Frustrated owners try to unload their guzzlers

After paying $75 to fill his black Dodge Ram pickup truck for the third time in a week, Douglas Chrystall couldn't take it anymore.

Feeling pinched at the pump, and guilty as well, Chrystall, a 39-year-old father from Wellesley, is putting ads online to sell the truck, and the family's other gas-guzzler, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. He knows it will be tough to unload them because he is one of a growing number of consumers downsizing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

Americans are turning away from the boxy, four-wheel-drive vehicles that have for years dominated the nation's highways. Sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks - symbols of Americans' obsession with horsepower, size, and status - are falling out of favor as consumers rich and poor encounter sticker shock at the pump, paying upward of $80 to fill gas tanks.

The sale of new SUVs and pickup trucks has dropped precipitously in recent months amid soaring gas prices and a weakening economy: SUV sales for the month of April alone fell 32.3 percent from a year earlier and small car sales rose 18.6 percent. This fundamental shift comes against a backdrop of relentless gas increases, and growing concerns over the environment and US oil consumption, according to auto analysts and car dealers.

"The SUV craze was a bubble and now it is bursting," said George Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University whose research focuses on the automotive industry. "It's an irrational vehicle. It'll never come back."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/06/frustrated_owners_try_to_unload_their_guzzlers/

I'm sure all you gas tax holiday proponents think its such an awful thing that this guy wants to move from an SUV to a more efficient vehicle.

If you're rich, trust me, you're not hurting.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

They shouldnt have bought those F-IN Stupid Utility Vehicles in the first place........
:grr: :grr:

:hi:

offer tax breaks for people who bought the big guzzlers at the beginning of his administration?

wasn't worth it hu....

became virtually free to buy a GM Hummer if you owned a business. Total cost depreciated over 5 years. It was just another pay-day for GM, corporate welfare.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/419374


(emphasis added)

Sid

Answer?

Re-tool and start pumping out hybrids.

Hybrids - not just for the latte-sipping elites, anymore.

This is the most moronic statement I have seen here today: I'm sure all you gas tax holiday proponents think its such an awful thing that this guy wants to move from an SUV to a more efficient vehicle.

Like people would be THRILLED about folks continuing to drive gas guzzlers? That everyone doesn't WANT to be free of foreign oil dependence? That conservation is not GOOD?

How dumb is that assertion? Is it dumb, dumber, or dumbest? I vote for the latter.

Where does this absence of logic come from? It's baffling.

Hillary wants to break OPEC and give a gas tax holiday which she says will lower gas prices and therefore increase consumption.

Kind of a no brainer to me.

The money saved at the pump could make the difference between WATER on that supermarket brand cereal, or MILK for a poor family.

Kind of a no brainer to me.

You could just eat the cereal by itself too.

Most of us, whether we massively consume the planet or not, are burdens on the ecological system that we inhabit. I know I'm no different. I don't own a car, but I'm pretty sure my clothes are made by a 7 year old girl, whom I will never meet and have a bowl of cereal and milk with, in SE Asia.

Then don't have the cereal, and just have the milk. Or skip a snack so you can get the cereal and milk. We live in physical reality. We can't escape it. To get something we have to give something. All 6.5 billion people, plus the next few billion that come along before that number begins to level off, aren't going to get everything.

Cheap energy allowed us to not have to worry about limits. Well, it turns out that we do have to worry about them. The situation is even worse because of what cheap energy gave us the ability to do. If we manage to somehow come up with more cheap energy, we'll just consume more and increase the impact we have on the habitat in which we exist. We can't escape.

Make your own clothes, why don't you...and give the poor kid in America the milk, too.

There are parents trying to fill their tanks who don't "skip the snack"--they go hungry so their kids can eat. They are the ones putting the Salvation Army two dollar snowsuits on their kids at night because the apartment has NO HEAT.

What an "abandon hope" post. Cheap energy is the root of all evil, so ....

I agree, abandon it, just not in pill form.

I didn't say it was ok to malnourish a kid here because I wear clothes made by a 7 year old. I was making a point that I'm just as much a part of the problem as anyone, even though I'm up on the high horse saying go without milk, cereal, or a snack.

