Is it just me or does it seem like there is an adequate equal amount of space per person in an SUV and Sedan?

666? Are you a republican too??????

If the people need an vehicle than can haul campers and trailers, they might opt for, say, a Suburban.
We have a Durango. It’s HORRID on gas mileage, but we haul stuff too. Fortunately my husband is able to work from home, so 99% of the time we use the Buick.

@Dutchess_III What does 666 have to do with being a Republican? Haha, what are you a Liberal who thinks it’s uncool to post a question on Fluther with 666 lurve?
Anyways I dig your answer. It’s just I’m from San Diego and I tons of folks in SUV’s especially Navy folks. Ironic because they go to war for oil and they work just to keep oil in their SUV’s just a vicious cycle.

I was joking @whitecarnations. I wouldn’t have noticed it if you hadn’t pointed it out.

I think the country is slowly heading away from the big monster cars and moving toward the smaller sub compacts that they use in other countries.

Capacity to haul things (trailers, boats etc) while hauling groceries and family.

EDIT: We have two vehicles for our home. One is a Prius, the other an SUV. We do most of our traveling with the Prius. If we didn’t have the SUV, we’d have to rent a truck at least once a month to haul large stuff.

Was just talking about this. We had a Durango briefly which was a gas-guzzler with very little useful space. Our mini-vans were much more efficient and practical. I think it s nearly all style and status for most people.

Not everyone is all that concerned with gas prices. I think that gas prices are still lower, as a portion of total income, than they have been throughout most of the history of gas prices.Gas prices are a lot lower in the US than they are in most of the rest of the world. While it costs more to operate an SUV, it’s not so much that people with middle and higher incomes think it’s too much to make it worth owning such a vehicle.

So basically, it’s just you. Everyone makes their own decision about what is important in a vehicle for their family. Lot’s of people are still willing to pay what it costs to operate an SUV. And of course, you could be running a hybrid SUV. Those don’t cost as much to run, but really, gas is probably the smallest part of running a vehicle. A new car might cost 20–40K or more. Payments on that might cost between 3 and 5K per year. Insurance costs 1–4K per year. Gas probably costs less than a $2000 a year, depending on how much you drive. If you’re going to have a car, you’ve got far bigger concerns than gas costs.

Many SUVs have less passenger/cargo space than a station wagon. The exceptions are the large ones that are based on full-sized truck frames, as opposed to a small/midsized car chassis, but that is also why a Camry is smaller than a ‘72 Lincoln Continental.

The thing is, people don’t know that; they believe that an 80 cubic foot SUV is bigger than a 95 cubic foot station wagon. Taller equals bigger, heavier equals bigger, lower MPG equals bigger… but bigger does not equal bigger.

We have a Durango and I love it. We have a 9-month-old that is in a rear facing car seat, a 10-year-old, and a baby on the way. The available seating is a big issue for us. We also make a lot of family trips that require packing up a lot of stuff (mostly for the baby) and the room in the Durango is wonderful for those trips.

The Durango is also great for hauling stuff. In the past 5 years, we have moved 5 times. The Durango has played an important role in each of those moves. For 3 out of the 5 moves, we did it ourselves and pulled a trailer full of our stuff with the Durango.

The gas mileage isn’t the best, but we look at what’s best overall for our family. We are planning to have more children, so we will have multiple children in car seats for the next decade or so (depending on how many children we have).

SUV=Bad.

@Seaofclouds What is it that the Durango offers that you cannot get from something else? Put another way, if it were just you and the spouse, would you own a full-sized Dodge Ram pickup as your daily driver?

Note that you are talking to a guy who has stuffed sofas into the back of a Subaru Legacy and a Honda Civic wagon, and who did perfectly fine hauling things in a mini-van.

@whitecarnations One thing you forgot to note about Navy guys; they aren’t home much of the time. Also note that most of them cannot afford SUVs; and half of those who can have no place to put them. I think the only reason you notice is a strong anti-military sentiment.

I live in a cold climate. with lots of snow and have a Tahoe that gets terrible mileage. 14 mpg. But I need to to haul my 5000 pound trailer when I pick up wood for my stove. It has 4WD so I can pull other people out of snow banks. .It sits high with large tires so I can drive over the snow piles the plows push into the driveway. I do not use it as a normal commuter. That would be a waste.

