Has anyone got a 4x4?

[momof2]

We have just decided to get rid of our faithful Hippo (Nissan Micra) and branch out into the uncertain world of much larger family cars.
I have been looking at a discovery or freelander - please note all old ones not new.
Has anyone any experience of how good/bad they are please? Or any 4x4's they would recommend or MPV's
Many thanks

Hang on, hang on...... I can feel myself being drawn into something here that I never wanted to be...... purely indicating that there's a choice of 4 wheel drive available and that you are free to choose. We're looking at them due to moving into rural Cumbria shortly - not merely to ponce around in them in town. I would hope that anyone wanting to consider owning one would exercise a simple level of intelligence first. Please don't tar me with the same brush.

Blu, so sorry to hear about your friend. 4x4s scare me rigid precisely because they are so dangerous to pedestrians, especially children.

no thank goodness I dont live in London - I agree with teh huge congestion in London any kind of vehicle isnt really suitable I guess.

Anyway, im not sure how you can group a specific car driver into a category based on their choice. Do you do this with other things?

Poppy - I hear what you're saying, but as someone who grew up in a rural area up in the north east of Scotland, it is possible to survive without one! The problem is that even if you "need" it because you'll be living half way up a mountain (the only place that justifies having one IMO), you'll still be taking into town to do the shopping, school run etc etc I presume?

Ohh you mean the "we live in the country" argument - what absolute rubbish - there is hardly any real wilderness in this country - you dont need a 4x4 anywhere except the most remote communities or unless you are a farmer.

I have friends in the Pyrenees who live at 1000m altitude - they are surounded by mountains up to 2800m - hardly anyone there drives a 4x4. Yes the cars all have 4x4 traction but they are normal family cars with normal fuel consumption - they are not chelsea tractors. I am sorry but this is always the argument used by the people who try and justify themselves as "country folk" when actually they just commute from villages a few miles out.

Ignorance is bliss though isnt it - and I am sure you will continue to help Global Warming wreck the planet for your children. You will continue to use the same worn out arguments that probably have more to do with your preferences as a consumer than any real careful consideration of whats best for your children (taking their future into account as well).

For anyone who missed it in my first post - here is the website I mentioned. I am so pleased to hear a lot of Mums agreeing with me and I hope some may be tempted to use their printer and do as I have done and display locally. Yes you 4x4 drivers have a right - but we have a right to put our argument across too and we have a right to protest against your selfishness and ignorance.

clix.to/no4x4

Go Gdine!!

If people choose to drive a category of car that is many times more lethal to pedestrians than any other, I think the rest of us are entitled to draw conclusions from that, in our own self-defence. My conclusion is 'the person driving that 4x4 bearing down on me at this pedestrian crossing doesn't really think very much, if at all, about how likely they are to kill other people, so excuse me if I don't cross the road until I am 100 per cent certain that they are actually planning to stop'.

Well, good as well as bad drivers have acidents. It's just that those, good or bad, who are driving 4x4s when they have their accident are likely to do a lot more damage.
Where's the flaw in that argument, Skinnycow?

Apart from the fact that Pedestrians - esp Eldery and Children are far more likely to end up as a mortality stastic if involved in an accident with a 4x4, plus the awful MPG they do, I can't think of a single thing why anyone would give them two figures as you drive by in one?!

Do you not think you are giving two fingers to the enviroment and society generally, as you drive around in one (probably doing the school run) Can you SERIOUSLY, no seriously, now really say that you do not know why you get abuse while driving one? If you are then I am totally staggered

Have just come back from a hol in a v mountainous region of Sardinia, preciptous dirt track roads etc. The average sardinian farmer seemed to get around in a 1970s Fiat panda! With 6 or 7 goats in the back!

no i dont live in the cuntry I live very close to where these are built

Then be very careful how you cross the raod!!!!

FIMAC my disco runs on LPG which is incredibly green - probably more so than your car or any of the others on here!

Ohh and I forgot to say. I printed out around ten posters from the site and I stuck them under the windscreen wipers of the bigger 4x4's in a shopping centre carpark today.

Never done anything like that before in my life -felt nervous and slightly naughty but I do care a lot about this issue and I have decided its time to protest.

Strangely liberating to speak out like that ! I think I should do it more often.

Right, and for your next trick you are going to convince us that somehow your 4x4 is far nicer to any pedestrians it hits than ordinary cars are?

I'm sure that the pedestrians that are more at risk of being killed by your 4x4 are thrilled by your green credentials.

Still would likely kill my ds or dd if hit by one - most people simply do NOT need to drive one - they are not necessary on todays roads - as others have pointed out

• they are f**k you cars

As for Blu's comments

• hope one of your relatives does not get involved in a acciden with one - the height of them being such that rather than being thrown up onto the bonnet you are pushed underneath

edam - no im not going to convince anyone of that. Im happy in the knowledge that my car is greener than yours!

I agree i hope no one I know gets hit by one or any other car/van/bus/lorry/train for that matter.

But are you happy knowing that the chances of you killing a pedestrian (and esp a child) if you hit one are far, far higher than if you were driving a 'normal' car (which you can also run on LPG, shock horror).

oh FGS ! make your minds up which is worse? the horrific fuel consumption or the shape of the car?

I think you should all go out and buy a tandem tomorrow - why have a car at all, they're all killers in the wrong hands.

Mmmm...it's a diifcult one, isn't it. Which is why I don't drive, and will never drive one. Which one do you think is worse?

Actually Skinny cow - LPG is not very Green.
Yes you get better consumption but you are still burning a fossil fuel. There is a green fuel that you can run on if your 4x4 is desiel ( damn cant remember how to spell it ) but that is called biodiesiel (ahh got it right that time I think ) and it is produced from rapeseed.

The difference being that you are not bring carbon into the carbon cycle from fossil fuels but instead burning a replaceable organic fuel that is part of the existing carbon cycle.

Well look...I just about understand the difference but I dont seem to be explaining it very well but I read all about it on a website.

We are thinking of getting our small modest diesel car converted to run on this fuel - apparently that then means we have a zero carbon footprint.

depends - which shape are we talking about?