“It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam”
Source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114784170652465525
…what? Being good off-road, or on bad roads, is [supposed to be] the entire point of SUVs.
Edit: Okay, okay, I get it. Language changes and “SUV” doesn’t mean what I want it to mean. I’m well aware that I’m No True Scotsman-ing, but that doesn’t make me any less mad about it! 😠
A representative sample chosen from among the replies wrote:
SUVs are supposed to be trucks with seats in the cargo area!
All the car-based junk they build these days aren’t real SUVs, and shouldn’t exist because they’re objectively inferior to station wagons and minivans.
Every SUV ought to be an acutally-off-road-capable one, and the only people who should buy them are ones who actually take them off-road.
Those car-based junk things are actually called “crossover SUVs”, but the manufacturers are now just calling them SUVs, at least where I’m from.
I refuse to call anything without a proper transfer case an SUV personally. Hell, even the German luxury SUV barges at least have transfer cases with electronic locking of some sort. But plenty of crossovers have open center diffs with only traction control to facilitate “locking” it.
With their weight and the lower profile tires that come stock, and how they’re kinda just like regular cars but bigger in every way except where it counts, they really aren’t. Their single big advantage is the ground clearance but many actually have bodies that come surprisingly low. One the OG Ford Rangers would be great, but only if it had 4x4 because all those RWD only trucks, especially when they have nothing in the back, are essentially worthless due to the total lack of traction. They’re also super long, which makes maneuvering difficult in tight spaces so obstacles you could have gone around are now barriers you have go through. Besides, my BRZ doesn’t explode when it hits a pothole or touches a gravel road and in fact does quite well, even when it was lowered by an inch. Hilariously, unlike many vehicles the BRZ comes with a metal skid plate by default to protect the oil pan from the road.
Trucks and SUVs are terrible. Body on Frame vans and smaller unibody work vans are incredible but most people are too stupid and/or insecure and vain to buy them instead.
Its true that around the origin of SUVs, yes, this was the point, and many could… not offroad as well as a specifically off road geared vehicle, but could offroad a lot better than a sedan.
But, now its been 20ish years, and broadly, manufacturing standards / quality control are shit ass fuck tier bad, everything is desiged to break just after your warranty expires, and are also intentionally engineered to be nightmares to try to self repair, or just literally impossible to do this due to ‘everything’s computer!’ (unless you also want to hack your car)…
… so those offroad capabilities are functionally no longer present, beyond I guess all wheel drive as a mode.
Really, these days, an SUV is just a minivan that seats less people, doesn’t have a sliding door, costs a fuckton more, has better ground clearance, and ‘looks cooler’.
Pretty similar MPG.
Supposed to be, according to markering. Isn’t. I think only half of SUVs sold in the US even have 4 wheel drive. This is fine because in the US most pickups and SUVs are just massive pavement princesses anyway.
They’re just a classification meant to evade certain regulations to sell worse cars based on a few metrics regarding things like clearance. Given the point is to avoid having to make a decent car…
@grue yeah, so the commercials say. The ones I’ve driven haven’t been particularly better than sedans except higher clearance… making them more likely to rollover or break axles instead of scrape oil pans.
A truck maybe. Most SUVs are just big chunky road cars.