Opinions on the "small SUV" type cars?

Mr_Sukebe said:
Source?
Sorry, but I just don't believe that for a min.
The issue of increased chance of rollover has already been covered.
Additionally, any SUV is going to be heavier that it's equivalent hatchback, which is going to have a direct impact upon it's ability to stop (or NOT as the case may be), and that has nothing to do with brakes, more the absolute capability of tyres to stop a heavier vehicle.

In short, you're paying for basically a jacked up hatchback, which costs more, weighs more and because of it's weight, is less safe and consumes more fuel.

And why do I care?
It's usually some SUV that's tailgating me because he "feels" safer in his lump of lard, and when he does overtake me, presents a visual obstacle that's higher than my vehicle and often has privacy glass, thus reducing my own ability to see what's infront of him.
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It’s those simple physics you talk about. Weight plays a vital part in protecting the occupant. It has more momentum, but that momentum transfers energy to the other car, creating more damage to that car then the heavier car.

Here’s some stats for you - they’re from the US because unfortunately no one has yet found a proper set of data for the UK (and this argument has been had multiple times on this forum).
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/insurance-losses-by-make-and-model

Personal injury and medical claims are the columns to care about as they relate to the injured person).

As said earlier, my feeling of whether the vehicle itself is useful depends on the class. The small ones are usually smaller inside than their equivalent car, but the larger ones have significantly more practicality than their equivalent hatch. Which is the more practical vehicle out of the Honda Civic or the CRV? They’re both on the same platform...

I think your last paragraph sums up your real issue. Projection... Personally I’ve always found the Audi and BMW driver in their A4/6 and 3/5 series saloons to be the biggest ***** on the road, many of them damaging my car by overtaking unsafely and cutting in too close, pebbledashing my car in some cases. We all see what we want to see, but realistically idiots aren’t confined to one type of vehicle.
 
Conscript said:
There are some benefits. I'm of the rather odd demographic where I own an SUV, but I too, would rather own an estate car. We bought a Kia Sorento, but the primary reason was "we" (she) needed something which could tow a horse box safely, but which also going to be primarily used as a comfortable "car" (so not a pickup truck or similar). A larger SUV is ideal for that. Had it not been for that requirement, then I think I'd prefer an estate, too...the load space is cavernous, but so are some estates, and as you say, they'd handle better and use less fuel...although I'm not for a moment suggesting we needed excellent road handling for what is essentially a workhorse.

That said, I can see the appeal of other aspects too. The higher driving position is nice and makes for a comfortable cruiser by reducing that sensation of speed. It also makes it easier to get in and out of the car, and to load cargo. That might sound like a minor advantage, but my parents also own an SUV...a Honda CRV...and one of the key factors in buying that was that it was a much more comfortable car for mum and her aging knees to get in and out of. The minor hit on MPG as the result of the car being larger is a small price to pay especially as they're retired and not commuting in it. For those with young children, this is an advantage for even the smaller SUVs....its much easier to get them in and out of a child seat if the whole car is sitting higher anyway, which is probably a key reason they are so popular, even if that's the only advantage they offer over the equivalent hatchback. Despite what some people claim, it's not about "lording it over others"...I'm certainly under no illusion of superiority sitting behind the wheel of a Kia just becuase I'm higher up :p. And whilst I'm sure there are a few people who buy these sorts of cars to flex, I reckon the majority are just interested in being able to get their kids in and out of it easily.

There's also the comfort which comes from the wheel and suspension setup. The Kia has nice big chunky tyres and lots of spring travel which means it soaks up potholes and rough roads nicely. Now, I know that big tyres arent exclusive to SUVs, but it does seem like the trend for saloons and estates seems to be larger wheels and smaller tyres. Great for handling and aesthetics, less so for comfort, whereas most SUVs seem to have more substantial tyres.

If it wasn't for the need to tow a horse, I think I'd have gone for an estate. But I can see the appeal and advantage of SUVs, and I think its bizarre the bile their owners seem to attract for choosing them sometimes on here.

Oh, and totally with you on VW Transporters. They seem to exclusively be driven by a certain type of person :D
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People are wierd.
There wasn't the same sort of hate for the hatchback when it was invented, people saw the pros and cons of the format and went for it. Although some considered them a poor car as they tended to be pretty much at the bottom end of the market for a while.

