That's it, I'm walking. gas up 33 cents since Monday, - Page 6

I also want to clarify that I have no problem with truck owners who use them as they were intended (i.e. hauling, construction, etc.). I'm more upset with those (like my brother) who buy them because "they're cool" and then bitch about $$.

And as far as SUV's, I just hate them altogether - Well, especially the people who don't need them (i.e. childless couples, single people who don't do any "hauling", people who make long commutes alone, etc.)

Selfishness is completely fine with me and I totally support it. It's just that you also have to realize that selfishness will often piss off a lot of people. And that's ok if you're fine with it.

I love it when this subject comes up because it always comes down to the SUV bashers saying that they are "gas guzzlers" and therefore owning them is "selfish" and not for "the common good". However, I notice it's always the SUV that is bashed, never a Corvette, a Mustang GT, a 12 cylinder Jaguar, an 8 cylinder Mercedes or any number of > 8 cylinder exotics or luxury cars, all of which have gas mileage that is as bad or worse than anything but a Hummer. Let's face it people, you hate SUVS because you can't see around or over them, it has diddly squat to do with the "environment". If you are going to label SUV drivers as selfish, let's at least be honest about your own motives and not hide behind the "greater good" argument. Otherwise, bash the Corvette along with the Denali.

I don't know of ANY Vette owners that drive thier cars as their "Primary" vehicle. I would have absolutely NO problem with SUV drivers if they only drove them when they were doing "SUV" kind of stuff, but when there's only 1 person in the car and they are commuting to work, it's a bit 'selfish' IMHO.

p.s. I also hate Ferrari, Vette, and Motorcycle drivers

But I know plenty of Mustang GT drivers that have it as their primary vehicle and plenty of BMW 7 series drivers and plenty of Mercedes drivers and plenty of Jaguar drivers and plenty of Dodge Hemi Magnum drivers and plenty of Mercury Grand Marquis drivers and ... well, you get the picture.

I hate those too. I think they're not as obviously wasteful just looking at them, but, yeah, I couldn't imagine having one of those, either. But, then, I downgraded from a combo pass to a bus-only one this summer because I figured I wasn't using the subway enough for it to be worth the money.

Yes, everyone says that. Usually after bashing nothing but SUV's for about an hour's worth of conversation, and right after I say "if the environment is so important, why don't you bash these regular cars that have lousy mileage", they say "well I hate those too". Then they go right back to bashing SUV's.

I have an old 5.0 Mustang that I use as my daily driver, and I average 25mpg out of that V-8...so please don't use sports cars as a comparison when discussing gas mileage. Most of them get great mileage compared to a larger vehicle with the same engine simply due to the fact that sports cars are smaller and lighter.

I went to a BBQ out in the sticks today, about 40 minutes outside of a major town here and it was nearly 30 cents a gallon cheaper.

25mpg is hideous milage isn't it?

Personally, I find sports cars just as offensive. They anger me less because there are fewer of them on the road.

(A) I hate all cars.

(B) If I ever spend an uninterrupted hour talking about cars, shoot me in the head.

I could care less what anyone drives.

The focus should be on developing alternative fuel vehicles.

By conserving and buying/driving fuel efficient mini-cars everyone is just playing into the hands of the oil and car companies.

Develop cost effective fuels, whether they be steam, coal, electric or nuclear powered.

Whatever happened to ingenuity, inventivness, and the desire to create something new and unique.

Maybe on the highway, but not around town. The 2005 Mustang GT is listed at 17/25 manual-18/23 auto, so unless it is driven on the highway at all times, it is averaging about the same gas mileage as a Ford Explorer.

To be fair, there are significantly fewer quantities of the aforementioned sports/luxury vehicles than there are SUVs, and some models (e.g. Corvette, Mustang GT), even with V-8s, are more fuel-efficient than any 6-cylinder SUV. Here are some sample numbers (all taken from fueleconomy.gov):

2005 Chevrolet Corvette
MPG (city) 18
MPG (highway) 28
MPG (combined) 21

2005 Ford Mustang GT
MPG (city) 17
MPG (highway) 25
MPG (combined) 20

2005 Jaguar XK8
MPG (city) 18
MPG (highway) 26
MPG (combined) 21

2005 Ford Explorer*
MPG (city) 14
MPG (highway) 20
MPG (combined) 16

2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer*
MPG (city) 15
MPG (highway) 20
MPG (combined) 17

2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee*
MPG (city) 17
MPG (highway) 21
MPG (combined) 18

* all SUVs are 6-cylinder models; averages for 8-cylinder models incur an additional 1-2 MPG drop in all stats

Consider that the Mercedes-Benz S-Class category as a whole accounted for total unit sales of 1,469 in July 2005; the Jeep brand moved 24,331 Grand Cherokee SUVs in the same month. No popular domestic SUV was able to penetrate the 20MPG barrier in combined driving; even imports didn't fare any better (e.g. the 6-cylinder Toyota 4Runner had a combined MPG of 18). The problem with SUVs (the majority fall into the midsize category) is their weight: fuel economy drops 1-2% for every 100 pounds.

On any given day, if I'm lucky, I might see an S500 on the freeway; I'm more likely to see 5-8 Grand Cherokees during my morning commute. It's hard to argue against luxury vehicles when they're fewer and far between. If the XK8 was as ubiquitous as a Liberty, your point would carry more weight.

No, it's not...in fact, it's quite average. As a comparison, for a while my mother drove this little 4-banger Ford Tempo. Her gas mileage: about 24-25mpg...

