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Station Wagon vs SUV

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#824 of 1426 say what? by i_love_mazda Jun 23, 2003 (5:05 pm)
Your proposed fuel rationing program is to accomplish what? The amount of money taxed on a gallon of gas is already in place and quite high I might add. Therefore high consumption users already pay more. If you are under the impression it will penalize SUV drivers – well that doesn’t hold up either. Many people that own SUV’s put very little mileage on their vehicle while compact owners that travel far, mostly job related, would be penalized. What about the trucking industry? If people blow their wad just to get back and forth to work, what would we do on the weekends? Stay home? I don’t think the restaurant and entertainment industry would be too pleased. Are you proposing we fly more? Do you work for an airline, ballistic? But that wouldn’t work either, as I may not have enough allocation to get me to the airport. A fuel allocation program would most certainly send our economy into a tailspin.    So why ration fuel? Known reserves of oil have increased by almost 70 percent over the last 25 years, to the point where if all new exploration for oil were to stop tomorrow, the wells would not run dry for at least the next 47 years. There is also a general consensus that current conventional reserves of oil are in the area of 1,000 billion barrels. Do you know how many barrels of oil have been burned since the search for oil began in 1859? 800 billion. Indeed we are in pretty good shape - although we are burning it at a far greater clip. So reasonable conservation should be enforced.   If your allocation concoction is about emissions, your battles should be waged with the folks responsible for our current technology used to curb them.
#825 of 1426 Not to worry by boaz47 Jun 23, 2003 (6:57 pm)
Because the other thing SUV people will do is vote. There will be no form of fuel rationing as long as there are politicians and those politicians have any prayer of getting elected. You would never in a hundred lifetimes get enough petitions to get such a measure on the ballot and no lobby group worth its salt would abandon business to get their politicians to even introduce such a thing. At least not without a full scale war.   You can see the possibility of an increase in wagon sales but will they ever approach the popularity of SUVs or even the old Mini van? Not likely unless wagons morph into crossovers. But then would they still be wagons? I don't know but wagons have changed quite a bit from when my dad had his vista Cruiser.
#826 of 1426 rollover neck injury by subewannabe Jun 23, 2003 (8:19 pm)
is caused by the head being pushed hard into the corner of the roof as the occupant's body accelerates in a rotational vector, even faster than the vehicle , then it is in that very vulnerable position when the car comes down hard on that corner. yes, you can survive a rollover but it is mostly because of the speed and dyanmics of the roll turned out well for you, not the strength of the cab roof.     last weekend's observations on returning from the beach were interesting, but it was a biased study, i.e. people going to , coming from and living at the beach. today i went the opposite direction, up into the mountains surrounding great smokies natl park. the towing winners up in the land of the sky: full size pick ups towing campers, including 5th wheel rigs. i did see one SUV, an old jeep wagoneer, towing dirt bikes on a trailer. down in the nantahala gorge, everything was car-topped , including the whitewater rafts, on everything from VW golfs to converted school busses. im still looking for the jumbo SUVS towing those 5000 lb boats. so far im seeing the SUV's but no boats. imagine that! Mark
#827 of 1426 subewannabe by boaz47 Jun 24, 2003 (4:59 am)
When I have gone camping I do see Pickups, quad cabs and extended mostly, towing more than I see SUVs. However remember I also live on the West Coast and next to some mountain lakes. At the launch ramp I see pickups as well. But I see SUVs and never have seen a VW Golf or Subaru launching at either Shelter Island in San Diego or New Port, or Long Beach. Pretty much the same sight at the Colorado River and Lake Mead. I was at the High Desert Roundup last year and I didn't see one wagon out of between three and 600 jeeps and other 4x4s.   What I have seen only relates to where I go and what I do not anyone else. It is the reason I asked earlier if anyone ever saw Foresters towing dirt bikes, jet skies, or snow mobiles because I wanted other input. It may be an area thing but car topping, except for bikes and Kayaks, is not a popular method for transporting anything in my area. Not even to and from the beach. To tell the truth if we do see someone with something on top of the car we most often look to see what license plate is on the back. We are surprised if it turns out to be from California. Northern California may be different. I know when I lived in Seattle it was different. I do feel that some of the eastern areas of the US favor wagons far more than many of the western states. After all the old AMC, Rambler 4x4 car wagon thing was kept alive in the east and north east for years when we didn't see them out here. I can't for the live of me remember what they were called. If I do I will post later.
