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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
you're not doing shit for the environment.
Still, I guess the world needs fools too. You know, there's a really good reason all those SUVs are sitting in the lots unsold. Mark, be sure to write us another article next summer when gas hits $5.
Best laugh I've had today: When a Volvo wagon owner rejects minivans because they're "lame". :)
The spaciousness of my Dodge minivan allows for carrying all sorts of long, clunky, bulky stuff. Love it for that. Still, it suffers from a space utilization deficit (call it SUD)which I discovered when I tried to reach out and snatch a body part on my 8 year-old-you-can't-touch-me-cause-you're-too-far-away-smart-mouth grandson while driving. You can't reach out and touch while driving. No quick disciplinary smacks. Driver proximity to rude kid in the first row back seat is short by half an arm's length. Reach back and risk disjointing an arm. Yours.
So, discipline means either going with empty threats until you reach your destination, which never sends the right lasting message. Or pull off the road, turn off the engine, get out, open the side door and... jack'em up. Minivan. Space utilization problem. Definitely.
The only reason why the Outlander is called a Sport Utility Vehicle is because that is what Mitsubishi's marketing men and women tell us to call it.
What you have bought is the modern reincarnation of the Colt Vista wagon. The same car, for all you NPR listeners, that Ray Magliozzi from Car Talk proclaims to be the most perfect automobile ever designed.
Right now you have an emasculated truck. For what you're going to be doing with the vehicle all you really need is a mini-van (which will probably get better gas mileage with a 4-banger and 2WD). I know that would make you a soccer mom but if the foo shits, wear it. I doubt that your little emo-truck will haul a half ton without hurting itself or you.
I wish I could have responded to this earlier, as to straighten out a lot of misconceptions. What you bought Mark, is what you had, a station wagon. That is what cross-overs really are. The term "station wagon" has been shunned for decades, but the need for them has always been there. As long as there are families, there will be a need for some form of vaguely wagon-shaped class of vehicles.
We have been finding ways to avoid station wagons for years. It was part of what fueled the custom van craze of the 70s. Minivans made more sense and effectively replaced the classic station wagon. That of course caused Minivans to get the station wagon stigma. So SUVs came to the rescue, masking sensible family utility with active lifestyle imagery. SUVs had actually been around a while - long before they were called as such, but were mostly bought by the Field & Stream set and others with towing needs - their proper market.
It didn't hurt that SUVs were easy create for any manufacturer with a pickup truck in their line-up. Plus making what became luxury-priced vehicles from such crude beginnings was very profitable.
But even in an industry known for its indulgent extremes, common sense prevails in the long run. Big heavy truck-based SUVs have been esentially replaced by what are basically tall wagon bodys over a compact or mid-size car platforms. Unlike the classic wagons of old, they don't share the front end, and in some cases, interior styling of their sedan siblings, which allows the manufactures to market them as something different. Sure, they can come with all-wheel drive (AWD) along with their standard front wheel drive. But AWD is much less about going off-road than staying ON the road in poor conditions.
A cross-over's biggest sin is a taller ride height which is not good for much of anything, but people like it. This makes cross-overs a little heavier than they really need to be, but beyond that, you are basically driving a Lancer station wagon. There was in fact an actual Lancer station wagon until recently. It looked like a wagon and didn't have a third row seat stuffed into the back but is otherwise little different then your purchase. Nothing any progressive could have any shame about. Of course it wouldn't have been a subject to write about either.
Mother Nature here, Father Time is so disappointed in you, Mark, that he's talking a walk around and around the mini park down the street sighing.
Two kids, friends and groceries does not require a vehicle that does such damage to me and your father and, in the long term, those kids you ferry around. Yet, I understand the appeal.
Your SUV is new, handsome, and cheap in comparison to what it was a just a year ago. But let's not imagine that your apologies and claim to being an environmentalist are making you question yourself. You wouldn't be asking for our blessings unless you were confident that your consumer driven weakness for shiny, new things is shared by almost every American. The truth is this SUV makes you feel better about yourself.
In it you can tell yourself that you're not turning into your father (as if that's so bad) or into a stereotype of yuppie that everyone on Fox News pokes at. You can forget that it symbolizes the ineffectiveness of your generation at genuine activism, relying instead on humorous self-deprecation and comical cynicism to "make a stand." Really, son, did you think buying a solar cooker would change the world or did you just presume an impending apocalypse in the style of Hollywood movies rather than mundane behavior?
Here's the rub: from inside your SUV you fell very big, from outside you look like a weeble, small and about to tip over.
Most of you are saying that he should have bought a minivan or a wagon so:
please name 3 alternative non-compact (ie. Scion, Vibe etc...) sized minivan or wagon that gets significantly better milage and weighs significantly less then this Mitsu "SUV" and when you can't:
please explain again why (environmentally) he shouldn't have bought this vehicle.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
