Not cool, Ford. Not cool.

[ill-advised strategy]

[reckless toboggan]

Attachment 234917
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...job/583613002/

That is the dumbest front of a truck I've ever seen.

Hey! Cletus! Shit yer mawith! Yer littin the flahs owit!

[liv2ski]

He's part Pikey

Nope, UK & Canadian passports and I watch to much Top Gear / Grand Tour. Plus, anything to annoy LowBrow. And I still want that 535xiD Estate to pull my caravan.

[Rideski]

Do we need $10/gallon gas to get things back in check or what? Common, people! Common, Ford!

I was going to make a joke about your RV (I think it was yours, can't find post, got tired of looking) but you do seem fervent about your Mazda3 so moving on....
I see both sides of this, lots of good points made by alternate points of view.
Super tiny cars have a place in parking garages and daily parallel parking downtown etc. And that's a fairly significant quantity. But for grocery getter soccer people, a very slightly bigger crossover with better crumple zones, occupant accessibility, cargo capability, ground clearance, with fairly equal mpg isn't hurting much. I don't have kids but if I did I wouldn't want them in the tinyest shitbox.

I also think its funny that trucks get all the hate when most of the bad ass sports cars in the world get worse mpg.

[plugboots]

Bad ass sports cars? We're not talking about that. My 340x-drive gets 27 mph.

[gravitylover]

^^The thing about most sports cars getting marginal mpg is how they're driven. I can easily get 20mpg or less when playing with my BRZ or 33+ if I just roll along at a reasonable speed and don't ask it to do more than just go. The aerodynamics are fantastic and top gear is so high the car almost feels like it's choking at anything under 70mph. I've even gotten over 33 with winter tires on winter gas at cold temperatures so, yeah... I know a guy that was driving one like a moron yesterday and dumped it off the side of the road at high speed and wedged it in between two trees on its side, both occupants walked away with scratches so unless you get crushed by an unnecessarily large vehicle safety is pretty good even in very small new cars. I do agree though with not wanting my kids in the smallest cars out there even though that was my preference at their age. I kind of like what Mitsubishi is up to in the crossover category at the moment.

[plugboots]

^^^ Duh. Vehicles get worse mileage when driven hard? Fuck any of these stupid crossover mini-SUV shitboxes. It's obviously CAFE driven and you're all falling for it.

[jono]

The arms race of more weight for more safety for me and mine, while understandable, is a negative sum game above some minimum. Most American cars are easily above that. (See Subaru's safety ratings, fire example.) Which is w where CAFE should have been a check on that rather than an incentive to build vehicles that get "pretty good mileage for their size."

IAS has a very good point with those "trucks"--all 3 of which are sporting air dams that significantly impact their clearance (or at least approach angle). So what's the point? Being taller feels safer to too many people.

[Rideski]

Bad ass sports cars? We're not talking about that. My 340x-drive gets 27 mph.

Not that I mind thread drift anyway, but I thought the OP was talking about small sub $20k American cars? Your euromobile is not any of those.

[reckless toboggan]

My favorite is the spotlessly clean, lifted trucks with yuge aftermarket wheels and tires, towing shiny campers. Can you say repo man?

Road Princesses.

[MontuckyFried]

I don't have kids but if I did I wouldn't want them in the tinyest shitbox.

I have two tiny children, and I have zero problem with an smaller economy car. Do I want to roll in a Yugo? Ok, probably not. But I feel PLENTY safe in a Mazda 3 or even safer yet, a Volvo S40/60/70.

It is SUCH a false sense of security that people have today thinking that bigger = safer. All things being equal, if I were involved in a collision, I'd much rather be in a some small tank like a Volvo sedan or wagon than a giant brodozer or Ferd Excursion.

What's REALLY eye opening is looking at the crash test videos showing all the full speed head on and off-set collisions. Pickup trucks typically do pretty poorly. One of the best things Subaru advertising did in the past was make the point that crash AVOIDANCE was one of the most important safety features. I still agree with that. I feel much safer in an agile, nimble, quicker car (plus good brakes) that gets me out of trouble to begin with than some big, bumbling SUV where there's no avoid the crash. Just "brace yourselves, kiddos!"

[Rideski]

I have two tiny children, and I have zero problem with an smaller economy car. Do I want to roll in a Yugo? Ok, probably not. But I feel PLENTY safe in a Mazda 3 or even safer yet, a Volvo S40/60/70.

It is SUCH a false sense of security that people have today thinking that bigger = safer. All things being equal, if I were involved in a collision, I'd much rather be in a some small tank like a Volvo sedan or wagon than a giant brodozer or Ferd Excursion.

