Big Cars are killing Americans

[MossRoad]

I had a Transit Connect for a couple years. It was the older original body style..2012 I believe. I got some big leather conversion van seats and had them stuffed in it. It helped..but was still a small vehicle. The only benefit was that I could get it into parking garages in the city and it got 23/24 mpg.

We have another one that's about two years older. On that one, if I wear winter gloves, each time I grab the shifter to either take it out of park or put it back in park, my knuckles activate the emergency flashers.

You gotta wonder if they ever put large or small people in these things when testing new designs, or if they just put an average carcass in the seat and give it X amount of clearance.

 

[Jstpssng]

We have another one that's about two years older. On that one, if I wear winter gloves, each time I grab the shifter to either take it out of park or put it back in park, my knuckles activate the emergency flashers.

You gotta wonder if they ever put large or small people in these things when testing new designs, or if they just put an average carcass in the seat and give it X amount of clearance.

Every time I see you replying to a thread I have to check to see if you've closed it.

Will a 4 X 8' piece of plywood fit in the back with the tail gate up ?

Will a 16 foot 2x8 fit in the back of your truck with the tailgate up? Yours is an oft repeated analogy which makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

Unlike some of you who seem to be able to afford a half dozen vehicles and use whichever suits your need or desire at the time, I can only afford one vehicle. That vehicle must be able to move 4 or more people, carry a ton of wood pellets, haul 6 tons of hay on a trailer over mountain passes, or haul my tractor and a n implement where I need to take it. So I bought an F-250. I use it for all of the above and to go to the shopping mall on Saturday and to church on Sunday. Personally, I believe it is more ecologically friendly to own ONE vehicle that can do everything than to own SIX for specific purposes or to suit my whim for the day.

 

[big bubba]

Being OP, it's time i made a few comments regarding this thread.
1) My decision to include the original link was a big mistake on my part, & i accept full responsibility for all the trouble, etc, it has caused. I was too lazy to notice the inappropriate attached sites. Please accept my apologies for that, & i thank the moderator for removing the link

2) rereading the article, i realize that it's indeed too politically biased for a forum like this. Although i had absolutely no political agenda in including it, it does lay open areas of possible contention for this forum. Again, my mistake, was a lazy read on my part

3) apologize to those few members who received hateful responses as a result of this thread. Never was intended
in addition:
1) no one is going to take away your pickup as a result of my safety comment
2) nor do i in any way suggest regulation.
3) nor do i say anywhere do not drive or buy large pickups. Obviously your choice
4) All vehicles inherently have their own safety potentials by design. i will agree vehicles are much safer now with new technologies, etc. I still stand by my original comment (less the link) that by virtue of the increased hood height & profile, there is the potential (however limited) for blind spots for low profile close quarters pedestrians.
all i was interested in was a forum discussion on the subject in a respectful way. There are bound to be differences of opinion.
& yes, i botched the original presentation of the thread, would be the 1st to agree
do be safe & a good new year to all members bb

 

[JasperFrank]

Of course this site is being monetized. And the algorithm for that are pretty crude and just use Key Words. i used "Tool '****' Friday" as the title to an original thread, naively not knowing how the algorithm worked. And it did present all manner of stuff I didn't want associated with the thread in the auto generated ads. As an open site, we always have to be aware that some posts will have a "payload" some where in them to direct you to a site, to sell you something else. This is the nature of the internet these days, even the "privately held," and server space payed for, ones like this site. Most of the old sites I use to visit just transferred to Facebot as a free hosting service. Well, that also meant that there was a great deal of telemetry involved in resell of your browsing and personal profile info.
My tipping point was while i was buying tires. I put a post on Facebot about doing that. With in 15 minutes, my feed had ads for tires. Even thought I had just bought tires.
Cancelled the Facebook account - only to find out that I can't cancel the Facebot account. They will not erase it, cause its theirs to own.
I now just use sites that are not connected, stand alone, privately hosted sites like this one.
Maybe there will be a reaction against the mega/meta sites, from users, to go back to the individual controlled sites that have less tracking. I'm hoping for this in 2022.
Getting back to cars and trucks. The wife and i looked through many of the new offerings on cars. And in none of them could you have a good rear view. They are all just built that way for the best MPG rating and safely stuff. I hate all of them. They are equally terrible designs.
We took all the back seat head rests out of her 2017 Accent Hyundai, just so we could see what was in back, which was almost totally obscured by these head rests.
The Big Trucks and SUVs are a total mystery to me as to why someone would want one, if they didn't need one. What one needs, and what one wants, has meet a separation of reality.
GM will continue to make these "Play Station" vehicles right till they go bankrupt, even though they know there is a market for a well built, minimal, econ minded, modular truck. They don't want to do it. They can do it, they just don't want to.
Okay. Let them fail, let all the executives have their parachute severances, and maybe there will be some startups that address what people want.

