Why does everyone need a massive car these days?

Not true. I drive a VW Up

well I have 3 kids and 2 foster kids, 2 play guitar, 2 play football and 2 play Rugby, some play hockey and netball, one is away at uni and one about to go osmlots of dripping and picking up stuff. Hear disease in the family so important they excercise and foster kids need to keep busy for mental health due tonpast trauma. I also have to transport my mother who has mobility issues to medical appointments. So unfortunately I need a 5 seater with a large boot and drive an X5. I can't really go much smaller than that and get everyone to where yhey need to be.

I wouldnt drive a RR though, the huge ones are ridiculous. My X5 has parking sensors and cameras, like most larger cars, and is WAY easier to park than mynold Renault Clio.

🙄

This drives me crazy especially where I live (in London). Huge tank of a car that doesn't fit into a parking space so takes up two spaces or sticks right out at the front or they can't squeeze past you or are too hesitant to. Why on earth do you need these huge cars in London or any city. Countryside, fair enough. Is it just a status thing?

They're always getting nicked too around here and, apparently the insurance is huge for them too.

There was a post I saw on Facebook recently about how on the greek islands... people happily drive absolute bangers and how cars are not a status symbol at all there.

I went there last year....it was so refreshing to be somewhere where people's self esteem and penis size weren't wrapped up in how new and how big their car was.

Who do you think profits financially from a car lease?

Three kids ranging from 2-13 and a dog. When the third was born the middle dc was still in a car seat and our compact SUV was the smallest car they’d all fit in the back, even then it was a squish.
It’s not odd that a few decades on we aren’t managing in the same tiny cars we had before. I grew up in the 90’s, and we fit easily in the back of a small hatchback but the car seats were tiny and you didn’t stay in them past being 3 or 4 at the most and even then it was just a booster cushion. If there was no room someone went in the back of my dad’s estate car. And I remember my mum driving with 4 kids in the back of a regular car 2 smallest ones on one seat with one belt around them.

The standard ‘default’ way of buying a car is to save up and buy a small, older car you can afford.

It isn't, the car industry has been kept going by the lease schemes and people being able to get a new car. Around 30% of cars are leased

I've never leased a car, I've always bought them outright second hand and driven them until they no longer drive. I was surprised to learn how many people have leases, I don't even know how it works. If you can't afford to pay outright for a second hand one is it not better to get a bank loan? Or is it about having a new car?

How is it not affordable? You can afford £800 a month it’s affordable. You can afford your mortgage can’t you? Is it unaffordable because you haven’t bought it outright?

no one wants anyone to be envious of anyone else, frankly, but if you walked into a dealership with £80k cash for a car they would think you were a wally, yes.

Agree.

The only drivers I envy are those who are given company cars and they are changed every two years

Paying back big figures every month and then a large balloon payment at the end is not a status symbol in any shape or form.

Kids have to be in car seats until they're 12 these days, and car seats are huge. So are prams etc. We have 2 kids under 4 and a dog, and we're busting out of a Kia Niro (what I'd consider a medium sized car). I'd much prefer something smaller for town driving but I wouldn't get the pram in the boot.

It's great that everything is safer but that requires a lot more space.

I don't, have a VW up and we have gone on holiday as a family of 4 in it with 2 pushchairs and luggage for 2 adults and 2 children under 2

Of course it’s not affordable if bought on lease.

It was never the ‘default way’ until the masses decided they had to keep up with one another and all have big cars.

The standard ‘default’ way of buying a car is to save up and buy a small, older car you can afford.

Nobody envies leased cars or the drivers unless they are company cars.

Not sure what you mean by crumbled but cars are supposed to crumple if you crash to absorb the impact energy. I crashed in a 2000 car which didn't crumple much at all, instead I absorbed the energy and ended up badly injured.

Because I am disabled and struggle with smaller cars on many levels. That said I can park my car perfectly well, thank you, and better than a great many drivers with smaller cars.

Actually, it's an unintended consequence of US tax rules and environmental intent. A while ago, taxes were to be raised on polluting cars (since happened here in Europe to some extent too), but not on trucks. So the car manufacturers lobbied, finagled, etc., etc., and managed to get Sports Utility Vehicles classed as trucks.

Hence US manufacturers moved to making more SUVs so as to avoid tax. And, selling to the rest of the world, they advertised most strongly what they were manufacturing more of.

[Of course I do understand that none of you people with your Chelsea Tractors has been at all influenced by such advertising. You are all autonomous thoughtful individuals with very good reasons for buying big cars ...]

Strange that an initially environmentally-based move - tax polluting cars - should result in more polluting cars on the road worldwide. But there you go.

[Moral of this? Left as an exercise.]

Some people do need them, many don’t. I’ve recently downsized from a Volvo xc40 to a VW golf. Most of my time is spent driving around town, school runs, work etc. VW is much cheaper to run and more practical. I haven’t yet come up with a downside l, so for me it’s a good swap.

It would be funny if car leasing and finance deals were no longer available at all....we'd see what people can really afford then. Cars are no longer a barometer of wealth due to credit...

Yep I live in leafy part of London and see lots of shiny four wheel drive cars that will never venture further than the airport. Mind you sometimes the pot holes will splash the mud around a bit for a touch of off road authenticity.
I think people feel safe in them as they are higher off the ground.

I don’t understand why people say this- and can only assume they don’t understand what a car lease is?

a car lease is the default way of buying a new car- paying cash is not only unusual but often more expensive.

why do people look down their nose as if it’s a poor persons choice -who can’t really afford it?

Someone leasing a new range will easily be paying £800 a month. They’re not “all fur coat and new knickers” by any standards. And at the end of their lease they need to buy the car, or carry on paying £800 a month for another one.

absolute nonsense

Personally I think they look hideous. If I had lots of money I'd get a sports car.

We have 3 large dogs that come on holidays with us, I go to various gundog events and country shows etc. often driving across muddy tracks and fields. We sometimes tow our caravan on holiday. We live rurally and the village is regularly cut off due to flooding unless you have a car with good ground clearance. I'm sorry if I sometimes have to go towns for shopping or appointments and park my big ugly car, but I'm afraid a tiny little low slung car isn't going to suit the other 95% of my life.

It's the people who can't drive them that get me- can't park or drive them like milk floats despite them having so much power. I include all the stupidly big SUVs.

I had a huge Peugeot recently as a courtesy car. Ridiculous for city driving.