I've watched this thread with interest, as I have seen carbon copies of the arguments on several other forums over the last year or two. Personally think there have been some good points made, and that Will summed these up quite nicely, however must admit a degree of self-interest since my wife owns a 4x4, and I have got one on order myself. (Nope, we don't necessarily need two 4x4's in the family, so maybe I will end up changing my wifes car at some point in the future...)
I spent a long time choosing my next car, and did think to consider an estate car. To be honest, in many ways I would much rather have bought an E55 Estate, or similar, than a 4x4 because I do agree that 4x4's are by no means perfect and that there are downsides to owning them. To try and explain my rationale in buying one, I will attempt to list the reasons why I made that decision, which obviously anyone is perfectly within their rights to disagree with, but ultimately it is my requirement that I am filling, and as with any individual I probably have more insight into what would suit me than someone else could entirely understand..
Space - yep, an estate car can fit longer items in, but I wanted taller items! Like Dieter, I have dogs, one of which in particular is too tall to sit up in an estate (ironically, the smaller one chooses to lie down, and the large one insists on sitting up throughout a journey and looking out of the window with interest for hours on end!). Believe it or not, but I have actually test driven several estates, and one of the things I insisted on was taking the car back to my house and putting my dogs in the back (doesn't really impress the saleman when he then has to vacuum out all the dog hair from his nice plush boot!). For this requirement a 4x4 is genuinely more suitable for me, and this was a key factor for me. In addition, to get the all round room of a largish 4x4 (especially rear leg room), means going up to E Class / 5 Series type cars, which are actually longer than most 4x4's, where I would start to struggle to get them in my garage. I actually prefer C Class / 3 Series type cars in general, but when there is a tall driver there really is bugger all room in the back!
Safety - contentious one this, but ultimately I feel it is my responsibility to protect my family (including dogs) as best as I can. This is why I insist on buying a car with a high safety rating (the vehicle I am buying was rated as the safest vehicle ever tested by the NHTSA - American crash testing authority. Pedestrian safety is one that has been brought up here a few times, however my wifes 4x4 actually has the highest safety rating out of any car (or 4x4) tested by EuroNCAP, so maybe we'd be best not to generalise, and if someone has an issue over pedestrian safety would be best targetting unsafe vehicles in general, rather than 4x4's. In fact, as I understand it, one of the major factors in pedestrian safety is how much give there is in the bonnet, so that their head does not hit something hard in an impact - the biggest culprit here is not 4x4's for obvious reasons (the engines tend to be sunk down low to improve the COG, and there is more room in terms of height to have the engine lower relative to the bonnet) but is actually low sleek sportcars, which struggle to fit a largish engine under the bonnet (thus domes, etc, to clear the engine). I believe there are new rules coming in around now that state that all new vehicle designs must have x inches of room between engine and bonnet, which will give MB designers an interesting challenge for the next SL.... The safety factor close to my heart was that of my dogs - I have seen a new model Volvo V70 estate that had been rear-ended at low speed: the crumple zone had done it's job very well, in that the rear end up to around the axle was pushed right in. Unfortunately, that is where my dogs would be sitting, so I insisted on a high floor sill to protect them against that.
Offroad ability - I actually find it quite funny that people go on about seeing clean 4x4's as they NEVER go off road. Another way of looking at it, is that they sometimes might go offroad, and at other times they might have washed it??? We tend to go on holidays where normal cars would not cope (I know, I tried it once in my C280 when we were between 4x4's - not a success story). We tend to do this kind of holiday maybe 3 or 4 times a year, along with several days out throughout the year where we end up in forests, lake shores, and so on, where we can walk the dogs - since I did not want to run an additional car for those times throughout the year, I wanted one car that could do everything I wanted. Incidentally, you'd be amazed what even a soft-roader can do offroad, regardless of what the magazines might say. I don't deny the superiority of a Defender, but anyone who went on the 4x4 Experience at this years road show would have seen what even the weedy ones were capable of - I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't tried it.
Traction - if MB or BMW brought some of their 4wd versions of 4Matic E Classes and so on to this country then I might have made a different choice, but they don't so my choices were limited somewhat. I tend to like reasonably powerful and comfortable cars, which normally ends up meaning RWD. After yet another year of slipping around with the traction control light flashing (admittedly the M3 might not have been a great choice for this!!
) I fancied getting a car with 4wd again (used to have a Sierra 4x4 many moons ago - was soooo much better than RWD when things got slippy). Looked at Audi's but they didn't have anything suitable (A4/S4 was too small, not convinced by the design or likely depreciation of the new A6). Thought about a Lamborghini or 911TT but the wife didn't think there was enough room!!
Looked at Subaru but didn't like them - probably looked at some others, but there aren't many choices out there any more. Did think about putting winter tyres on a RWD, but the conditions are too variable in this country for me to compromise with the reduced dry grip for the times when it isn't raining / icey / snowy throughout the winter months. I do a fair few miles, including many far too early starts, so swapping the wheels over several times is not really something I would end up doing.
There are various other factors (high seating position, ease of getting baby seats in and out without screwing my back up even more than it is now) that I won't go into, since you're all going to be bored reading this essay, and my fingers are hurting now. I do believe that people make choices that suit THEM - just because others don't realise, agree with, or understand those choices doesn't make it the wrong choice. If someone buys a Ferrari and loons around in it at 180mph he'll get blasted for being stupid and irresponsible, if they do 69.5mph people will say why did he/she bother buying it? Maybe it was to pose, maybe they enjoy driving it on a track twice a year which the daily moaners don't get to see, maybe it was just to fulfill a dream - who is to say this is wrong? It doesn't really hurt anyone else (unless he is stupid and kills someone - but a car, hammer, knife, book, or remote control could potentially all kill someone, but it would down to the human factor, it wouldn't be the objects fault). To my mind, the same is true with 4x4's - there are far too many people in the world being judgemental and thinking that they know best for other people. If you don't like 4x4's, sports cars, pink cars, paisley ties, then simply don't buy one - why condone someone else for making a different decision?
I will now get off my high horse (see - I like the high seating position!!!
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p.s. Does this now make me even less liked on here? Had a BMW, AND likes 4x4's!!
Why don't they be honest and simply say they prefer the looks\style of their 4x4. I have yet to hear of any 4x4 that is going to give more 'usable' space over the larger estate cars.
Also, it is common knowlege that big business influences government on both sides of the pond. But this does not make the next leap of faith into believing that there is some great cospiracy to get us driving 4x4s.
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