I made a mistake.

Whenever there has been a SUV bashing thread, I'd jump right in defending them. Well, I do believe that its your money, your car, buy what you want ... its America. But I've been defending the wrong "type" of vehicle. Why?

In today's Washington Post there was an article about Crossovers (CUVs) (aka softroaders). It got me thinking, so I checked WIKI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_SUV and put it all together. The big complaints I've read on NAM about SUVs have been safety (built on truck chassis), poor mpg, poor handling etc.

Huh? I've never experienced any of that. I got good gas mileage, takes regular gas, handles reasonably well and I drive it like a car (just with lower limits), etc. Hmm, CUVs, OTH are built on car chassis - unitized bodies (e.g., 2nd gen RAV4 on Corollas, 3rd gen on its own). SUV, base usually RWD, CUV base usually FWD, SUV true 4 x 4 complete with real low gearing, CUVs, softroaders, AWD or AWD on demand, electronic locking hubs (not manual), CUVs much lighter meaning much better gas mileage than SUVs. CUVs lower to the road, car like handling.

I've been defending CUVs everytime I read SUV. My bad ... mistake.

So I looked up NHSTA safety, as an example, and found this: 2006 MC http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ncap/cars/3624.html
2006 RAV4 http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ncap/cars/3813.html

And whats it say? Read the stats but the summary is CUV 5 stars, MINI 4 stars. Some numbers one car is better than the other. One example. CUV/MINI in chest deceleration for driver 41g vs 55g. For the passenger, 47g vs 52g. (I guess the lesson there is if your in that CUV, be in the drivers seat and if your in the MC, be in the passenger seat). I may be reading the numbers wrong but its really doesn't matter. From what I see there, its a wash. There is no significant crash safety difference either way. Rollover, MINI wins, crash data the heavier CUV better ... that means to me a wash.

Silly me. I bought a softroader for a reason, travel on gravel roads, snow, whatever ... no skid plate on purpose. If I lived in Moab or some place with great 4 x 4 roads, I'd get a real 4 x 4 but living in the urban megapolis, I knew that was silly. Hmm. I needed something to haul stuff, throw multiple 80 pound dogs in, go on gravel roads on trips (been on way too many gravel roads in sports cars and never again, rip up the paint), and minimal DC snow. I must have knew that in the back of my head I'd never need a true SUV around here and so I didn't buy one.

So silly me. I will defend CUVs, but SUVs in the urban areas, well actions speak louder than words and since I bought a CUV and not a SUV, yeah, IMO too, its pretty silly to be driving a real SUV without having real 4 x 4 trails to go on. Just my opinion. My mistake.

List of crossovers - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ssover_SUVs.29
List of SUVs same page, a little farther down.

 

As they say, you're never too old to learn! I do know that the truck based SUV's that many GM and Ford based products were built from, were never as safe as the auto companies trumpeted them to be.

 

so Rav4 is just a taller Corolla?

 

Same way the CRV is a grown up Civic.