I agree with you on the main benefit areas. There is certainly a better observation position round town, and they are more roomy than many saloons/estates.

Someone at work had a A4 avant, just had knee surgery and swapped to a Q3 as it was so much easier to get in and out of.

Most people I hear moaning about SUVs want to buy a "nice second hand car and not a SUV"
They are the same types who complain that the original purchaser didn't spec every "essential" option as well.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I do think the SUV revolution is a bit of a shame – they are everywhere now and it feels like much of the benefit is style or perception rather than practical reality. Consequently we end up with carparks filled full of enormous buses and queues of traffic you can’t see round. Couple the SUV trend with the diesel backlash and the result is a vehicle fleet with increasing CO2 emissions and rubbish fuel efficiency...

I’ve extensively driven what could probably be argued to be two of the best SUV’s – the current G05 BMW X5 (2000 miles around Europe earlier this year) and the current Audi Q7 (2000 miles in Australia last year) and whilst they were both excellent cars that I thoroughly enjoyed neither of them did anything the equivalent estate didn’t do better and everything I liked about them (ie the tech and the smooth powertrain in the X5) also applied to the estate on which they are based. The X5 particularly was a nuisance on many of the roads we found ourselves on – a 5 Series is a fine companion for a long distance road trip involving both motorways and twisty mountain roads, the X5 by contrast was at home (Though supremely thirsty) on the Motorway but felt like a liability in the mountains – it was quick but you had to scrub virtually all that speed off at most corners as it just couldn’t hide its considerable bulk.
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You complain about “buses” filling car parks but neglect to realize that the “buses” are usually dimensionally smaller than the saloons the driver would be driving otherwise. The issue you have is that cars are getting bigger in general. The Mondeo for example is 15cm longer and 5 cm wider than 20 years ago. That’s almost identical to the increase in size of the 5 series in the same time frame.

Conversely the Kuga is around 40cm shorter than the Mondeo and the 5 series (4524mm vs 4936mm) and the Tiguan is about 5 cm shorter than the Kuga... (width is within a couple of cm on all of them).

Perhaps you’re projecting, as your car takes up more space than the two most popular larger CUVs...

And personally, you’re doing Australia wrong if you think there are no benefits to a higher clearance vehicle there. The best parts cannot be reached with a saloon!


Rossi~ said:
Logical/sensible people you mean? ;)
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Nah, car fanatics, rather than the general car buying public that care more about practicality and ease of driving than the minute of the throttle response and handling.

That’s why you find so much hate for CUVs on car forums, bot not in the real world.
 
You wouldnt take these SUVs across the outback lol. That needs an actual offroad capable car, a robust one too. Most of them take Subarus, Toyota Land cruisers etc. A school run car like a Juke, Q4 etc wouldnt last a week.
 
Amp34 said:
It’s those simple physics you talk about. Weight plays a vital part in protecting the occupant. It has more momentum, but that momentum transfers energy to the other car, creating more damage to that car then the heavier car.
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Quite, which might actually help the individual in the heavier car, but results in additional injury to the other poor suckers on the road, which then escalates to everyone eventually driving foam covered tanks as "that will be safe and can make it across that puddle".
Sorry, that's not only counter productive, but also incredibly selfish.
 
Amp34 said:
That’s why you find so much hate for CUVs on car forums, bot not in the real world.
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This here is the correct answer, although the OP has indeed asked for opinions. For me it falls down to personal preference. I find the ease of getting in and out of an SUV really handy. I also feel more comfortable in an SUV compared to an estate/saloon.

If I had to pick a family car I'd pick an SUV because there are a lot of fantastic choices on the market like the Mazda CX-5 or Peugeot 5008.

This is the wrong place however to ask for SUV opinions because most people here drive saloons/estates.
 