@jerv If it was just me and my husband, we wouldn’t need the seating room of the Durango as our family vehicle. That’s why I said for us, it’s a matter of doing what’s best for our family. The Durango offers the third row of seating which comes in handy for us because of family. We are currently a family of 4 with a 5th on the way and planning more. We also take my sister-in-law to various appointments and the store very regularly because she does not drive. So, with the family size and the moves across the country (due to my husband’s military career) the Durango is better for us. One major reason I stick with the Durango over a minivan (for example) is the 4WD which has been great during some of our moves and in some of the weather in places we have lived in. We’ve looked at various station wagons, but with multiple car seats and then the baby gear, the room in them is not adequate for our family. When we go to see family, it’s not as simple as just packing a bag for the day. Our family visits require driving several hours away and we end up staying for the weekend or longer. That requires a lot more stuff.

When I talk about moving things, I’m not talking about moving just a sofa, I’m talking about moving all of our household goods across the country.

@jerv Nope it’s not anti in anyway shape or form. I’m a Navy brat, grew up right around the corner of Navy housing central in San Diego. It’s just something I’ve noticed. It’s something I’ve always thought about. I’d say as much Navy personnel that drive SUV’s are equal to the amount that drive motorcycles. And one saves more than the other just. I wonder why anyone would purchase an SUV in the first place thats all. And if you know about San Diego and cars, nearly every car dealer has a giant sign that says, “Military-Pre Approved.”

Because they don’t live in a country where .. say… you have to bathe in the river and collect a basket of whatever-you-can-finds for dinner.

@Seaofclouds As a person who spent most of their life in New England, much of that on a rural dirt road (or mud pit, depending on the time of year), I have found 4WD to be overrated. If nothing else, they can be a bit unpredictable during the winter whereas a well-balanced 2WD (front or rear; doesn’t matter) is less likely to send you into a non-recoverable four-wheel-skid. With modern electronics, things are a bit better, but you’ve still got a lot of weight and a higher center of gravity, and electronics can only mitigate the laws of physics, not defy them. There was a time when 4WD was an option for minivans, but since 2008, the only one left is the Toyota Sienna.
Then again, I rarely need to haul, have only had to tow once (pulled someone out of a ditch… in my ‘87 Corolla!), and rarely even need a back seat since it’s just the wife and I, so my needs are a bit different.
Just curious though; when did the military stop moving household goods? It that something they cut since I left? It used to be that married couples and families could get that done by Uncle Sam…

@whitecarnations I was stationed in San Diego for a few years, so I am well aware. Motorcycles were pretty popular because it was 68 and sunny all year, and everybody was willing to extend credit to us squids since they could always just go to our CO and get their money if we went delinquent.

I much prefer to drive a car. A car with a large trunk, especially if the back seats fold down is pretty much as much space length and width as many SUV’s. What you do lose is verticle space, but most people are not using the verticle space. SUV’s in my opinion are dangerous overall. They block people behind from seeing the rest of the road. They have a tremendown amount of blind spots. I have a friend who says she loves having a huge SUV because she is a terrible driver. WTF? Maybe she crashes into things all the time because she drives a vehicle that you can’t see small cars and things to the side or back of you. The back up camera has helped somewhat.

I can barely get in and out of those way off the ground vehicles. It’s a broken ankle waiting to happen for me. I also don’t like that the entire car gets heated or air conditioned. In the winter it is nice to be able to go grocery shopping and not worry about things melting if the bags are in the trunk. Can’t do that if the back of the vehicle is heated to the same temperature as the front. In the summer it is more strain on the air conditioner, because the space is bigger.

Meanwhile, my husband races, and we haul the race car so we had an SUV that had a lot of towing power, but just traded it in for a truck a few months ago. So, we have a specific reason we need such a large vehicle, but for the average person I think it is ridiculous.

@JLeslie The Tesla Model S has 5+2 seating, and it’s not the only car that does. However, it seems that some people want a 7-passenger house-hauler even if hauling is a rare thing, and refuse to entertain the notion of getting people-mover and renting/borrowing a heavy-hauler on the rare occasions when it’s needed.

As for your terrible driver friend, there is a reason that SUV drivers are hated. A lawsuit waiting to happen, and also why they pay more for insurance. They are more likely to get into (or cause) accidents, and also do more damage to others when they hit, so insurance companies wind up paying more money more often for SUV drivers.
Higher risk + higher payout = higher insurance premiums. And just wait until your friend kills someone ;)

@jerv For families who actually have a bunch of kids I am fine with it, if they need the third row. But, in terms of trunk space/storage space I just cannot wrap my head around it for everyday normal use.

