^this. Im expecting my second child January and we are beginning to look at SUV's.

Also being able to take my parents or in-laws along is a plus.

HAHAHAH we were gifted one....older but with barely any miles. Had it for about 2 months..ended up selling it for cheap!

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I have an RDX as my daily, it has serve its purpose that the Evo won't do, when it comes to getting house projects done & having a toddler adds a lot more stuff to carry around on road trips.
Living in the North East w/ the snow storms that we've gotten, makes it easier to get around plus Boost makes it better.
I think everyone is entitled to have preference to what they want to drive. Automakers go w/ what sells.

 

Have a Commander for hauling and towing ****. Will likely get rid of that and the Focus ST in the next year or two for a new pick up truck. Not sure which of the big three we’ll get yet, leaning towards Chevy.

Still have ave the Evo, don’t even remember the last time I drove it. I know there is a hell of a squeaking in the rear suspension somewhere, but have had no time or help to track it down. So it sits.

 

Station wagon >>> Mini-Van >>> SUV ( Ford and Chevy dump cars for Trucks and SUV's ) cuz cars aren't profitable ? Or cuz no one buys or cars anymore? Or cuz we can't compete with Hyundai or Kia, Toyota etc.
Wait till Kia and Hyundai perfect their larger SUV and develop a truck line. What will the US auto makers drop then?

 

^ My solution for hauling many kids around. (Photo credit: 2014 LCW Cadillac XTS 70" listed on WeSellLimos.)

For family use, car people usually purchase used corporate limos.[1] Most are cheap, clean, and well maintained. Interior can be redone by the coach builder to your liking. Rental and taxi limos are too dirty hauling partygoers and may not be well maintained. Brand new limos can be ordered and custom-built with a coach builder, but can cost $120k ~ $150k each and will depreciate heavily.

^ My solution for hauling kids for road trips.

The Metris is a full-size van (not minivan) and the interior can be styled by a coach builder to your liking. They are not silly like roly poly family trucksters, and the interior room is optimized for highway and urban use.

Both need custom garages and driver awareness of a longer/taller vehicle.
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[1] That is to say, limo lovers who are not car-sophisticated tend to make the suboptimal decision of buying rental and taxi limos. Meanwhile, limo-lovers who are car-sophisticated know that corporate limos are cleaner and will prefer these over rental and taxi limos. Sorry for the confusion.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is not an accurate statement.

 

I bought an '03 Evo new and at the time I thought it was butt ugly. Nowadays, viewed in the mall parking lot it looks good. The difference is in what people now drive. People come up to me all the time complimenting me on my good looking car. These often are people who never heard of an Evo. Anyway, its all about having the latest style. The boys now wear long floppy shorts, they look like they are wearing dresses. I remember 50 years ago when an actress wore hot pants on the Tonight Show. I thought to myself - no woman in this part of the country will ever wear those. Monday morning at work in walked a long legged secretary wearing hot pants. The car companies continue to bend metal in different ways because they know people have got to have the latest style.

 

This is what I meant about that back seat

 

I guess I don't an ego because I have a Dodge Grand Caravan instead of the C/SUV craze. It which works great for carting my 4 kids and even carting lumber, tile,and junk for w/e project. I looked at getting an SUV(because I used to refuse to be the mini-van dad) but the price and lack of room compared in most SUV is a joke to a van. I rather save my back and some money for the evo instead of joining the masses. On my commute I can't tell you how many people in a big ol CUV drive all alone day after day blocking traffic in the left lane. I wish this CUV fad would die honestly.

 

Eh, I drove a rental Rogue a few times. It gets you places in peace and quiet. A drive NYC to Montreal felt like nothing. No fatigue at all. My rental Mazda 3 had a lot more road noise, so maybe crossovers have the height to insulate you from the NVH better as well.

Plus I could trailer my bike to places and ride nice roads and not have to spend an hour getting out of NYC first.

The hatch would be useful too. If you have to return a tv. Buy a large-ish tool from Home depot. You could even rent a trailer and bring home something even bigger. Hard to do that with most sedans.

TheTopher just put up a video of the Toyota RAV4. It looks pretty nice, hauls stuff and gets crazy good fuel economy. I think the eventual answer that we'll all come to is that we'll have a weekend car and a boring but functional daily that doesn't need to carve up the corners like a racecar.

 

props to you and all the benefits you reap.

Update, clearly the algorithms are working overtime. This just hit my feed

 

As stated before, families think they are safe sitting above everyone, looking over the traffic, they think they are cool and slightly superior than a normal sedan. Older woman like the fact it's higher up and easier on their back when loading groceries. Most car companies market them with families driving along beaches and escaping for the weekend in their soft 4x4. To me they are s boxes but I couldn't find a station wagon to put my band gear and other junk in the back so I'm forced to buy one for that purpose plus they are good for skiing setups, id never buy a front wheel drive SUV. I dont mind the new foresters as they are ok on the gas and have a better 4x4 system

 

Driving home form church this morning (its a little highway jaunt) and seeing all the four door short box pickups on the road it dawned on me that Ford and Chevrolet remain in the large sedan building business.

 

I'll tell you, though. While I don't want an SUV, I would drive this junk so fast, it's ridiculous. Talk about the coolest kid hauler ever!
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news...roduction.html

 

SUVs are a single vehicle solution. They don't do anything particularly well. But if you can only have one vehicle, and can't get over the stigma of minivans, they check the most boxes.

My girlfriend has an X3. Good SUV. With it, we've:
- Gone hiking from trailheads where 6+ inches of ground clearance is required to safely get there, or that were buried in snow/ice and required AWD + traction devices
- Hauled an apartment's worth of furniture from Ikea (king bed, bookshelf, dresser, dining table, chairs)
- Done long road trips with hockey gear and coolers
- Hauled 5 adults around in reasonable comfort
- [theoretical] pulled a trailer

You can make an argument that a pickup truck would do all of those things better, and it would, but the X3 is a much better car than the average pickup, and remarkably was cheaper than an F150 that had the stuff I'd want. My hatchback can barely seat 4 adults, the cooler+hockey gear doesn't work, can't pull a trailer, and definitely lacks the ground clearance. A minivan probably would have stranded us on our hikes, although for people who don't have that requirement (or pulling a trailer), a good minivan is the best vehicle on the planet.

I got by owning nothing but convertibles for over a decade, but I never had kids or a dog, and I had access to a truck to haul things when needed. I don't like them, personally, but I appreciate that for most people, a mid size SUV probably does the most for them. And I'm not even factoring in the perception of safety, which is actually a delusion of safety, but it's a factor for people.