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.

I drive a tiny Citroen C1 but if I could afford one I’d buy a Range Rover in an instant! They’re beautiful cars (in my opinion) and are so roomy and comfortable inside.

What’s wrong on spending money on something you like?

Lots of things wrong as argued by countless posts over 9 pages

British roads are terrible. You basically need an 4 wheel drive if you ever leave the centre of town. If you have car seats then that also rules out a lot of cars sold in Britain because a normal sized adult simply wouldn’t fit. I’ve had done great little hatch back things which are great in town but they can’t hack motorways or country driving

What rubbish. We took an Audi A3 from South Wales to the North west of Scotland this year. From motorways down to single track roads with passing places. No problem at all.

We’ve got a smallish SUV (it’s certainly smaller than an estate) and are city dwellers. Got it because its higher roof means it was easier taking a car seat in and out when DD was a baby and lifting her in and out now a toddler than bending down to previous saloon.

Used to drive a 4x4 because I lived at the top of a pretty steep street that was inaccessible in a normal car in snow and pretty scary in ice. Just because a person is in a town doesn't mean they have the luxury of clear roads in winter.

People drive what they choose and what they can afford. I can't get excited about it tbh.

@GinDaddy sorry I missed that bit
yes it's 100mm wider than a Skoda
But only 40mm wider than our old Audi saloon
I can still open the doors without bashing another car if parked in the centre of a space , it's not that hard IF you can park properly - however I've noticed that's a skill many people seem to have lost but that equally applies to all cars. I'm also a quite tiny individual so don't need to open the door fully to get out.
The only time I don't like parking it is in a multi-storey near us that has a very low ceiling, I know it fits because they have a height bar as you go in but I feel uncomfortably close to the ceiling!

When I was growing up in the 60s/70s people managed perfectly well with 5 seater cars

1. you could cram as many as you liked in the back seat and the boot (if an estate) as there were no seatbelts and no car seats.
2. people didn't drive everywhere.

I like to see over hedges when I'm in ours, I'm nosy.

When I was growing up in the 60s/70s people managed perfectly well with 5 seater cars

That’s because there weren’t the same rules around car seats, and consequently children were far less safe in the car.

@birdlawyer

Nothing wrong with buying something you like! The Range Rover is a fantastic vehicle, almost nothing out there has its breath of capability in a luxury package. I think they’re great feats of British engineering (when they work...reliability has never been the marques’ strongest point)

However the car is just under 2 metres wide without mirrors... it’s 5 metres in length.

Absolutely there are people who drive them, and bigger, with adroitness. Kudos to them, they are probably used to towing horse boxes or they know these vehicles and understand their role

However the number of times I’ve seen crazy verge parking; bad bay parking; weird aggressive parking outside nursery... it just makes me think it was a case of “I want this nice vehicle, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to figure out how to use it properly around town”.

We have a 4x4

We tow a horse box regularly.

Our livery yard is at the end of a very muddy, pot holey lane - that we have to drive up, twice a day whatever the weather - snow/ice - we still have to get there.

It was a nightmare a couple of years ago when we had that freezing rain - carting water 2 miles up an icy lane because the pipes at the yard froze, or trying to carry a bale of hay between us desperately trying not to fall on our arses

Plenty of room to can chuck bags of feed and bales of straw/hay in the boot

DH uses it to do work deliveries - needs to take a fair amount of weight

We used to have a bog standard Ford Focus until fairly recently but couldn’t tow with it and it couldn’t cope with the deliveries DH needs to do or the pot holey lane

It’s our only car so we do use it to drive to the supermarket/school run, etc but I do try and park it out the way at the back of car parks and stuff like that

I work in an office building that was built in the 60s. It has an underground car park marked out for 60s sized cars. Unfortunately, it is is full of modern cars, many of which are SUVs which are massive compared to the spaces.

Today there was a Discovery parked next to my space. It was so big that, even with mirrors tucked in, it was on the white lines on both sides. Every third space has a pillar intruding into it, which reduces the space by about 3".

I managed to get my elderly A4 estate out of the space ok, but it is small by today's standards and has a brilliantly tight turning circle. Anyone with a bigger car wouldn't have been able to get in/out imo.

There's also someone with a Toyota Landcruiser that's so big they have to use a visitor parking space at the front of the building. It's simply too big for the undergorund spaces, it wouldn't fit in. It's also always immaculately clean and shiny, no straw or mud, so not used because the owners live a mile up a muddy track.

I'm also uneasy about the "safety" argument. I get that it's a lot safer if someone drives into you, but it's also a lot more dangerous for other people if you drive into them!

I absolutely hate them. Totally unnecessary unless you actually off road them, which I'm not convinced a lot of them do. I asked a colleague why she had a huge Audi and she said it's because she has three children btw I drive a small car, I have great self esteem and could buy a 4x4 outright if I wanted to.
Maybe that's why I don't want one

That's the thing op. People get to make a choice. On what they drive and what they spend their money on. Because we live in a free society.