 

[Tomtint]

Unlike some of you who seem to be able to afford a half dozen vehicles and use whichever suits your need or desire at the time, I can only afford one vehicle. That vehicle must be able to move 4 or more people, carry a ton of wood pellets, haul 6 tons of hay on a trailer over mountain passes, or haul my tractor and a n implement where I need to take it. So I bought an F-250. I use it for all of the above and to go to the shopping mall on Saturday and to church on Sunday. Personally, I believe it is more ecologically friendly to own ONE vehicle that can do everything than to own SIX for specific purposes or to suit my whim for the day.

If I could do it all with one vehicle I probably would. There is just no way I can do it.

 

[lostcause]

What one needs, and what one wants, has meet a separation of reality.

You can go as far as you want with that one... The majority of people in here live a lifestyle that is at least relatively close to what they "want" and not what they "need". We really only "need" a little fresh air, water, food, and shelter. The means in which we choose to obtain those dictates the "want" in most cases. Sell most of your earthly possessions, move to where you can walk to a job that will provide for yourself and the entire debate goes out the window. Don't "want" to live that way? well, that's why we all do what we do.

 

[Williy]

GM will never go bankrupt as they
just got another loan from the gov for
$900 billion dollars last year.
The tall trucks that have a lift kit
is what I don't believe should be
sold as you can raise the body of
the truck 6 feet but its the axle that
gets stuck in the mud and no lift kit
will help get it out and they also make
the truck unstable and with all the space
under the truck to catch more air and
I guess that it don't matter to some folks
what it cost for gas to drive them
I feel safer in my 3/4 Dodge deisel 4X4
with the heavy metal bumper and grill
guard and heavy metal bumper in the
back than our Chrysler 300 2018 My
99 Dodge 3/4 gas had dents in the
bumpers but this one haven't
noticed any dents.

willy

 

[Creamer]

I would like to understand what drove the change to the larger vehicles especially the height. I know the requirement for child seats caused a need for a very accessible back seat but the height to me is just stupid. You can't reach over the side of the bed and reach the center of the bed so you need to climb up in the bed much more which is not a safe option - how many times have you slipped getting in and or out of the bed of a truck? If you need to tie something down it is much more difficult to do so. This is not mentioning that load height is much higher and entry height used to be almost a straight slide in whereas now you need to climb up into them. As somebody else mentioned - the axles are still the same height - they do not go through any more but their ride center is higher making them easier to roll. The front ends are bigger and not as sloped causing more blind spot in front of the vehicle. Rear cameras are a virtual requirement because you cannot see anything backing up.

I have an 05 Silverado 2wd and I pulled up next to a new one the other day and the bed height was at least six inches higher. When other newere truck owners get in mine they often comment on how much smoother it rides than theirs. Please tell me - what is the advantage of the new designs other than added features?

 

[deserteagle71]

I have an 05 Silverado 2wd and I pulled up next to a new one the other day and the bed height was at least six inches higher. When other newere truck owners get in mine they often comment on how much smoother it rides than theirs. Please tell me - what is the advantage of the new designs other than added features?

Its "The Look", my friend, its all about how it looks. GM advertised the new Silverado as having a bold, macho new look. MONSTER grill, so you can't have a downsloping hood that would give you good visibility. All the truck manufacturers have gone to that look. Check out the grill on the newly released Toyota Tundra!

My newest truck is an F150 so I follow the F150 forums to keep up to date with problems and solutions. And I have to laugh when I see new owners bragging on the lift kit and big tires they just put on...then a few months later they are on there complaining about their terrible fuel mileage and front end problems.