To not understand the obsession with SUVs/4x4s?

[GinDaddy]

I'm genuinely curious to hear people's views below. Nearly every parent I know in my area has a 4x4 car of some sort. That's dozens of folk. The car parks at our local supermarket are covered in the things.

My AIBU is to ask, what is the obsession with these things? Why are they the "default" choice for parents now, considering so many folk can't park them properly, and our roads aren't set up for them?

I watched in amused horror yesterday as a lady with a Vauxhall Grandland X (yep...me neither) tried to park head-first in a bay in our local supermarket. The width of the thing was the issue, but once "parked", the rear of the car was practically touching the front of the neighbouring vehicle.

It was just absurd. Why is this car any better than an Astra estate, or in the same price category, a Skoda Octavia estate, both of which are narrower and better on fuel, and the Skoda which has extraordinary amounts of luggage capacity and legroom?

I think the answer is simple, it's an image thing. People feel their life is more exciting with DCs if they're in something that looks like it could climb a mountain at the weekend.

Only problem is, my DW and I find public car parks absurd at the moment as I find more and more of these hideous things parked terribly at every juncture.

The beauty of living in a capitalist economy is the prerogative of choice, helped by dollops of PCP finance handed out by every car dealer, meaning anyone can get into a boxy car on stilts.

But for goodness sake can people learn how to drive and park these things if they're going to be bought by everyone? Driving down streets with parked cars on either side is a game of "my car is bigger than yours, so move over", which is just embarrassing.

NOTE: I have no issues with envy here; we have a 6-year old estate car from a well known Bavarian marque with a three letter acronym. I don't ride 2mm off people's bumpers, and it serves our family's needs well.

Tbf it can be difficult to find non-SUVs now as all car manufacturers are moving down this design route and new cars are generally getting bigger. Ford are not even making their people carriers (B Max, C Max) anymore, everything is going into their new Focus crossover and Kuga. If you don’t like the look or design of estates and you want a Hybrid, you’re more likely to find you’ll have SUVs to choose from when looking for family cars...

When we bought our car we originally looked at hybrids including SUVs. I loved the Kia Niro but the boot was too small. We also looked at the Mitsubishi Outlander but it was FAR too big, an absolute beast of a car and completely unnecessary (for us and most city dwellers).

I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not so much the SUV styling that's the problem - it suits a lot of people to have more height - just the sheer size of many SUVs. I think that crossovers and compact SUVs can be a good compromise between comfort and fuel economy, not impossible to park etc. But so many people seem to have absolutely huge SUVs here in the city and that's what I really hate.

I don't know a huge amount about the different brands but I've noticed that the Nissan SUVs seem to be huge and ugly. I like the Kias which seem to be a bit smaller and look more like cars than monsters

@karenbokaren

I don't 'need' my ^environment killing twat truck' as you so delightfully describe it. I've been quite clear in my pps that aside from the bootspace, which I do require, I just like them. I have asked more that one member to confirm their claims about estates that have the same space in the boot, but as of yet, no one can back themselves up
I bought it second hand. Does that make it any less 'killing'?

You seem very mad. You ok hun? PM me. Xoxo

Haven't looked at current SUVs because DH actively dislikes them to drive. He gets his work kit under the boot cover in a Mondeo Estate (although he has removed some of the padding under the boot floor). That lot wouldn't fit an Outlander.

Skoda Superb and Mercedes E class have the biggest estate boots that I know of - I accept that a 4x4 will have more height if you don't want the cover over...

Old CRV was good for space but horrible for fuel economy fully laden and wore its CV joints as a result of being heavy at the back.

I'm intrigued to know which SUV has that boot volume smiththecat2 Are you sure that's not the volume with the back seats down?

@Shmithecat2 yes what 4x4 has that boot space without the seats down? Google says no.

@unluckyforsome
A Landrover Discovery 3. With the first and second row in use, it still has 1192ltr of boot space. @karenbokaren Google is rarely wrong, so I would suggest user error instead.

Here's a link and a screenshot, just in case you don't believe me.

@randomsabreuse

The Skoda Superb still only had 660ltr of boot space with 2 rows of seats in use, E Class 640.

I'm sorry I stand corrected.

But, that is an utterly ridiculous car to be driving. Not a single person here drives something like that and our roads are actually off-road conditions most of the year.

@karenbokaren

Au contraire, it is a beautiful car to drive. I love it. When we travel less, I'll downsize to a Range Rover.

🤣

Hilarious.

Mathanxiety - you're taking a very offensive-defensive stance here. When I point out that oversized vehicles stop others from being able to see at junctions, that pine is ignored. When I point out that bad driving and parking in oversized vehicles is literally a larger problem than in smaller cars I'm told that anyone can be a bad driver/parker - which is clearly not the point. When I point out that these cars are mostly unnecessary I'm told I'm being a snob. And when I point out how you'd calculate new versus old car environmental impact - on a case by case basis - I get the meaningless "The day you can find stats that back up your allegations of safety and environmental issues that do not apply to other vehicles at all is the day when the cows will come home when your judging will be justified. "

Of course every vehicle has safety and environmental impacts - the bigger the vehicle the bigger those impacts will be. How can you refute that?