My husband and I both drive 4x4s. We also live rurally. Mine is very large but I'm an advanced driver and know how to drive it.

My friend drives one, she lives in a busy town. She was involved as a police officer in a high speed chase and was severely injured. She feels safer being higher up. Her money, her life, her choice.

What's your plan. To interview every single person? You say it's image. Are you going to try to pretend there is no such vanity behind owning your bmw? Of course there is.

You say you feel embarrassed driving down streets looking at big cars. You imagine it's a competition on who has the bigger car. A bit like who has the bigger dick.

I'd really take a step back if I was you as that's just too emotionally invested.

There’s an alarming amount of nastiness and judgement on this thread.
I lease a decent sized SUV and love it. I like the driving position, I work hard and deserve to spend my money driving a car that I like, I use it for work and need something reliable and spacious enough to fit adults and car seats for children in, it saves my back getting toddler DS in and out of the car, we enjoy lots of trips away in this country and always have a packed boot, and my mother is a wheelchair user and the extra room is very useful for her chair as well as the car being easy for her to get in and out.

No idea if my reasons will be deemed worthy enough but tbh it’s nobody else’s business what others choose to drive.

YANBU

Most people who choose to buy Chelsea tractor type cars don't need one for weather or location. The ones near us are usually spotless, parked over the white lines in car parks and are used to drive the children from the estate to the school on the estate. Parking right round yellow school lines, stopping mid road with hazzards, you name it.

When I lived rurally there were loads of these vehicles, all well used and needed, all driven properly. The holidaymakers in their spotless ones? Hahaha. Bloody terrible drivers leaving the rest of us in all sorts of vehicles to get into the verge/reverse to the passings place and so on.

I'm entertained at the idea that if you leave a town in the UK you need a 4x4.

I thought my Kia Sportage was known as a crossover rather than an SUV but just googled and see I was wrong. But it isn't 4 wheel drive and isn't designed to go off road. I bought it because it had a bigger boot than the Ceed estate but wasn't as long so we could fit both our cars on the drive, and I like the higher seating position.

I had no problems parking it in Morrisons earlier either.

Totally unnecessary unless you actually off road them

I would challenge you to drive the roads round me in winter then come back and state that again.

yes I don’t doubt it. Dsd has a Fiat 500, but naturally borrows my 4wd when the roads are bad/ she needs the space. Rather than dps OMV (old man vehicle). So not only have I heard it from her but experience it myself when she’s pinched my car and I’m in hers. And tbh it’s only the sheer size that stops them trying to do the same with my car, or when I’m towing/ driving the box.

But when I first learnt to drive the same wankers expected you to climb into a hedge so they didn’t damage their shiny luxury sedan.

It wasn’t directed at you, more the posters implying that a small car does everything a 4x4 does for those of us that live rurally.

@bluntness100

I don’t know if this is an attempt to live up to your username, but you’re putting words in my mouth that I never said.

“You say you feel embarrassed driving down streets looking at big cars. You imagine it's a competition on who has the bigger car. A bit like who has the bigger dick.”

I never said that.

Ever.

What I said was, if you come across someone on a narrow bridge or country lane, you have the right of way, and they’re in a huge 4X4 refusing to reverse...?!

Well picture it...

Anyways as before, don’t say I’m too invested. I never said the things you allege me to have said. Very strange, stop trying to goad me.

I also don't understand rhe concept of driving only what's "necessary". What is this, communist Russia? We only drive what's necessary, so roll out the lada's. We can only live in houses just big enough to accommodate us, and only wear second hand clothes.

There are plenty of countries in the world where free choice is not a thing. Plenty of places people can move to if they don't like free choice and wish to live like that.

Whilst you remain in the uk. We have free choice. And long may it last.

@TrainspottingWelsh there's a definite difference between when I'm driving a brand new work Range Rover and my car!
I'm rural but my car honestly manages great. The only time I've not been able to is when there's been snow drifts of 6-10ft and frankly the road is closed at that point apart from to a plough or tractor
On the lane I go down there's a hill part, I'm probably 3m off the bottom and the car coming up was about 1m from a passing place and refused to reverse. They wanted me to reverse all the way (a good 100m) back up the hill
Some drivers are crazy

Op. Yes you did say it, re read your own op.

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

I drive a 4x4 OP. A Nissan X Trail. Mainly so when I drive home to mainland Europe I can take my very large dog with me in comfort in the boot.
I don't have any problems parking or reversing it. That's because I drive HGVs for a living. A fully laden rig makes a 4x4 seem like a Noddy car.
I also drive a fiat 500 daily to work and back.

@Bluntness100

I just read your message where you claimed I drive a BMW for the image

I think this rather betrays your thinking to be honest.

I drive the BMW because it is a compact, rear wheel drive petrol estate with a manual gearbox.

Name me three other choices from today’s motor industry that offer that platform.

It’s not about the badge.. it really isn’t.

It’s about enjoying driving, and my choice doesn’t affect anyone else when I’m parking or threading it down a country lane.