This might have something to do with SUVs selling so well

[spinbaby]

"Cash discounts on SUVs outweigh gas prices"

"More importantly, dealerships that sell Ford, GM and Dodge vehicles are hungry for sales because they don't have as wide a selection of sedans as their Japanese counterparts. As a result, a combination of factory rebates, incentives and dealer discounts can knock as much as $10,000 off the sticker of a $50,000 SUV.

"That's prompted some buyers to reason that even with gas at $4 per gallon, a $10,000 discount could go a long way toward easing the fuel bill."

http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/070609/21000.html?.v=1&.pf=loans

[unpossibles]

1. morans.

I don't have as much of a problem with the small percentage of folks who probably actually need a large vehicle taking advantage of this, but most of the ones I see in my city seem to just be for show....

[truedelphi]

2. The tax laws have a great deal to do with it too

In recent years you had an automatic dedcution of up to 70 K for purchasing an SUV

The major car Manufacturers lobbied for that one.

[mdmc]

6. can you explain this?

I'm not following. What is the tax cut deal?

[Captain Hilts]

11. There were HUGE tax deductions for the purchase of large SUVs by small bizes...

or people that claimed to use them for business.

[mdmc]

26. thank you kindly, my friend

:mad:

[rinsd]

8. Only if the vehicle was for work though (nt)

[maddezmom]

3. not sure I should say it, but that combined with a co discount

Made me do the same. :hide: I need a larger vehicle for hy son's wheelchair and while looking we got the best prices from the US carmakers. Am I embarrassed about my choice, YUP! But it's food, education etc in my families budget that I'm thinking of right now.

[Merlot]

5. That's what SUV's are for - wheelchairs, hauling on a daily basis, etc

Don't be embarrassed!

[Jonathan50]

20. Vans are far better for wheelchairs and hauling than are SUVs

My daughter has an Expedition, with three kids she needs something fairly roomy. Plus they use it to pull their boat and camper trailer.

But seriously, it really isn't big enough for a person in a wheelchair, a van is far more practical for that.

And if it's someone who uses a wheelchair but drives themselves, a sedan is far easier for someone who has no use of their legs to get in and out of than a high perched SUV.

[EOTE]

7. You shouldn't be...

You obviously have a need for the vehicle you chose, and you certainly shouldn't be embarassed that you purchased a domestic vehicle as it was the best economic decision for you, and you're also helping American workers. People who purchased a gas guzzler for vanity reasons are the ones who should be embarassed. Those who are more concerned about how masculine or important people will think they are, rather than the environment that their kids will be inheriting from them.

[Lars39]

9. Trying to wrestle a wheelchair into the trunk of a car is the pits.

Let alone trying to do it with other things in the trunk...:hug:

[Captain Hilts]

10. Peggy Kimnach, of Kimnach Ford [Va. Bch] drove a Wagoneer for that reason. nt

[maddezmom]

19. just googled Peggy K...what a great lady

thanks for mentioning her, I would have never kinown her history. :)

[eppur_se_muova]

22. Question - did you look at a PT Cruiser?

I don't care for these cars myself, but I've been surprised at the number I've seen with handicapped parking stickers. Apparently, it's supposed to be particularly easy to get a wheelchair in and out of the big hatch -- but I don't speak from experience, so take with a very large grain of salt.

I'd be interested to hear if others have tried this, and what their impressions were.

[Merlot]

4. Wow, "save" money by purchasing an overpriced vehicle

That's some fancy math!

Sounds like the same "math" that allowed people to purchase homes they couldn't normally qualify for!

[Initech]

12. These idiots need to do the math again.

At 3.45 a gallon, that would cost between $90 - $100 a tank to fill up. $10,000 divided by that much would only come out to about 100 tanks of gas. Which would be maybe the first few month's worth.

[dmallind]

15. I'm no fan of $50K domestic SUVs but your math is off too.

You need to pay for the EXTRA gas used not all of it - as if they had purchased a sedan it would still use gas.

So using your (high for most places) $3.45 a gallon and using midpoints of say a 50K sticker loaded Tahoe mileage vs say a 50K sticker Acura RL mileage (if you are buying a $40-50K vehicle the alternative is not a Civic!) we get the following:

Tahoe 15/20 city/hwy midpoint 17.5mpg = 12000/17.5 or 685.7 gallons at $3.45 or $2366 annual cost for average driver

RL (which gets good mpg for a heavy powerful entry level luxury car) 18-26mpg or 22 midpoint = 12000/22 or 545 gallons at $3.45 or $1882 annual cost.