Jude if you live in central london you don't really need a car

Karen
Yes I do find it funny that someone says they will "downsize" to a Range Rover.
I also find it amusingly pretentious when English speakers say "au contraire".
So all in all I don't think we're too far from the stereotype of the pretentious driver who thinks their oversized tank is "beautiful".
I prefer to laugh about it, otherwise it's all too easy to get dragged down by the whole debate.

It's pretty well impossible to compare boot sizes on line. Landrover tend to measure boot volume up to the roof while others do up to load cover level - DH's old boss had a Freelander 2. It had less useable space than DH's CRV despite quoted figures... It was not possible to get all the things from the CRV boot into the Freelander.

Current Ford Mondeo is "bigger" in a practical sense than current CRV by the same measure. Haven't had the opportunity to compare with a normal Discovery because the only one in circulation among DH's colleagues is a commercial so only 2 seats... others are too £££ for vets who don't have substantial personal incomes!

@AnotherEmma true. But I'm seeing climate change have very real effects on where I live and it makes me sad that so many people don't give a shit.

True

@randomsabreuse well, sometimes, my boot is filled to the roof. I agree about the freelander2 - that's what I had before the Disco, the fact the boot door wasn't horizontal made it bloody awkward to get anything in it. One medium suitcase and a pushchair and that was it. Hence opting for the Disco. Its cavernous.

Ugh. VERTICAL, not horizontal.

I have a MK2 CRV, bought for the seat height, durability and legroom. I'm not fond of the fuel economy, and the tech is a bit dated now, but it gets stuff done.

If you fill a disco to the roof you need a big vehicle like a Disco! Very few people do! Discos are also very capable vehicles off road and tow really well too! X5, Q7 and even Cayennes on road tyres are much less capable off road vehicles and the boot space isn't great!

DameFanny
...the bigger the vehicle the bigger those impacts will be. How can you refute that?

Probably with statistics, DameFanny. And maybe a little common sense too.
Just straight off the top of my head, if a saloon is driven by one person with a lead foot and they drive everywhere, then it's very likely that a 4x4 which carries 7 members of a netball team plus driver plus all their gear to and from their matches is overall a positive in terms of comparable environmental impact. Same way that a non-diesel bus trumps 40 separate cars making the same trip.

Your 'points' are based on prejudice.
Of course other vehicles ahead will prevent you seeing into an intersection. If you insist on driving the smallest car on the road then every other vehicle including saloons is going to obstruct your view. Similarly, if you are driving a 4x4 and one bigger than yours is ahead of you, you are going to have the same problem.
The solution is easy - stay back a bit. Nobody is forcing you to drive so far up someone's arse that your view is dangerously compromised.

Bad driving and parking have the same effect no matter what size the vehicle is. A Nissan Micra straddling the line between two parking bays is preventing all other vehicles bar a motorbike from parking. Bad parking is not to be confused with parking the best you can in a space designed to fit cars of the 1960s though, in a car park with perpendicular parking as opposed to the more practical diagonal design. You would be perfectly comfortable parking a 1960s VW Beetle, width approx 60 inches, beside a 4x4 parked legally in a standard sized parking bay in 2019. Newsflash - all vehicles have increased in size since 1968. It's not just 4x4s. A 2018 VW Beetle is just a touch over 71 inches wide. The problem with parking is the car parks.
www.bbc.com/news/uk-38048793

And the physical impact of bad driving that leads to crashes is determined by speed, angle of impact, and whether occupants of vehicles are wearing seat belts.

Ultimately you are responsible for gauging driving conditions yourself and taking sensible precautions to stay safe. Sometimes your driving conditions will involve narrow country lanes and sometimes you will be contending with articulated lorries on the motorway. You can sometimes plan your route to avoid conditions that make you nervous or conditions you know to be dangerous. You can always drive defensively, let the speeding car go past, let the cheeky driver encroaching from the side get in in front of you, etc. And never drink and drive.

My comments about judging others on grounds of being flashy or ostentatious being a peculiarly British trait were related to your insistence that these are valid reasons to sniff at other people's taste in vehicles. You don't have the right to object to other people's taste and conflate that with concerns about the environment.

Lots of people drive around in cars that have a back seat that never sees a derriere, even in 5-door cars. Are these drivers guilty of conspicuous consumption or ostentation or driving unnecessarily large vehicles? Do you judge them too?

One thing I am sure about is that a vehicle which does 18mpg is using up twice as much fuel as one which does 36mpg.

"And the physical impact of bad driving that leads to crashes is determined by speed, angle of impact, and whether occupants of vehicles are wearing seat belts."

and whether a car/pedestrian/bicyclist/horse is hit by three-quarters of a ton or a ton and a third of metal moving at the same speed and angle of impact, I suspect.