[DMCForum] Re: Back to SUV!

["therealdmcvegas" <dmcvegas@xxxxxxx>]

Yep. And they're al helluva lot cheaper to insure as well. Since so 
many of them are on the road, spare parts are abundant, is what my 
insurance agent was telling me. My insurance on a '99 Ford Explorer 
is cheaper than a woman who was about 5 years older than I, because 
she was driving a Hyundai Sonata.

SUVs are great because they're so damn simple to build and repair. 
Which is why for being such a small portion of manufacturing, they're 
such a large portion of a car companie's profits. Straight cab over 
chassis, rather than unibody car. You bust up a fender on an SUV, and 
you just need to buy a new fender, and maybe some trim pieces. You 
bust up the fender on a passenger car, and now the structural 
integrity of the whole thing has to be called into question, because 
it's a unibody!

Plus, allot of passenger cars bother me, with their B pillars being 
so close to your shoulders. And rather than build stronger, more 
safer cars, manufacturers are making crumple boxes that are designed 
to be destroyed, and will deploy an unessisary amount of airbags. 
Which also contribute to the car being disposable, by making it cost 
prohibative to repair. What really bother's me about cars is that too 
many auto manufacturers have taken out the "Supplimental" in SRS, and 
are relying on airbags to be a large factor in passenger safety, 
rather than being a secondary system, like they were originally 
designed to be. Where as an SUV is just gold old fashioned brute 
force in terms of protection.

I once crashed into some guy who ran a red light. He was in a late 
model Olds coupe, and I was driving a Ram 1500 panel van. My company 
truck needed a new bumper, grill, fenders, hood, and lights. I was 
able to drive back to the office, even with the A/C on, because the 
radiators were untouched. The other guys car was mangled. Especially 
since our impact lifed his car off the ground when I t-boned him.

Now, I don't know the history of his car. Maybe it was a "cut-n-
shut", and was no longer safe from a previous accident. What I do 
know is that I suffered only a sore shoulder from my restraint belt, 
and a burned shirt from when my airbag went off. Which was a waste of 
time, since my belt held me in place, and I never came into contact 
with the air bag.

Now I am not in the same boat here as your previous question, Mark. I 
was driving a bank utility vehicle, and I wasn't at fault. However, 
if I'm driving an old school Coupe de Ville, or even a big 
Thunderbird, a Lincoln, or a Cordoba, should I still feel guilt if my 
big boat of a car were to plow into someone, and cause some serious 
injury, or even death to them? Since it's not an SUV, it doesn't fall 
into that sterotype of being an "enemy of the road", so does that 
make it ok?

Do I mind SUVs? no. Do they scare me on the road? No. It's the 
drivers of these things that frighten me, not their vehicles. BUT, I 
do compensate for that. If I get near one, I will stomp on the gas, 
and get the hell out of their blind spots. After all, I can't be any 
more mad at someone in an SUV who can't see my DeLorean, than I can a 
motorcycle rider that I can't see, because I AM driving my DeLorean. 
So, I compensate. It would be foolish of me to try any punish someone 
else by not letting them drive their car, simply because I choose to 
hang out in their blind spots.

Besides, it's like an elephant and a mouse. SUV owners are already 
quite intimidated of other drivers who drive too close to them...

-Robert



--- In DMCForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Marc Levy <malevy_nj@xxxx> wrote:
> "J.D. Power and Associates estimates that SUVs now
> account for 15 percent of sales (rising every year),
> but they yeild a whopping 60 percent of industry
> profits! "
> 
> It may be even MORE than double!
> 
> --- timnagin <timnagin@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> > In regards to the farmer and the auto manufacturers,
> > you would be hard
> > pressed to prove SUV's double their profit.
> > 
> > Greg
> 
> 
> 
>             
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