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You think the cost of gasoline is bad? Wait until you calculate the cost of your ute's depreciation. (http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080616/FREE/274191619/1023/LATESTNEWS)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2008_Toyota_Sequoia.jpgAutoweek - June 16, 2008

2008 Toyota Sequoia Limited 4WD -- 08 New: $45,225. 06 Trade in Value: $21,985

Yet another stating the days of the land yacht is coming to an end. Or you will pay dearly for the privilege of owning one? -- Ed.

If you thought $4 per gallon was a hit to the wallet, wait until hundreds of thousands of off-lease sport/utility vehicles are returned to dealerships. That's when the whammy of inflated residual values of off-lease sport/utes will hammer the market.

According to Oregon-based CNW Research, with some 800,000 truck-based sport/utility vehicles coming off lease this year, residual values projected three and four years ago will be missed by as much as $6,000 per unit.

Whom will this hurt? Those who lend the money--banks, credit unions, car companies' captive finance arms and others who write leases--will face a tab of nearly $5 billion just in 2008. That number rises to $5.24 billion in '09 and $4.74 billion at the end of the decade.

The only slight potential benefit to consumers is that they can buy their leased vehicles for bargain prices; experts predict that only 20 percent will do so… http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080616/FREE/274191619/1023/LATESTNEWS

at least scrap price are going up - at $1 lb for scrap steel, the 6,000 pounders might be worth more scrapped then sold as used cars

I can't help but to recall a couple of years on PriusChat the next door neighbor asking a member if he was having finacial problems because he had a Prius instead of a Suburban? Also in that time period, Dallas Morning News had a story of a woman moving from the Midwest to the affluent Plano/Frisco area and on of her dates was trying to get her to make a similar move from an Accord so she would not seem "poor".... this part of Dallas has among the greatest credit problems in the country.

Finally, all the early hybrid articles were so skeptical if the gas savings would ever make up for that $3,000 premium....since so many are dwelling on this, maybe it's time to get rid of the Suburban.

The comments are great on that articles "comment" section. My favorite part...<insult>... No one saw these incredible price hikes coming. Yes, many knew that gas was much more expensive in other parts of the world, but there is no rhyme or reason to gas prices in this country ... <insult> ...Man that's the first time I heard anyone besides the President (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHDPd7jHjE) surprised that gas prices would... RISE. Who would have thought.

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... Man that's the first time I heard anyone besides the President (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHDPd7jHjE) surprised that gas prices would... RISE. Who would have thought.

Maybe that was the President? ;)

...<insult>... No one saw these incredible price hikes coming. Yes, many knew that gas was much more expensive in other parts of the world, but there is no rhyme or reason to gas prices in this country ... <insult> ...My equation:

Greed = Stupidity

Had a boss years ago that had me running around the work place a lot like a Dominos delivery guy street racing, but going to the wrong places. :( He simply could not manage and let things go until the eleventh hour - then it's one fire drill to another...dressed in heavily starched shirts, obsessed with making a good appearance to his superiors, but what was under the hood was a mess. He could not see two weeks into the future...I'm afraid there are a lot more like him out there. :(

I am so very glad I did not buy my neighbor's Tahoe 3 yrs ago [before Hurricane Katrina]. I'd be stuck with a lawn ornament I couldn't afford to drive & probably couldn't sell.

I liked this in the comment section:

They are the safer vehicle to be in, in a Suburban/Civic head on collision.

No kidding. That's a favorite of the SUV crowd. My response: simple, I don't run head-on into a Surburban in either of my two Civics, or my Prius, or my motorcycle. How about, "Gee, Mr. Suburban, what happens when you run head-on into a Kenworth?"

Gasp, Mr. Suburban goes out and prices Kenworths...they are safer, right?

Harry

Open secret: most of these buyers were making a "feel good" decision. Now that reality has bit them, will they do the rational thing next time?

Hmmm, think of all the *batteries* you could load onto one of
those platforms, losing that icky clanky ol' chunk of iron in
the process. If we had two braincells to rub together between
everybody in this country, all those gliders would be put to
good use. Worried about rollovers? There's a lot of room to
be had by slinging those battery carriers *underneath*, bringing
the CG way down. The things were never gonna go off-road
anyways, right?
.
_H*

I think any vehicle that gets under 20 mpg city with the exception of specialty cars such as Vipers, GT Mustangs, Corvettes, Porsche's and the new Challenger are going to see a massive drop in value not just SUV's. If people thought the Cadillac's, Lincoln's, Park Ave and Lesabres were bad on depreciation it's going to get a lot worse for them.
SUV's are just the tip of the sword the other gas hogs are only a month or two away from seeing a major dump in value. The car doesn't see more than 25-26 highway it is going to be an eye opener for the owner when trade in time comes.