[
Amp34 said:
Nah, car fanatics, rather than the general car buying public that care more about practicality and ease of driving than the minute of the throttle response and handling.
That’s why you find so much hate for CUVs on car forums, bot not in the real world.
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depends on your priorities - you can reject the high clearance cars on the grounds of safety for your family.
due diligence - 4 times more likely you're going to have an a serious accident leaving the carriageway in an x5 verus a 5 series (there are worse things than death ?)
NCAP component for passive safety (the moose test - that's it ?) doesn't get updated with actual injury stats ... which the manufacturers could choose to reveal/use.
]
 
Nasher said:
You wouldnt take these SUVs across the outback lol. That needs an actual offroad capable car, a robust one too. Most of them take Subarus, Toyota Land cruisers etc. A school run car like a Juke, Q4 etc wouldnt last a week.
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Who said anything about talking them across the outback. Many of the best attractions have roads to them, they're just not necessarily in perfect condition. Vehicles with higher ground clearance are usually preferred in those.

Personally I usually use/hire a pickup or Land Cruiser when I go to Australia because you can go to even more fun places, where as you say you wouldn't want to take a CUV (TBH the X5 is actually a very capable off roader, or at least used to be, not sure on the newer models).

The whole CUV class is popular in part because it takes the benefits of a proper "SUV" and mixes it with the benefits of a car. Better handling but also things like better access and ground clearance. The latter is beneficial for a lot more people than just desert explorers.

Mr_Sukebe said:
Quite, which might actually help the individual in the heavier car, but results in additional injury to the other poor suckers on the road, which then escalates to everyone eventually driving foam covered tanks as "that will be safe and can make it across that puddle".
Sorry, that's not only counter productive, but also incredibly selfish.
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The discussion was whether they are safer to the occupant. Whether they are more dangerous to others is another question entirely (and I agree, they generally are). One of the reasons I think people should choose the safest vehicle in the class they actually want, rather than just the safest vehicle of all. If you're looking at a small hatchback, don't buy a large SUV instead because it's "safer".

jpaul said:
[
depends on your priorities - you can reject the high clearance cars on the grounds of safety for your family.
due diligence - 4 times more likely you're going to have an a serious accident leaving the carriageway in an x5 verus a 5 series (there are worse things than death ?)
NCAP component for passive safety (the moose test - that's it ?) doesn't get updated with actual injury stats ... which the manufacturers could choose to reveal/use.
]
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1. Only if you somehow know how you're going to crash. As I mentioned before, people get too fixated on rollovers but ignore the fact that a single vehicle rollover is a relatively rare event in the grand scheme of things. Most likely you're going to get injured from hitting, or being hit by, another car. People are poor at judging risk.
2.IIRC that list involved about half a dozen accidents between those two vehicles, hence why I said earlier that there was no reliable data. You need a much larger sample of data than one year of UK only stats (which is what the spreadsheet was). Even then it's a datapoint of one pair of vehicles, not entire classes - Just because a class is generally safer does not mean all vehicles in that class are.
3. I don't think manufacturers will have injury stats. Best place to find them would be government and insurance companies - which is what that IIHS link above is. It shows what people are claiming for.

As has been said, it's a matter of personal preference mostly. Some like what a CUV provide, others don't. The discussion as always seems to trend towards high end premium vehicles that don't really represent the majority of vehicles people are actually buying. The biggest changes over the last 20 years are vehicles like the Mondeo, Passat and Accord being replaced by dimensionally smaller vehicles (Kuga, Tiguan and CRV). Those complaining that things like the X5 are "too big" don't have much of a leg to really stand on if they're driving something like a 5 Series, which itself is significantly larger than most vehicles on the road - perhaps if you guys are so worried about the size of vehicles you should chop your 5 series in and get yourself a nice X3, or a Tiguan, it'll save space for other road users to use ;).
 
Amp34 said:
Who said anything about talking them across the outback. Many of the best attractions have roads to them, they're just not necessarily in perfect condition. Vehicles with higher ground clearance are usually preferred in those.
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Tourist areas aren't so bad that you can't drive something like an Impreza over it. Which will perform a lot better off-road than many of the SUVs.
 
Nasher said:
Tourist areas aren't so bad that you can't drive something like an Impreza over it. Which will perform a lot better off-road than many of the SUVs.
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I think I'd probably rather get the bus than drive 2000km up the West Coast of Australia in an Impreza. The Q7 meanwhile was comfortable yet useful for some of the tourist bits.
 
