Friday, May 23, 2008

SUVs plunge toward 'endangered' list

Damn when will it happen here and does this include these stupid trucks. Whats the deal with all these F150 oh and the other one that takes up two lanes the F357 magnum. I am not begrudging farmers or people who actually have to use these but some of the lard behinds should truckpool. $4.00 gallon in may. $5.00 in july. I have made a prediction.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Jorge Fernandez strolls across the used-car parking lot littered with dozens upon dozens of sport utility vehicles the size of small tugboats.

SUVs like these are having a tough time selling with gas prices at all-time highs.

With gas at $4 a gallon, many have sat there since last summer.

"The cars are literally just sitting, and it doesn't matter how much you sell them for," Fernandez says of the SUVs and trucks nobody wants anymore.

"It's amazing. I've never seen it this bad -- ever." ead more here

3 comments:

clintpatty said...

If a 6000lb towing capacity just wasn't enough because you are going to be regularly towing more than that or regularly towing single heavier items like a backhoe, the F350 was a good choice. It's especially a good choice if you have a horse trailer or some other sort of trailer that attaches to the bed. But if you can make 2 trips instead of 1 a few times a year with a smaller truck, go for it. I don't think there are nearly as many people driving the heavy duty trucks who don't need them as people driving regular full size trucks who don't need them. I went to high school with people who got stuff like a $50000 Ford truck for their 16th birthday and never towed anything even though it was 7.3L diesel. That's silly.

The land manager at the Land Trust used to drive a Silverado. A couple of years ago he bought the mid sized Colarado because even though the towing capacity wasn't as high as he needed, he needed the extra towing less than 10 times per year, so he just makes extra trips now. It's still less gas, and it's a more appropriate truck.

My dad is one of those people who has a full size truck he doesn't really need because he likes trucks. He doesn't drive it fast or see it so much as an extension of his ego, but the stuff he puts in the bed would often fit in a small or mid size truck. He never tows anything. When he doesn't need the bed, he drives a station wagon that gets over 30mpg. I think he should get a hitch and a trailer for the station wagon and ditch the truck because he never carries stuff over 500lb, and a V8 truck is for when you need to tow more than the 1 ton that the station wagon will handle.

IMO the worst are the 4x4 trucks that don't get used. The 4wd packages from Chevy and Ford are less capable now than they were 30 years ago after they learned that people just like to have 4wd and don't really use or need it. For some people the lame 1wd standard will not work in fields or on construction sites or such, but a lockable rear differential that is optional or maybe standard on some trucks will almost always take care of that.

If you want to occasionally do off road recreational driving, get a mountain bike, or if you're really serious about off road driving, get a real off road vehicle by dropping $30k+ on something serious or an old 4wd truck. I see people put 4 wheelers in the bed of a FX4 Ford truck for hunting. It's not like they're going to use the 4wd. They might turn it on, but they could have just unloaded the 4 wheeler earlier. Why have the 4wd when you have an actual off road vehicle in the bed? No FX4 or Z71 truck will come near a Yamaha Grizzly. And probably most of those people who don't need a 4wd truck also don't need a truck. Some rarely even use the bed, and most could get buy with a trailer attached to a Civic. My mom knows someone who bought an F150 to replace his 30mpg+ car because his wife always liked a man in a truck. Having the 4wd that you don't need or could get by without even though you sometimes use it is going to bring your mpg down to the 12-14 range and have additional maintenance and insurance costs.

Even a regular full size truck isn't going to get much over 20mpg. The newer ones have cylinder shut off stuff to get over that which is good for city driving, but if you're getting much from that, that means you weren't using the capacity of the truck anyway. A 4cyl car or wagon is still going to get over 25mpg with a trailer attached and hauling 500lbs of stuff which is the most many people will ever put in the truck bed. Anyway that's enough of my opinions on it. But if you need less than 100lbs of capacity like for a push mower or weedeater, just get a bicycle trailer.

Unknown said...

hey everyone should get mini trucks mine gets 45 miles/gallon I have transported 3 55 Gallon Drums of soap weighing over 1500lbs plus people look at you like you cool when your driving a right hand drive vehicle.

And personally I have always been a fan of the very small compact cars like those seen in Europe and Japan I wish we had more of them here newer models of cars seem to getting bigger than previous models what the fuck is wrong with the stupid fucking engineers designing these thing do they not realize the consequences of a large vehicle I guess not

clintpatty said...

Not just larger, they keep on getting more powerful. Chevy and Ford especially pimp that instead of switching directions. They aren't selling many of the most powerful ever $75,000 Corvettes. Lexus keeps on making bigger engines, or at least their V8s are larger and more powerful. Japanese makers are no exception. The V6 Accord is the most powerful ever. This year's Subaru Impreza does not get as good of mileage as a 10 year old model.