Let's see what all is wrong with this post: first of all, I don't own a 2005 GT, I own an '87 GT (auto tranny, I might add - which gets better mileage than the manual according to fueleconomy.gov). Second of all, I never noticed Jeff sitting in my passenger seat taking notes as to what type of driving I do. My daily commute is pretty much a 50/50 mix of highway/city driving, which is why I specifically used the word "average" in my post. For pure highway/interstate driving, most of the time I can get up around 30mpg. For pure city driving, I average around 22mpg. Now, let's compare this w/ a recent (2003) Ford Explorer. On the fueleconomy.gov website, my car is listed as getting 18/27 mpg. The 2003 Explorer is listed at 15/19 mpg. That's a pretty significant difference...

Where in my post was I saying that your particular Mustang was being compared? I compared it to the latest Mustang, I had no way of knowing the year of yours. Hence I did not say "you are driving", I said "it is driven". Never claimed to be saying anything about "your" driving habits at all, just making the comparison to something I had numbers on. As they say, YMMV.

By the way. it's amazing how defensive people get when the traits of their particular vehicle are called into question, but SUV drivers have to sit and take it.

It's funny, I drive a Jeep Wrangler, which every SUV basher I've talked to says is "just a little Jeep, so it's no problem compared to those behemoths". I usually chuckle at that because my "little Jeep" has a 4.0L inline six and the aerodynamics of a brick which gives me around 16MPG on a good day (but it's "little", so it's "ok" according to them).

I'll take your word that you weren't comparing my car, although the wording of your post made me think otherwise. Anyway, back to the arguments...

Ken,

I have a Grand Cherokee...I wish I was getting 18mpg. According to the readout my jeep is averaging 13.7mpg.

Drive a 'regular' car on the highway next to all the SUV's and you'll see why.

I think (at least for me) it's not the low gas mileage completely, the other aspects of SUV's definitely fuel (no pun intended) any debate when it comes to gas mileage. There are just too many things that piss me off that I can't seem to let those aspects go when discussing just one 'bad' area of an SUV.

So I'll bow out because I realize my anger is a bit too over the top in this area.

I still can't find that graph but I did find that according to the World Energy Council. The average new car sold in Europe does 43 mpg and is steadily rising year on year compared with 25 and steadily falling in the US. This doesn't include SUVs and trucks. It's just cars.

I don't understand why this would be the case? Is it that Americans really do not care about milage and so car companies don't bother engineering cars efficiently?

I really would like to get a handle on this. As an ex-pat brit living in the states, I'm aware that poor energy efficiency is one of the things that Europeans complain about when they're in the mood for a bit of US bashing. They see it as selfish and arrogant. So what's the other side of this? Is there any justification?

Well up yours buddy!

My bike gets 50+mpg, doesn't contribute to traffic congestion, can lane-split, will likely last 20+years before it has to be replaced, and was built by American workers in the United States (unlike most "domestic" cars).

So don't expect to be on my Christmas-card list, Mr.Hater :p)

LOL - But I really hate everyone, so don't take it personally

I don't think Europeans are more "Environmentally Friendly" because of morals, I think it's economics! If gas was $6.00 a gallon in North America we would all be driving little 4 bangers that get 40MPG too.

The mileage thing is a bit hard to understand, especially if we're just talking about cars, I doubt it has risen, but I also doubt the average mileage has gone down for cars sold in the US.

Past that comparing cars that are sold here vs sold in Europe, it's just not a very fair comparison. Other than the actual driving part (most of the time) just about every aspect of owning a car in Europe is different than here (as I'm sure you're aware). Everything from higher fuel prices to lower taxes for "small" cars will drive people to buying smaller cars, even if they could use a larger car, the cost/benefit just isn't there. Mix that with the availability of other transportation, and the cost/benefit gets even worse.

For instance, the last time I was in the Netherlands with a bunch of family I rented a "large" car (there were 4/5 of us, and we were driving a bit, so we wanted some comfort), the size of the car would barely qualify as a "mid-size" over here (think Honda Accord/Nissan Altima sized), had a fairly wimpy 2.0l engine in it, and it was still HUGE when driving around on anything but a "major" road, in town it was just a pain, parking the thing could have been considered a sport in itself, as just about every parking job turned into a multi-forward/reverse/turn this way/turn that way event. It felt as if I were driving a Lincoln Town Car in a "compact only" parking lot. And to top off the whole deal when I had to fill the car up at the end of the week it only cost me around $100 (this was a few years ago, a similiar fill-up in the states would have been $20).

Andrew

Take your foot out of it

My 04 gets on average 17 if I don't have my foot in it. Then again if you have one of the newer Hemi ones, I can see 13.7 mpg

That's quite true.

Just to run some numbers - If we assume that gas in the US (before all the gas increases) is $1.50/gallon (which was considered high at the time) and the gas in the UK is $3.00/gallon (which might even be on the low side if I recall)

10 gallons of gas:
US = $15
UK = $30

If you get a car in the US that gets 25mpg, then you can drive 250 miles for $15. But if you get a car in the UK that gets 40mpg, you can only drive 200 miles for $15.

So while the US car may not be as environmentally friendly (i.e. only 250 miles per fill up as opposed to 400 miles per fill up), it is $$ friendly, which is (unfortunately) the "American way".

Only those who can't afford to drive what they want or aren't willing to make it a priority.

I'm with John. I think it's quite false.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200...ystocutcorners

I know I said I'd drop the SUV bashing, but this is more about when people do dumb things: This is what I meant. A single mother, delivering pizza and she bought a Blazer????? Again, I'm not bashing SUV owners, just "stupid people".

p.s. well, 'stupid' as in, 'not making the wisest decisions'.

Shoulda bought a Scooter with a hot-box on the back. Perfect.

And rain gear. Suck it up people.

THIS is why I'm very happy I drive a Civic.

Sure, it may be a little slower, but it's got PW,PL, air, tilt, cruise, 6 speaker CD, keyless entry, AND almost 70KM per gallon(CAN) combined.

Brent