#828 of 1426 car topping canoes/kayaks/rubber pigs by steve_ HOST Jun 24, 2003 (7:03 am)
I've been a whitewater boater for years and, while there are raft and canoe trailers out there (my catarafting buddy uses a trailer), they are mostly a pain to deal with. River boaters don't need fancy boat ramps; we really don't need much of anything except access to the water, and having to maneuver a trailer just cuts down on your options. You can get quite a few boats on a roof rack and it's not unusual to see 8 or 10 kayaks hanging off the roofs in boating country.   The problem with SUVs for boating is that you have to climb up on the hood, etc. in order to get the boats up there and tie them down. With a wagon, you don't have to lift stuff up so high. The clearance on a SUV comes in handy on some put-in roads though.   Steve, Host
#829 of 1426 Well steve by boaz47 Jun 24, 2003 (8:54 am)
there we are again in area differences. I would think with something as small as a aluminum fishing boat it would still be easier to use a small trailer. With a West Marine, or Zodiac we tend to roll them up and carry a air tank in the back to avoid roof top clutter. I can still get my 12 foot West Marine with a 10 horse motor in the back of a Cherokee, with the air tank and food for the day. Also if you go to dinner in Laguna Beach on the way home you don't have the boat on top of the vehicle to be messed with. The Lido isn't going on top of anything and yet I still don't see small wagons towing them. So it comes back to what you do.
#830 of 1426 different strokes by steve_ HOST Jun 24, 2003 (9:47 am)
Play boats have gotten so short that people do throw them in the back of their SUVs and vans. I'd just as soon not have gas fumes in the cabin, so if I were hauling a stinkpot around, I'd get a trailer.   Steve, Host
#831 of 1426 True again by boaz47 Jun 24, 2003 (10:29 am)
It is better to haul the gas can and motor outside. But even with small boats a trailer is nice if you have a place at home to park it. The thing I wonder is, with all the talk about how people could use a wagon, we still see very little of them pulling motorcycles, jet skis, or snowmobiles. Not even Subarus. The question I would ask is why? I believe the answer is the perception that they can't tow and a reluctance by dealers to even suggest it. I think one of the big draw backs is no one knows what they can do so they don't use them.   I once pulled a Catalina 22 from San Diego to Riverside with a D-50 mini truck. I even pulled it down to New Port a few times. However it was a whole lot nicer when I got a full sized truck. It isn't as much what you can do with a wagon verses a SUV it is how good do you feel doing it. My wife once had the people at Home Depot load 800 pounds of stepping stones in the back of our old Volvo wagon. The rear springs never were the same. I did the same thing in my Old Ramcharger and while I knew they were back there I still felt I wasn't hurting the truck.
#832 of 1426 by ballistic Jun 24, 2003 (10:36 am)
"It is better to haul the gas can and motor outside."   Boaz47 and Steve and others: Speaking of gas cans, maybe one of you has heard of a product I can't seem to track down. Several years ago I heard about an "emergency" gasoline substitute that could be safely carried in a car trunk, yet still would save your bacon if you ran out of gas, while (presumably) doing no harm to the engine, catalyst, and so forth. My new XT (unlike my other cars) has no trip computer displaying precise distance-to-empty miles remaining. I'd like to run the tank dry a few times to see where on the gauge the needle winds up when there's nothing left, but I need to carry some fuel to get me to a gas station, and I'd rather not carry a can of gas.   Has anybody heard of a safe (or safer) emergency fuel product that can be carried in a vehicle?   jb
#833 of 1426 ballistic by li_sailor Jun 24, 2003 (11:10 am)
Yup. It's called a paddle   On the subject of small craft, my GF is a kayaker and hauls it on top of her Outback with saddles on the roof rack. Any higher and she couldn't do it. She much prefers a wagon over any SUV. In fact, she says she won't be caught dead buying an SUV. She's contrary

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