[hrcslam]

Originally Posted by Michael_S

In your previous post, you only said you have a wife and daughter. If you have 4 cats and 2 rotties and move every few months, then obviously you're going to use the fullsize SUV all of the time and a rental won't cut it.


Hey, did I go on a rant? Did I call you evil? Did I demand that you sell your SUV or that the government take it away from you?

I'm just going from experience. I know 7 people who own half ton pickups, and only one uses his to tow - and he tows a little trailer that's less than two tons fully loaded. There are hundreds of thousands of people driving around 5000 pound trucks and SUVs that do not use their true space and hauling capabilities at all, or use them at most a few times per year. Be proud to be an exception, but that doesn't undercut my point - the rest are wasting their own money and needlessly contributing extra to our dependence on foreign oil.

And if your Suburban costs less per month than your Ion, how much did you pay for it? $15,000? $12,000? I want to shop where you shop, because most nicely optioned Suburbans near me run past $40,000.



The Civic SI is sold as a sport coupe, and of course it's not much of one - but it will still handily outrun your Suburban and be more fun to drive around a road course. A better comparison is the regular Civic coupe, which still gets 50% better mileage than the Tahoe hybrid.

But more importantly, there's a $30,000 difference. The Tahoe hybrid is great for the environment, and I'm glad GM made it and I hope they profit from it. But $30,000 buys a lot of gas.

The rant wasn't directed at you, so I'm sorry if you took it personally. I do get a lot of having to defend owning a Suburban and only from online blogs and forums.

The Civic Si was used because it is another prime example of what people don't need. If people are going to yell at others that drive a full sized vehicle, they should also look at what they are driving and how. And what they actually need to have as basic transportation. If they only need a vehicle for the daily grind and will yell at others that drive a SUV (without the knowledge of why they have one), they should first look at what they are driving and if they really need it. Otherwise, they become hypocrites.

Many people (I know this to be true especially in Hawaii) will drive very short trips then return home (like a 5min trip to McDonald's) then about 2 hours later make another short trip to the grocery store that was right next to the McDonald's they went to earlier. It doesn't matter if your in a compact car, the gas mileage will never see higher than 16. My Ion never got higher than 16 mpg when I was working in Texas and lived only 6 miles from work. The route was ridiculous really, it consisted of a speed limit of 55mph then a stop a left then a speed limit of 65 mph then a stop and a right then a speed limit of 40 mph; horrible for mileage.

I bought my Suburban for $13,700. It was used and took a lot of digging to find, but they are out there. You'd be surprised what you can find for sale in your area if you just know where to look. I once found a 2004 Pontiac Gran Prix GXP (superchargered ) loaded minus leather and OnStar with less than 70K miles on it for only $10,988 and the carfax report came back clean. The only reason we didn't but it was because it didn't have OnStar and that is a specific my wife wants in all of her vehicles. The Gran Prix was going the be hers.

$30,000 is a lot of money for gas, I agree, but I didn't think this conversation was about money savings. A used Geo Metro will best a Toyota Prius in mileage (or so I've heard), or at least come really close, and cost significantly less. If a Prius will run you $22,000 then a Geo Metro will cost you about $21,000 less. That would give you $21,000 for gas and you would end up with only the basic requirement of transportation.