jeep Cherokee.
The thing with the Cherokee was for the money being paid, it really was just a taller 2 wheel drive station wagon. To get the 4 wheel drive, which could be helpful on beaches, one had to pay a lot more. The same thing was true, as I recall, of the Chevy Jimmy.
Subaru was "found" and the Forester won out over the American market easily. The Forester won out over the Outback because I could not, then, afford a $30K car.
I am a marine biologist, a geographer, a scuba diver (at least). The Forester serves me very well indeed.
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