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. If it did come in pill form, then maybe we might have something. We've made the world a very complex place, and we have no destination.

OPEC sets production levels, not price, although they can influence price.

I don't see how this is going to improve. China has millions of new drivers on their roads. Bush's warmongering has created more uncertainty in the market. We're screwn.

Snort :rofl:

First quarter of '08 we spent twice as much on fuel as we did the entire year of 2000. Some relief would be welcome to us. We deliver food products so you can imagine what that has done to the cost of food these last few years...We use about a thousand gallons a week and eighteen cents a gallon off would help quite a bit....Could you use $180.00 a week?

I realize that its hurting, but you need to make contingency plans.

How do they handle this in Europe? Gas is WAY more expensive there.

Food costs are just going to go up so you better make contingency plans. :shrug:

"round up all the commodity traders and let the rioters have at them." That would provide some relief.

In Italy where gas was about $5/gallon even back then. I don't think I saw a single SUV the whole time I was there, they all drive small, fuel efficient cars. Of course they do not have suburbs and their mass transit systems are very good and government subsidized. They handle it quite well.

the break even got to Bush's desk where he would say nope. summer is nearly hear..this should be on the way to his desk any day.

We also have to believe the that gas prices won't go up to fill that .18 gap ..and oh I doubt it would go back down when the holiday is over.

I mean even it worked it would encourage higher gas prices just because people would probably use more gas.

I just think its not ever going to happen and if it did ..its not a good idea.

If Congress can get Clinton's plan passed, Bush HAS to sign it--because otherwise, McCain can be painted as a FLIP FLOPPER in the general election. The public doesn't care about those details, they want the RELIEF.

He was FOR the gas holiday before he was against it...he couldn't even get BUSH to sign the thing to help Americans!!

It's a rather clever downstream strategy.

under dems as well. Their lobbyists are very well paid and every president wants to keep gas prices low.

is a bit better than the next..and she can stick it to the oil companies all she wants if we use more gas it will go up.

Also in the past Obama voted for program like this in his state only to find out it didn't work so well.

and the money Hillary counting on by "sticking it the big oil"she has promised to use for helping to pay for Health care or some other program she is pushing...how much sticking it to big oil are we really counting on?...is it realistic?

obscene profits off the top of these gouging companies.

See, once you do it ONCE, it gets easier to do it again.

It's realistic. And if gas goes up, she'll take more off the top. The oil companies will figure it out. There comes a point where people won't pay--and we are approaching that already--and if they try to charge more, they'll be held up more. This is a RESPITE solution--it is not touted as ANYTHING other than that.

How does Sen. Clinton's plan "stick it to the oil companies"? I do not know the particulars of the two plans, don't feel one way or the other about it because I don't think the idea is actually going anywhere this year. Seems to me a gas tax holiday would just take that much money out of the roads/bridges funding (and the jobs that go with that) and not matter much to the oil companies.

Julie

And once she does that ONCE, it is easier to do it again--for ANYTHING. Or ANYONE who profits off shortage or need.

America is damned good to corporations. Some of them need to be a little better to America.

I appreciate your response. I agree with you on the corporations, they need to "give back" as it were.

Julie

What's really going to happen is that everyone is going to gas up their LEXUS SUVs :sarcasm: and go screaming down the road, yelling "HA HA, you ENVIRONMENTALISTS!! I shit on your clean air!!! I CRAP on your conservation!"

It's NEVER going to benefit small businesses, "so they say," or poor people who can't afford the big bite out of their paychecks, and who also can't afford to saunter over to the car dealership and buy a pricy hybrid or subcompact. That's what the people who are criticizing Clinton have to say, because they refuse to SEE how others live. They refuse to acknowledge how hard it is getting for people who live on the edge or who run a small business close to the margins.

These people who don't suffer from 'want' have absolutely no compassion for those who live every day with it. It's astounding. It contravenes everything the Democratic Party stands for, too.

Some relief? Take a rolaid.

The new front yard planters.

