Motorway comfort SUV - budget of £5K

WellKnownSid

Pugster wrote: »

Are we missing a trick?

What Marktheshark alludes to - the trick - is that your car purchase is actually financing the new employer's business model - risk free (for the business). Seen an awful lot on here at the moment. Make sure you do the maths.

An SUV is not a motorway car, especially at that price. Not stable, larger and more expensive parts compared to a saloon / estate. Stability will drop off at 50mph, just as fuel consumption starts to rocket.

I'm not even convinced an MPV is right - you're still paying a packet (esp. fuel) just to drive a lot of air around.

Has she ever driven an SUV? Perhaps arrange a test drive or arrange to borrow a friend's landie for an afternoon . Back to back with a comfortable Focus / Mondeo should turn on few light bulbs.

Altarf

WellKnownSid wrote: »

Has she ever driven an SUV? Perhaps arrange a test drive or arrange to borrow a friend's landie for an afternoon . Back to back with a comfortable Focus / Mondeo should turn on few light bulbs.

You are assuming that there is some logic going on here. There isn't.

SUVs are fashionable. She sees other women in them. She wants one.

No matter how logical your argument, she will still want an SUV.

gilbert_and_sullivan

What a lot of semi envious guff is posted here, unstable because it happens to sit higher than other cars?, do give over, the OP's wife isn't trying to set record lap times at Silverstone she's going to be on the road doing what millions of other people are every day of the week and just keeping up with the traffic.
Getting blown around? she's not getting a pantechnicon or double decker artic.

Arguably the better wet road grip (assuming it has AWD), increased visibility and being slightly higher so the 3 trillion watts of headlights constantly bombarding arn't quite so painfull will more than make up any shortcomings our 1g cornering and swerve test experts might suggest.

The only reasonable reason not to get a so called SUV is that they are indeed popular at the moment (like used VW's were before the truth outed), so expensive, and the budget mentioned might not get a good enough example for the probable mileage to be covered.

I'm another one who chooses to drive a Landcruiser in preference to my other vehicles, visibility superb, controls simple as and all work and don't have a mind of their own, its very comfortable, solid on the road, one of the smoothest auto boxes to be found, doesn't get blown around by the wind, takes not a blind bit of notice of the quality nor grip of the road surface nor standing water nor anything else, the only downside is fuel consumption.

loskie

worth looking at insurance costs. Sales jobs are classed as fairly high risk groups.
You would get a decent Hyundai Tuscon in budget.
AVOID freelanders

getmore4less

why are you doing her research for her?

Crunch the number on the allowance and what they pay per mile so you know how much money you have to play with.

bigjl

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

What a lot of semi envious guff is posted here, unstable because it happens to sit higher than other cars?, do give over, the OP's wife isn't trying to set record lap times at Silverstone she's going to be on the road doing what millions of other people are every day of the week and just keeping up with the traffic.
Getting blown around? she's not getting a pantechnicon or double decker artic.

Arguably the better wet road grip (assuming it has AWD), increased visibility and being slightly higher so the 3 trillion watts of headlights constantly bombarding arn't quite so painfull will more than make up any shortcomings our 1g cornering and swerve test experts might suggest.

The only reasonable reason not to get a so called SUV is that they are indeed popular at the moment (like used VW's were before the truth outed), so expensive, and the budget mentioned might not get a good enough example for the probable mileage to be covered.

I'm another one who chooses to drive a Landcruiser in preference to my other vehicles, visibility superb, controls simple as and all work and don't have a mind of their own, its very comfortable, solid on the road, one of the smoothest auto boxes to be found, doesn't get blown around by the wind, takes not a blind bit of notice of the quality nor grip of the road surface nor standing water nor anything else, the only downside is fuel consumption.

You really think an SUV is as stable as a normal car at speed? Or indeed as stable as something like a Zafira or similar?

Because they aren't.

If they are fitted with stability control then that is an advantage that will mean the lack of stability at speed will be less of an issue.

But a £5/6k SUV is likely to be fairly old and might not have all these advantages.

Iceweasel

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

I'm another one who chooses to drive a Landcruiser in preference to my other vehicles.

Sure - the Toyota LandCruiser is a fantastically comfortable and capable vehicle - but I doubt the OP is considering anything even remotely like that.

A £5 to £6K Landcruiser for doing high miles on a motorway isn't exactly a sensible choice.

gilbert_and_sullivan

bigjl wrote: »

You really think an SUV is as stable as a normal car at speed? Or indeed as stable as something like a Zafira or similar?

Because they aren't.

If they are fitted with stability control then that is an advantage that will mean the lack of stability at speed will be less of an issue.

But a £5/6k SUV is likely to be fairly old and might not have all these advantages.

No, in a swerve test a sporty low car will ultimately be able to take more G's sideways than a SUV, but then it will also be able to take more G's than a Zafira or other miserable grim people carrier, the ownership and driving of which would be utterly demoralising.

However seeing as i've, and i'm not alone in this, have managed to cover well over 3 million miles without rolling vehicles with far higher CoG's than any soft roader, i believe this minor point is being hyped up to panic standards of a daily wailesque headline i this thread.

If you want a car for track days you won't buy a 4x4, if you want to drift big style you won't buy an Imprezza unless you're Ken Block and can do at 80mph driving forwards but still going backwards.

Our OP's wife wants, for whatever reason, a soft roader and its her choice (last time i looked this isn't East Germany in the days when Frau Merkel was perfecting her trade) to do so, i don't see any more CRV's or Rav4's upside down on the roadside than i do narrow hatchbacks driven by people who think they are in a Caterham.

The benefits of a soft AWD roader might outweigh the minor increase in COG.

By the way having owned (still do the latter) a Mitsi Outlander and Subaru Outback, i'd far rather be in either one of those in any conditions at any speed, save a race on a dry track, than any 2WD normal car, you try and keep up with one of those with a normal car when conditions deteriorate.

straighttalker

Buy her a normal car and stick a pillow on the driver's seat.

force_ten

if you want a commanding driving position I find the mercedes actros hard to beat not very fast or economical but it really does have a commanding driving position