ALS -

Agreed, the new MPG threshold for the average consumer will likely settle around 30 HWY - anything less than 30 HWY will be perceived as a FSP.

That is a big change in consumer perception from the 20 HWY threshold which average person believed was 'good mileage'.

Nardelli over at Dodge sure has his work cut out for him -

I always love car adds that flaunt their GREAT GAS MILAGE and when you see the numbers it is some mid-20s bull**** that any decent car manufacturer could have made 25 years ago. sub 20s mpg is PATHETIC. 20-30 is POOR. 30-40 is DECENT, but not outstanding. 40-50 is GOOD, and 50+ is VERY GOOD. At least by the state of modern technology anyway.

As for the "heavier is safer" argument, that should be a compelling reason to get everyone into LIGHTER cars, to reduce the weight difference between cars in collisions while simutaneously increasing fuel economy and handling.

My first post, so hello everyone.

My girlfriend and I went car "window" shopping a couple of weeks ago. We went to a Toyota dealer and a Honda dealer. Both were absolutely desolate, not another customer on the lot except for us and this was mid day on a a beautiful Saturday, so I was kind of surprised. Apparently the economy is really hurting car sales. We asked about SUVs and the salesman at BOTH locations said they couldn't give them away, not even at an auction and the Toyota lot was cram packed with Tundras.

I have a 2002 4Runner 4WD that I put a TRD Supercharger on last year. It has 300HP and gets 20MPG and I LOVE the vehicle and wouldn't sell it, but it only gets driven on weekends these days, such a shame.

The gas price thing may be a surprise to some, but only if they weren't paying attention to anything else. I knew a guy who was a unit manager at a large local (LA area) refinery and in the early 2000's he was predicting $3 a gallon gas because of the extreme pressure on refinery operations. That's when I got a used Honda Accord, 1985, from which I was able to squeeze 38 to 39 MPG.

Faithful and True

The comments are great on that articles "comment" section. My favorite partMan that's the first time I heard anyone besides the President (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHDPd7jHjE) surprised that gas prices would... RISE. Who would have thought.

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With the way the media has been covering these price hikes they'll never learn that we suffered a 7% drop in oil imports over last year this same time. It's time to blame speculators, oil companies and so on.

It's not that these entities are blameless but BBC just reported today that a rebel group attacked an offshore oil platform about 100 km off Nigeria's coastline (equiv. to our 83 miles) and shutdown oil production accounting for 10% of Nigeria's production. I'll bet no one saw that one coming either even though that area has been politically unstable for decades. :rolleyes: Get ready for a new round of price hikes.

I always love car adds that flaunt their GREAT GAS MILAGE...

The automakers' biggest tricks are to use the highway mileage to advertise their cars get mid thirties, which a hypermiler might be able to do, but which in reality translates to high twenties, 27-29ish as is the case with GMs misleading ad claiming 36 mpg for the Chevy Cobalt. GM's other trick is to highlight that their cars are flex-fuel vehicles that run on "home-grown" E-85 with less gas in it than gasoline without using the word ethanol. Then they emphasize that Toyota doesn't have these vehicles. Neat trick. Toyota is not that dumb though and I don't think people are that dumb. Of course if people are then I retract the last part of my previous statement.

The automakers' biggest tricks are to use the highway mileage to advertise their cars get mid thirties, which a hypermiler might be able to do, but which in reality translates to high twenties, 27-29ish as is the case with GMs misleading ad claiming 36 mpg for the Chevy Cobalt. GM's other trick is to highlight that their cars are flex-fuel vehicles that run on "home-grown" E-85 with less gas in it than gasoline without using the word ethanol. Then they emphasize that Toyota doesn't have these vehicles. Neat trick. Toyota is not that dumb though and I don't think people are that dumb. Of course if people are then I retract the last part of my previous statement.Yep, I added a generic rebuttal in my "Countering Hypermiling Debate" thread

Skeptic: I hear your "don't send petrol dollars over seas", thats why I use E85. US Flex-Fuel cars use way less foreign oil than those gas hybrids

Hypermiler: Getting off petrol is great, but I'm waiting for the efficiencies of the E85 cars to get better. The basic metric is that 65 MPG on E10 uses less gas than 20 MPG on E85. According to Argonne Labs (ANL/ESD-38 (http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/58.pdf) page 2), 10 gallons of E85 uses 3 gallons of petrol/diesel to make. On the other hand, 10 gallons of E10 take 9.4 gallons of petrol/diesel to make. So until E85 cars start reporting north of 20 MPG, I'll use less foreign oil by hypermiling my hybrid to 65 MPG.

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