SUVs

I have this rant fairly often so I thought I'd post my reasons that I will never buy an SUV. (Note that this doesn't apply to mini-vans, but personally I'm quite happy with my station wagon ... at least once it comes back from the body shop.)

1. Safety: an SUV only has to pass truck safety standards. Those safety standards were designed for farm trucks that didn't drive on the interstate. IIRC, you don't have to survive a crash over 35 mph to pass SUV and farm truck safety standards. So those folks who think they are safer in an SUV, probably the ones who fly past me on the interstate, I bet they don't know that. A false sense of safety is very dangerous.
3. Comfort: most SUVs use leaf springs. That's 1970's technology! Suspension has improved a lot since then. (But hey, leaf springs are cheap, and farm trucks still use them.) I consider a comfortable ride to be very important. I bought my first Mercedes (old even then, a 1983 300D) when I was 25, and after one week, the back pain I had had since I was 17 went away. I used to wake up at 7 am every morning with excruciating back pain. One night before exams in college, we all had a lot to drink, and I think I crawled on the couch about 4 am. When I woke up at 7 am in pain, the room was still spinning and everyone else was still asleep. I walked around patting the cat until my back eased up and I could go back to sleep. And wake up at noon with everyone else. So when I say that I always woke up in pain at 7 am, I really mean it. It was rotten. But after one week in a comfortable car, I've rarely had that level of back pain again. I've never even had a long commute, maybe 20 minutes each way tops, but I never thought I did enough driving for my car to be related to my back pain. But the timing sure was suspicious ... and my back hurts again if I drive a rental for more than a week ... Perhaps comfort is more important to me than to most people.
5. Fuel Economy: there's just no technical reason that SUVs have to have such terrible fuel economy. Have you seen the bumper sticker, Osama loves your SUV? My 1987 diesel station wagon got 36 mpg on the interstate when I drove it home. My 2002 gas station wagon got 32 mpg on the interstate driving back from my grandmother's house while fully loaded (roof carrier even! worst case!). Both wagons are considered "full sized" and have a large amount of cargo capacity. I sure don't need an SUV for hauling stuff when I have all that open area in the back and a roof carrier. And I don't need an SUV to carry lots of people when my station wagon has seat belts for 7. So I can haul lots of stuff, seat many people, and have good fuel economy. Makes more sense than an SUV for me!
7. Cost: even though SUV prices have dropped, they still have a healthier profit margin for the auto manufacturers than I feel like paying for something that is less safe, less comfortable, and terribly inefficient. I sure wouldn't pay premium prices for an SUV with poor safety, cheap old leaf springs, and bad fuel economy. SUVs have a huge profit margin, and I just don't see what's in it for me.

When I was in graduate school, one of the foreign grad students told me that he wanted to buy an SUV so that he would be safer. I don't know what he bought, but I did set him straight on safety. My Mercedes station wagon is heavier than smaller SUVs, and more survivable too.

Old cars have personality, and one time my 1983 300D showed that by not starting at the gas station. (It had a bad alternator that hadn't been charging the battery. I learned that the hard way at this gas station!) So I went inside and asked someone to give me a jump start. A good old boy (those guys are great when you have car trouble!) said "I'll help you little lady," and walked out to his SUV. Well, diesels have a very high compression ratio by virtue of being diesels, and he couldn't jump start me without revving his engine to get his alternator to kick out a lot more current. So that big tough SUV ... was really pretty wimpy and just barely sufficient for what I needed. (A car would have been the same, but without the attitude that the big SUV can take care of this little old sedan.)

I'm just not tempted.