Always be an estate man myself. Can't stand SUV's unless you are towing something then their bulk helps. Even still if an estate had the same weight I would pick that for towing but estates that can tow up to 7.5 tonne do not exist.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I think I'd probably rather get the bus than drive 2000km up the West Coast of Australia in an Impreza. The Q7 meanwhile was comfortable yet useful for some of the tourist bits.
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There was a celebrity who drove across Africa in an Impreza. Can't remember this name :p
 
Amp34 said:
2.IIRC that list involved about half a dozen accidents between those two vehicles, hence why I said earlier that there was no reliable data. You need a much larger sample of data than one year of UK only stats (which is what the spreadsheet was). Even then it's a datapoint of one pair of vehicles, not entire classes - Just because a class is generally safer does not mean all vehicles in that class are.
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All the data from the uk was in the earlier thread, police accident records, you were part of
jpaul said:
The raw government data is based on completing this form https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/230590/stats19.pdf
so does attempt to capture the cause.
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and, its compatrate thread - deja-vu ;) yep you need to be au-fait with excel
Small SUV's, why do people buy them?
 
jpaul said:
All the data from the uk was in the earlier thread, police accident records, you were part of

and, its compatrate thread - deja-vu ;) yep you need to be au-fait with excel
Small SUV's, why do people buy them?
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I know where it came from, hence why I said what I did. I'm also well aware this discussion keeps coming up. You guys are quite happy to keep spreading subjective opinion, get corrected, disappear for a few months then pop up again to be corrected again... ;)

As I said, so far there's not been any reliable evidence to support your claims, which have generally relied on incorrect rollover assumptions and studies from 20 years ago (when vehicles were very different). The only evidence you have so far provided is that spreadsheet, where you've cherrypicked one specific comparison as an example to support your opinion.

Thanks for linking to one of the older threads though. I can now just copy and paste the refutes to your arguments rather than re write them.. ;)

On that note, heres the synopsis of the last thread:

So overall all this seems to indicate as a class newer SUV's are safer for the occupants, get involved in crashes less (due to type of driver predominantly), are no less safe than saloons for pedestrians BUT are more dangerous for occupants of other vehicles when they are involved in a crash. Obviously specifics are going to vary quite significant based on driver and model being looked at.
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:p
 
Amp34 said:
As I said, so far there's not been any reliable evidence to support your claims, which have generally relied on incorrect rollover assumptions and studies from 20 years ago (when vehicles were very different). The only evidence you have so far provided is that spreadsheet, where you've cherrypicked one specific comparison as an example to support your opinion.
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(using others vernacular) Nope .. the uk accident data xls for the uk was from 2016 ... you can select which cars you are interested in , the bmw was chosen by others.
the summary was your synopsys of an earlier 2012 report I also put up

... anyway @StevieP / others can make their own minds up.



more relevant to this latest thread , its interesting how inconsistant the ncap reports analysis

https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/6010/euroncap_renault_captur_2013_5stars.pdf

this has data on the ability of the car to swerve and avoid accidents , but the datas not present for the kadjar, or the new focus ... datas a joke...
 
StevieP said:
My wife is looking at getting a new car to replace her Renault Kadjar and quite likes the look of the Renault Captur.

I've been doing some reading and in the similar bracket of small SUV's there is the Seat Arona, Mazda CX-3 and Skoda Karoq - has anyone got any experience of any vehicles in this class and can recommend anything?
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If you look at anything VAG avoid the 1.5 engine like the plague. 2 years of people fighting VW group because of cars kangarooing. I ordered a 1.5 T-Roc because funnily enough they had loads and very few Autos when I read the honest John review/write up/ reader comments on the 1.5. Then I looked on the various forums that 1.5 is fitted to and I ran away fast!

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/o...-acknowledges-problem-with-15-tsi-evo-engine/

or the 100 odd pages on the karoq:

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/446820-15-sel-first-gear-issue/page/5/

or 200 pages on T-ROC:

https://www.trocforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=266&start=760

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/n...-sight-for-volkswagen-15-tsi-engine-problems/

Quite how they are avoiding this in the mainstream press is baffling.
 
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