It is sort of scary that the worst drivers are in the biggest, heaviest, vehicles.

I have always been sensitive about not being able to see all around the automobile I am driving. When I say to people the blind areas bother me, it’s like they don’t know what I am talking about. I have more than once had near misses, would have been my fault, driving my SUV, and I have never had similar situations in my cars. Backing up from a parking space and a very small car difficult to see, changing lanes and a small car in my blind spot. I am a really good driver, I can parallel park into a space you would think not possible when driving a car, spacially I am usually very capable. I have only had one accident that was my fault, and it was a minor crash, because a truck left their tool kit top hanging open and I scratched my car on the cover as I drove through the tight space, not seeing the tool box open it was so low and out of my line of sight. I have had two other accidents besides that, one a person making a left in front of me, they were cited, and one I was at a stop light and the girl behind hit the back of my car because she was looking down at phone. I am not accident prone, nor a nervous driver. These people who are very accident prone, I just don’t get it. Young people I get it, and anyone can have bad luck, at the mercy of another bad driver on the road, but really, some people are just really bad.

My husband’s cousin’s son was run over in her driveway by a friend. The friend backed up right over him. He died instantly. I don’t know what kind of automobile it was, but that sort of story is enough to want to be able to see as much as possible.

@jerv The military still offers to do the moves on their dime, we just prefer to do the DITY moves. We had the military do 2 of our moves and things got lost and broken. I’d rather not deal with those hassles again if I can avoid them. We moved 5 times in 5 years. The only time anything got broken or lost was when the military paid movers to do it for us.

We have a sedan and an SUV. The sedan is fine for most daily use but doesn’t have enough room for my husband’s work equipment or for carpooling more than just ourselves and our kids. I’d be happy to give up the SUV for something with better gas mileage but there aren’t many cars out there that would have the room and versatility we get with that third row of seats when it comes to driving around extra kids or needing room for ladders or furniture.

And I guess I should add that we’ve had these same vehicles for many years. Both are paid off with extremely high mileage and while it would be nice to just replace them with more efficient cars that could still meet our needs, we can’t afford it. So while it’s easy to say what people should do and that some kinds of cars are bad, not everyone has the option of just running out to buy what’s best for the environment. If we had our choice of cars and money was no option you could bet your butt we’d be at a dealership right now.

@Sunnybunny I saw on TV the other day that cars average 32 years here on this panet, before they are finally junked. That is why we will continue to see SUV’s on the road in large numbers, to your point about people can not always just rush out and buy a new car. You had a specific reason for needing a third row, but there are plenty of people who don’t, and don’t need the larger vehicle. During the 90’s an incredible amount of Americans bought those big automobiles because they like how they looked or were keeping up with the Jones’, or got bigger tax write offs. Our tax laws gave breaks to heavier cars/trucks for business owners, and encouraged gas gusslers. Anyway, because of these things in the 90’s bunches of people have large SUV’s. I knew a lot of people who at 13MPG Hummers. Again, I am not saying you did this, way above in my responses I say I can understand when people have a large family, but many people did.

When I was a little girl SUV’s did not exist, or if they did I don’t remember them. I lived in a place that pick-up trucks were not allowed to be parked in my community. Pretty much everyone had cars, and some had station wagons. So, I think for many of us who are 45+ we just can’t understand why an SUV is so necessary, somehow we managed.

@JLeslie I know someone who used to haul pinball machines two at a time in a Volvo station wagon. And my old Subaru Legacy wagon (which was bigger than the new ones) could haul more than some small trucks; the cargo bay was over six feet long with the seats down.

But minivans are not as cool as a huge SUV, and people love style over substance :/

@jerv I say all this, but as I have admitted before, I have owned cars not great on gas mileage. My husband is a car nut, wants a new one constantly, he could care less the gas mileage. Although, he is happy with our new car that gets 30+ MPH, he appreciates the savings (not really savings, because it is our third car, not including his race car, but it saves me money on gas) and the convenience of driving a smaller car that does not attract attention.

@JLeslie My Corolla gets about the same MPG as my old Subaru; around 23 of mostly highway driving. I make it up on reliability and low repair costs; my last one blew a head gasket and I had it replaced for $50. Of course, my small car attracts a bit of attention due to the big skull on the hood.

Just one reason.

@Jaxk Thankfully, they don’t build them like they used to