Do people realize that SUVs pollute less than hippy vans?

Question

I am all for the environment and emission controls, but it bothers me when people talk about SUVs like they are have no emission controls. Compared to a 1969 VW hippy van a Tahoe gets about the same mileage and runs 90% cleaner. Plus it has three times the horsepower and is a lot safer (studies found that a collision at 12mph in a VW van can cause fatal injuries). I'm just saying that if you don't know anything about cars you shouldn't talk.

Modern SUVs with PCV valves, Catalytic Converters, EGR valves and computer controlled air fuel ratio feedback are 90% cleaner than an old VW. If you don't know what those systems are then you should not talk about gross polluting SUVs.

That said, what really gets me are the gross polluting big-rigs and ships which spew diesel emissions unchecked. SUVs are taking way to much of the blame for our enviromental woes.

Answer 1

it's funny hearing these dirty hippies defend there volkswagens.

why aren't they sold new anymore?
they stopped importing them in 1977.

why?

they couldn't meet u.s. emission and safety standards.

http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata313.htm

as usual, no facts- just emotion.

Answer 2

I hear your point, but I don't agree. Why compare an oversized gas hog circa 2007 to a fuel efficient van of almost 40 years' vintage? I don't see a Tahoe as progress, but rather a regression. I owned a 1970 VW van, and got an honest 23.5 mpg. VW vans don't kill other drivers in two car collisions the way SUVs do with with their massive weight: my van weighed just over 2,000 lbs. Tahoes weigh in at 5,500 lbs! For the same reason, don't tell me their mileage is "about the same." That's just not true. I just checked the government auto fuel economy website, and Tahoes clock in at 12-16 mpg, or as low as 9-13 depending on model. And we all know that EPA estimates are extremely "optimistic" i.e., high. When I checked mileage with a towed load, it was down to 8 mpg (www.edmunds.com). A VW van already is carrying a travel trailer, in effect, with triple the mileage. Also, the Tahoe's air pollution score, on a scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best) is either a 0 or a 1. Please stop defending a polluting gas hog. Do you really need that much size and horsepower to drive to work?

Answer 3

And if your SUV could travel through time back to the year 1966 that would mean something. Your amazing future car would really wow them 40 years ago.

The flaw in your reasoning is that this is 2007 and SUV s are juggernaut turds on wheels.

SUV's get the blame because of UNNEEDED SUV purchases. If you live on the side of a mountain and need to haul 500 pounds of supplies down an unpaved road you're perfect for buying an SUV.

If you're a suburbanite, yuppie or bling rapper wannabe that hasn't driven off road since you accidentally backed over the decorative grass divide at your local K-Mart YOU DO NOT NEED AN SUV. You don't see accountants from Hartford driving their big rig from their McMansion to the pier to go for a leisurely cruise in their 1200 foot cargo liner because it's a wasteful and jerk thing to do.

But accountants buying a Hummer-2 just because it's become some sort of upper-middle class status symbol is only slightly less so.

Answer 4

How many '69 VW vans are on the road nowadays, and how many Tahoe SUVs?

Safer for whom? I drive a Mini Cooper and I might as well be a motorcycle to the larger vehicles. Either they don't see me or they don't care, because in a collision they come out ahead.

Those gross-polluting big rigs and ships get your goods to you. The Pony Express doesn't operate anymore.

Answer 5

I think we should ban all polluting things, but then we'd be back to the age of horse drawn carts.
In the mean time we've got to take the bad with the good.
We have to start somewhere, now that smoking cigarettes is pretty well banned. Why not cars and trucks? It'll keep us so busy, we won't have time to think about the bigger things like oil plants and other huge world pollutants.
The government likes to make money, you know. They won't shut down money makers, and it's so much easier to get the few dollars out of the us and still keep the big money makers open.
Money talks and we don't count.

Answer 6

Yes, we have made great strides in cleaning the trace pollutants out of the exhaust of engines. But the totally clean exhaust of any hydrocarbon burning engine is carbon dioxide and water vapor. And the bigger the engine the more carbon dioxide it emits. And if there are enough SUVs in the world then the amount of carbon dioxide becomes enough to alter the balance of the entire atmosphere. In other words, global warming.

Answer 7

i'm probable going to get some environmentalists somewhat mad at me yet here is going.. first element the earth is a ECO device and all eco structures are proper in each and every way, the sole difficulty is of their perfection is the means to wreck itself. because of the fact in essence that's consistently changing ( exchange is a style of destruction). The earth itself emits greater methane gases from roting " stuff" throughout then any people billions of people and animals will ever emmet in our enter life in the international. this is not any longer suitable what vehicle or what puppy or what ever the earth grow to be made to deal with it. My opinion is in the adventure that your fairly nervous plant a tree!

Answer 8

And Algores jet burns more fuel than my Cessna. Hollyweirdo's SUV limos burn more than the average Americans car, but who's cars and planes do they want to take away?

Lead by example all you tree hugging, communist loving, ultra rich, American hating, ivory tower thinking blue state hypocrites.

Answer 9

i didnt know that. haha ironic but cool