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Chicago Tribune

Greg Burns
November 24, 2008

All those folks who unloaded their sport-utility vehicles when gasoline shot past $4 a gallon this summer might be developing a case of seller's remorse.

Americans love their wheels. The bigger the better, if the past is any guide. The ideals of personal freedom and mobility embodied in the automobile haven't changed in the least.

So, no surprise, with gas prices down around $2 again, the much-maligned SUV is making something of a comeback.

Car sales on the whole remain a bust, and this comeback barely lives up to the name, considering the bleak conditions overall. Yet the General Motors assembly plant making Yukons, Tahoes and Escalades has put its workers on overtime. And dealers from Texas to Montana report that the big vehicles clogging up their lots for months like so much radioactive waste have started moving again, albeit at slashed prices.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/col...C1155954.column

QUIKAG

Glad I got my Yukon 3 months ago for practically nothing (comparatively speaking).

PedalFaster

Pop quiz: if fuel prices rise sharply, causing your SUV's annual gas bill to climb by a few thousand dollars per year, which response makes more sense:

a) Take public transportation and feel uncool.

b) Sell your SUV at a big loss and buy a smaller car, paying an amount of sales tax equivalent to a year's gas savings.

c) Sell your SUV at a big loss and buy a smaller car, paying an amount of sales tax equivalent to a year's gas savings. When gas prices drop a few months later, sell your smaller car and buy another SUV, once again paying thousands in sales tax. Pray that gas prices never go up again.

I'm all for people who buy SUVs or trucks because they need them (I daydream about buying one to tow my race car, although it probably won't happen anytime soon), but anyone who sold theirs when gas prices went up and now wants to buy a new one is either really bad at financial planning or completely ignorant of the fact that gas prices naturally fluctuate.

QUIKAG

Pedal, another thing to add is the depreciation expense into the money 'lost' by people who flipped into a smaller car.

It's just an example of how impulsive our society is and how reactionary everyone is to events around them.

I bet most people that took a $10k loss to get into a small car with better mileage are the same people that stopped contributing to their 401k as the market dropped.

Rednine

I find this so fricking ironic.

So many people blaming the Big 3 for not building the smaller fuel efficient vehicles "they want" and then they go out and do the exact the opposite...

Wake up people!

They build good small cars too!

Now I know they don't sport the little emblems some of you so idolize, so the real problem is, how do we get enough people to leave the safety of the herd and do some independent thinking for the first time?

samerthehammer

This is ridiculous. People buying new SUVs cuz gas is down. Like previously said, what happens when gas goes up again? Sell your SUVs and lose more money? I just don't understand how the majority thinks

Mark355

I agree, pretty shortsighted. How quickly we forget...

$4/gal will be back people. And then it's going to go higher.

vader1

I kind of doubt the validity of this article. There are always things like this written like the old article that had a bunch of goofy calculations trying to show that a Hummer H2 was far better to the environment than a Prius and all of the "evidence" was complete crap.

Take for example the notion that workers are now on overtime building the SUVs. GM had several factories making full sized SUVs and have closed or are in the procees of closing many of them, like the suburban plant my cousin works at in Janesville Wisconsin. If you have had many thousand layoffs and closed plants, its cheaper to make the few remaining workers put in a little OT instead of hiring people back, and paying them benefits, or reopening closed plants that used to be cranking out cars.

The writer wants you to believe that its ok to go back and start buying away and hurry to get yours before they are gone! But the reality is the factories are giving a little OT to the remaining skeleton crews still working them and car sales while slightly up in november are still way down from last year, which sucked for the industry.

Yes the decline in gas to less than $2 will make a few people less gunshy about buying one, but the notion they are selling like hotcakes is ludicrous.

I just saw my uncles new Buick Enclave (or whatever it is called) at Thanksgiving. It was a decent car and he loves it, but he said all the dealers he went to to look at cars were ghosts towns.

Yellow_S

Not surprising at all, considering gas is as cheap as many many years ago. Some stations even have it at $1.60/gal. That's as cheap as 10 years ago. However, it won't stay like this for long, and when it goes back up, SUVs and trucks will depreciate again. Just this week, the Saudi oil minister said that the "fair" oil price should be at around $75/barrel.

Chris S

I'll always have a truck regardless of gas prices. They're just too useful for hauling motorcycles, Home Depot runs, towing, etc.

If I had to sell off all my vehicles but one, the Ridgeline would be the keeper.