They helped to create the problem, let them reap their reward.

for camping and boat towing. I love my Corolla but it doesnt tow shit

that way it's insured and i don't have to maintain it for all the times i am not camping or boat towing. i mean, just avoiding the vehicle registration and smog checks alone makes it cheaper to rent a behemoth for awhile than owning one outright, to speak of nothing about the car insurance and daily maintenance, gas, car space, etc.

sometimes borrowing is better than owning. but maybe you camp A LOT, so i have no idea. if you camped or towed your boat more than 2-3 weekends a month every month then maybe it might be worthwhile.

Anybody want to buy it?

Huh, anyone....

Maybe we will turn them into workforce housing.
Clump them together for multiple rooms.

Or sell them to Iran where gas is 20 cents a gallon.

Pull off the tires (and wrap them in paper and keep them in a garage; this will preserve them). Coat the metal parts with grease and/or anti-rust spray. Prop it up on concrete blocks. Run 120 volt AC into the thing, for heating and fans. (Air conditioning might also be possible.)

SUV's have heavily padded seats that can function as beds. They're insulated from sound and outside temperatures (and a simple roof over the top of them can deflect the heat of the sun).

You could live in one of these things. And it would put them to good use, instead of letting them rust.

Fueling up an SUV is still cheaper than fueling a home in the winter, and I'm planning for the worst.

Lord knows they're big enough.

but today I can't see how anyone who lives so far from their job can get by without a gas allowance. My last line of work required me to do a lot of driving each day anywhere from 20, 30 miles to a hundred or more. Theres no way I could do that today. Full sized pick'mup truck required for hauling the tools and such.

bought a house 10 min from my husbands work last summer. We had no idea these gas prices w here coming when bought it but ..turns out we did it just in time ..he used to drive an hour each way to get to work..it would have killed us I would have lost my home...there is no way we could have afforded it.

The strain is already showing on many of them.

I live in MA just off 95 before the border, and the buses coming from Portsmouth are packed. It's also the last/first stop on the T, and the parking lot is often full.

That was 12 years ago. The company was pretty big, but in a small town. They didn't have enough nurses living there. I had an allowance then to cover my time on the road, and it helped alot. We also got mileage for our visits. I don't see how they can afford to do this anymore. Alot of people will go without home healthcare.

I'd love to have a new pickup. They're the handiest vehicles ever made and besides they fit me. In today's world and since I no longer live on the ranch, no way I can justify owning one. Especially a diesel pickup.

My brother is in the same boat as you. He has to have a pickup for work and in his words "it tries to pull into every gas station it passes".

good,

Maybe the value of my 99' S-10 will go up a little and I can upgrade to a newer model :)

As a recently repurposed car salesman I told hundreds of people not to get a truck/suv unless they absolutely needed one for work... Now look at you! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA EAT IT YOU WASTEFUL BASTARDS!

Back then, folks were really resistant to buying foreign made cars.
Well, except for us hippie types who loved the VW bug and vans.
Datsun was coming on, great car, great mileage for its time.

And then a few years later, gas prices went down, folks started getting macho again and Detroit was pushing big hunks of metal as if nothing had happened.
Most folks went back to bigger cars and vans.

Odds are against gas prices going down again, ever.

Since 1970, I am on my 3rd small 5 speed car.

Now we are looking at people movers like this:



plenty of other ideas on this link, btw..

I would use it.

http://myersmotors.com/

I have a Forsen electric scooter, btw.

On my third one since 1976.

With automatic, since clutches wear out real fast in the big city stop-and-go traffic.

I'd just quit my job and needed reliable transportation to work freelance. I paid cash for it and it was really all I could afford at the time. It's got a little 4 banger that runs like a top.

Right now I'm damn glad I bought it. It gets a little over 35 mpg on the interstates and a little under 30 mpg in town. When I bought it I was a little disappointed but now my little Stratus is lookin' better and better all the time. AAMOF I think I'll go out and wax it. :)

the platform is great for the space needed for carrying the energy source.

:sarcasm:

No sarcasm there. Just amazement at their hubris now.