Fuel savings from sedan = $484

Price savings from truck - many times that.

Even if you DO strangely assume someone who wants to buy a $50K decked out SUV would instead choose an econocar if gas mileage meant more than discounts you get this"

5sp Civic - 30/38mpg or 34 midpoint = 12000/34 or 353 gallons at $3.45 = $1218.

Savings from truck = $1148 a year

Now yes he saves money on the car too - considerably - but how many people who would even consider a large decked out SUV really want to drive a small stripped econocar - they are not really substitute goods for each other in an economics sense, whereas a larger luxury car or minivan may be.

Essentially they are saying - buy our truck and we'll cut the price enough to cover the difference in gas between driving this and a Civic for 9 years! You can still criticize their attitude to the environment or their supposed overcompensated inadequacies, or even their willingness to pay that much for a vehicle, but the savings really cover far more gas than you are implying, given the alternative is to pay $50K for a competitor's product or $40K for the SUV.

[Parche]

13. Stupid Utility Vehicles

Big Republicans, little male units.............:rofl: :rofl: :hi:


I DESPISE SUV'S :mad: :mad:

[sinkingfeeling]

14. Those buyers must not have very good math skills. I can buy a new

sedan for a lot less than $40K and get 3 to 4 times the gas milage of a monster SUV.

[dmallind]

17. Well only by extremes

The worst large SUV mileage I can see on Edmunds.com is 12 city 18 highway (and actually it's a Nissan but hey).

That's bad. But to get 3-4 times that you have to get into small hybrid cars and even then on the highway it would be tough to get 3 and nigh impossible ro get 4, since Hybrids do less well there.

I do not like SUVs, and I do not drive one (although my car only gets about 22mpg in mixed driving because I DO enjoy nice sports sedans) but the single-focus demonization and assumption that they still have 1970's Suburban mpgs does not give us much credibility. There is not as much difference between SUVs and large cars in mpg, and unless we want to try to force everyone to drive in sluggish tiny cramped econoboxes, would have much better success if we got behind fleet average standards and alternative fuel sources rather than trying to stop people buying what they want and ridiculing them when they do.

[sinkingfeeling]

18. My 1999 standard transmission Saturn gets 40 MPG.

[dmallind]

25. Great - and a Prius gets 57 or so

None of that changes the fact that neither of those are substitute products for large SUVs, and none of them gets 3-4 times normal SUV mileage (although the Prius does get 3+ times in the city).

We waste energy by attacking the very existence of one class of car/truck when we should be more concerned about increasing the mileage of every class of car. That's the whole point. If people want to buy 7 passenger boat haulers, let's at least make them as frugal 7 passenger boat haulers as possible. Detroit has actually made some progress in this regard. As I said the 9mpg Suburban is a thing of the past and its replacement gets in the mid teens overall. It's still lousy mileage but less lousy mileage. And we cannot, nor should we want to, force everyone to drive small cars. Why not? Well partly because that's not how free countries work, and partly because then why not force everyone to ride 100 mpg scooters instead? Isn't your Staurn or a Prius wasteful by comparison? I see a lot of people saying "nobody needs an SUV most of the time" and they are mostly right. But nobody needs 4 seats and a trunk most of the time either. Rather than go down the road of only allowing needs to be met rather than wants, I suggest just improving the economy of the wants.

[napi21]

16. I've met several people who are willing to pay the exorbitant

gas prices because they feel so much safer in an SUV. IMO it's a mixed bag. I haven't forgotten all the deaths in the SUV rollovers, and as far as crash resistence goes, it all depends on what you crash with! If you follow their logic to completion, everyone should be driving a semi!

[quinnox]

21. SUVs are useful in some instances

For example people who go into remote areas where the roads are very rough whether for business or pleasure. There are areas where you have to have a four wheel drive vehicle to go there at all. But yes for day to day driving SUV doesn't make sense.

[Ilsa]

23. Geez, my question is whether to spend the extra on a hybrid

versus a Honda or other small gas efficient vehicle.

[Lorien]

24. A Prius costs $23,000; hey, that's a $27,000 savings off the sticker price

of a gas guzzling SUV! Now the only problem is convincing under endowed freepers to own something, well, "sensible".