I think he mentality is not to ALL SUV owners though. There are plenty of people on this forum who own SUVs, even *gasp* Hummers, along with our MINIs. We own a MINI and Jeep Wrangler and a GMC Yukon. The MINI is he commuter, the Yukon is the stuff-hauler, and the Jeep is the toy (although its for sale right now).

I think people are bothered when the see a big SUV flying down the freeway that has never seen a day of work in its life beyond commuting. And I can see that, its wasteful. But some people can't open their minds beyond just what they SEE...thats just life.

 

Heck, I'm so open minded, I even married a liberal

Together, we'd be...oh...a Dodge Dart.

 

Sums it up well.

The posers are the ones who are afraid of hitting a dirt road and getting dirty. Those who do the radical 4 wheeling are no different than us going to, say Moab, just for the fun of it.

The government promotes consumption with the silly rule of big vehicles being the only candidates for a tax writeoff. I write off for mileage, but it's minimal. I won't do business with someone selling little stuff if they drive a huge vehicle. But what ticks me off is seeing jacked up trucks haulin' butt weaving through traffic, that's just stupid.

Back on topic, did that guy get his bookcase home? Home Deephole has a rental truck.

 

You new huh or not read the SUV bashing posts?

No, there have been posts bashing SUVs in general for merely existing. Just the wasted gas mileage is enuff to get ppl riled up.

 

I've seen it at DCMM meets too. A few members who shall remain nameless get their blood pressure going talking about SUVs. It's funny to me....America...home of freedom, as long as you agree with me

 

Aww c'mon - nothing wrong with being a poseur, how many mini owners really take their car to its full potential either? (yeah, I know a lot of folks on here do, but we're only x% of Mini owners, and there's also x% of Hummer H(x) owners who take their cars onto slippery terrain too. Note: I can back up those statistics... :P). Like I said - seriously - nothing wrong with it! Let's face it, many on here LIKE to be seen in the Mini. Many Hummer owners LIKE to be seen in a Hummer. Problem? H2? H3? H1? They want to have fun in their vehicles too - anything wrong with that?

Oh - and JohnBLZ, I've definitly stood a large McD's Coke on the back tire of the H3. Can't disagree with that, eh? :LOL:.

Besides, the H3 has a nice stock radio. It's too bad that driving it feels like you're driving a very competent off road vehicle while looking out the mail slot in your front door!

RoadFly - there's a few things non-stock about your soccer car, eh? Love that pic, with respect it's one of the only times I've seen an H2 doing something like that. H1s definitely, H3's sometimes.

 

In this age of Global Warming and gross mismanagement of resources... Americans should be leading the world in doing more with less. Instead we lead the world in doing less with more.

That's what burns me more than anything else. If an H# got 30+ miles to the gallon and was produced with greener practices AND took whomever the driver hits safety into consideration I'd be in line to buy one myself.. I'm not denying their 'sexy' factor.

As they exist today that are a symbol for many of our cultural 'ills'.

Clear enough?

 

you think an H2 is more environmentally responsible than a Toyota Prius? jury is out on that one. nothing short of mass transportation is 'responsible'

oh - my Cooper S doesn't get 30mpg either

 

You missed the point.

My Cooper S gets 36...and I could care less that the scoop isn't functional

 

I just wish the government would close the loophole that keeps SUVs like the Hummer, Suburban and excursion from being figured into the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) figures. The exemption was originally put in place so that things like farm equipment, delivery vans and dump trucks wouldn't count against a manufacturer's overall fuel-economy rating, but now we have what are essentially passenger vehicles that are large enough to trigger the loophole (over 8500 pounds GVWR), and there's no good reason for them to continue to be exempt.

If automakers want to make them, and people want to buy them, that's fine - I'm not going to tell anyone what they can and can't drive, but if the automakers had to include them in their fuel economy calculations, you'd see them jump through their own butts in order to a) improve the fuel economy of their SUVs, and b) start producing attractive, inexpensive fuel-efficient cars in order to offset the behemoths in the fuel economy calculations.

 

apparently, you weren't clear enough then

 

My feelings exactly. I have no qualms with anyone who buys a vehicle and uses it for it's intended purpose. Likewise, I have no issues for an 'enthusiast' owning a vehicle and not necessarily using it as designed. If some dude buys a H2 and fits it with so much bling and boom that it would no longer do well off road, oh well, he's having fun, doing something different and just maybe is a bit more conscientious than the self-absorbed 'soccer mom' or the like.

NAM is full of posts lamenting those people who have bought MINIs and neglect them, drive around without waving at fellow owners and such. How dare they buy a MINI and use it like some ORDINARY CAR!

I'm almost afraid to show my latest vehicle purchase to the NAM masses for fear of being lambasted as being 'unmotoringmanshipness' or something:

I could not get it all in the frame without the Batman TV show camera angles.

This is my '07 Chevy Silverado LTZ 2500HD 4x4 Crew Cab Long Bed with a 6.6L Duramax diesel V8 and 6-speed Allison automatic. Size-wise, it makes an H2 seem positively quaint. This is used for heavy hauling as well as pulling my 26 foot travel trailer.Granted, it's very un-MINI-like. But it does what I intend for it wonderfully, and there are some things about it I wish the MINI would have (not the least of which is the 365hp/660lb-ft of torque!). It gets used mostly for what it's best at. However, if I were to pare down my ownership of seven (yes, 7) vehicles down to one, it might have to be this, since it can be used for most purposes, including commuting. It would not be very efficient at the latter (though it's getting about 17-17.5mpg used as such in mixed driving).

The point being here is, it's pretty easy to thumb one's nose at someone else's choice of ride as they are going down the road. Granted, many people are driving around in something like an SUV and never doing much more with it than could be taken care of with a hearing-aid beige '77 Ford Fairmont with one brown door. But there is rarely any sure way to tell to what extreme they use that vehicle. I'd much rather see someone load sheets of plywood into a pickup truck rather than strapping them to the roof of a car. Likewise, I'd rather see someone (sanely) driving an H2 in a bad snow than trying to do so in a MINI.

Just my tuppence!

 

Or perhaps I was being polite in indicating that what you said didn't make any sense.

 

If a vehicle is used for it's intended purpose, pick-up truck for picking up stuff, SUV for going around your milion acre farm, or in my wifes case hauling all her nursing gear around,MINI for a s**t eating grin , then I have no problem with that at all
But H's 1,2 or 3, expeditions, ford f-350 for picking up the groceries, etc is just plain wrong
But there is a solution. The British approach is... the bigger the engine, the more the tax you pay, so let's have a big vehicle tax, and if you can't prove you need it (and I mean really prove it!!!!) pay for the priviledge.

Now who wants the soapbox

 

Nice thread hijacking

And, since your on the subject, there is no consensus from scientists that there is global warming. And besides, the latest reports indicate global warming (or CO2 in the atmosphere) is good for the Earth because we're going to miss the next Ice Age.

 

IBTL.....we've gone political!

 

Indeed. Art, leave the political commentary out of it. And before you cry wolf about JohnBLZs post being political, his post doesn't even come close to the controversial and politically charged topics you started going into.

I'm not locking this thread... yet.

Note: Any further deliberate attempts (by anyone, not specifically you Art) to antagonize by shoving it clearly into political territory will result in an infraction.

Note #2: I was deliberately trying to stay out of this thread... but then it took a turn for the worse... so I had no choice. My opinion on SUVs & their use (valid vs. invalid, blah blah blah) has already been discussed ad-nauseum in previous threads.