What's REALLY eye opening is looking at the crash test videos showing all the full speed head on and off-set collisions. Pickup trucks typically do pretty poorly. One of the best things Subaru advertising did in the past was make the point that crash AVOIDANCE was one of the most important safety features. I still agree with that. I feel much safer in an agile, nimble, quicker car (plus good brakes) that gets me out of trouble to begin with than some big, bumbling SUV where there's no avoid the crash. Just "brace yourselves, kiddos!"

You're conflating your own OP, which is why I was going to draw the joke about your RV. You'll drive one of those whenever you want, but dis on my truck. But, your OP isn't about trucks, it's about Ford chopping fiestas. A brand new zero miles Volvo isn't a fiesta in size or money. Mazda3 is close, and as I said there's many reasons for a large quantity of them to exist.

It's about ditching fiestas for crossovers, not trucks or excursions.

[iceman]

Have they said anything about what's happening with the factories where they currently make the fiestas etc.?

I don't think there's pent-up demand for a shit ton of crossovers.

[Rideski]

Do I want to roll in a Yugo? Ok, probably not.

It's great for several things, if you gave me one I'd rally it downtown to see my clients all the time.
Transporting kids long distances on high speed two lane highways, not as much, your call bub.

[MontuckyFried]

You're conflating your own OP, which is why I was going to draw the joke about your RV. You'll drive one of those whenever you want, but dis on my truck. But, your OP isn't about trucks, it's about Ford chopping fiestas. A brand new zero miles Volvo isn't a fiesta in size or money. Mazda3 is close, and as I said there's many reasons for a large quantity of them to exist.

It's about ditching fiestas for crossovers, not trucks or excursions.

I have an RV? Hmm. That's news to me. And Ford IS ditching their cars in a concerted effort to push trucks as well. Crossovers for sure, but make no mistake they are riding the money making wave on their highest grossing products as far as possible. I have a feeling that one day they're going to realize they have a gaping hole in their product portfolio, but then perhaps in true big company fashion, they'll just buy out a competing smaller company who DOES have that product. Maybe they'll partner up with Mazda again? I laugh, but it's happened before!

It's great for several things, if you gave me one I'd rally it downtown to see my clients all the time.
Transporting kids long distances on high speed two lane highways, not as much, your call bub.

Really? What's wrong with the car pictured above? I'd have no problem toting the kids around in that thing. (They make a 4-door version too) I don't know if something is wrong with Americans' volume perception, but I always found it perplexing the need for larger and larger vehicles, which beget larger vehicles yet. Seems that most Europeans get around just fine with smaller cars and wagons for the families and camping trips. Why the need to haul around your entire freaking house with you everywhere you go? I just don't get it.

[shroom]

he’s implying safety concerns my man

[Sirshredalot]

he’s implying safety concerns my man

Good thing the Explorer is so notoriously safe!

[MontuckyFried]

he’s implying safety concerns my man

That may be, but he's also implying the false notion that so many Americans mistakenly believe that size = safety. I can't tell you how many people have told me they bought their big pickup trucks or hudge SUVs as daily family haulers with the very justification that they're "safer," which is patently false as a generalization. Or how many people I've known who would buy a Tahoe/Yukon because they had their first kid and so they needed the extra space (or "safety"). Then they'd have a second kid and would trade up to a Suburban/Expedition/etc. Always found that a bit ridiculous. "Oh, we NEED it for our 2.3 kids." Or the suburbanite dads who HAVE to have a truck for the couple bags of mulch they pick up from Home Depot on weekends here and there.

[Mazderati]

That may be, but he's also implying the false notion that so many Americans mistakenly believe that size = safety. I can't tell you how many people have told me they bought their big pickup trucks or hudge SUVs as daily family haulers with the very justification that they're "safer," which is patently false as a generalization.

This is incorrect. Model year for model year, bigger is safer. https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/a...arge-cars.html

[Sirshredalot]

This is incorrect. Model year for model year, bigger is safer. https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/a...arge-cars.html

The pickup trucks look like garbage in the table in that article. Both the passenger cars and SUVs are apparently much safer.

Also, that table of fatalities per million registered vehicles is probably the wrong metric. You want fatalities per miles driven. As it is now, you're penalizing cars that get driven more.

[plugboots]

Or the suburbanite dads who HAVE to have a truck for the couple bags of mulch they pick up from Home Depot on weekends here and there.

My wife met a work associate at some downtown parking garage and he had a huge Ram pick up truck that he couldn’t park properly. My wife in the Golf was standing there waiting for him to do this, (time was a man could handle his vehicle), and he climbs down out of the behemoth and he explains that he goes hunting in Eastern Washington and he needs this truck. It was then that my wife said that we live in Eastern Washington and hunting season was one week long.
We also see this during steelhead season where basically every pull out along the river has got some huge pick ups. I guess you need a huge pick up for your 24” steelhead that would fit in the glove compartment.


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[Mazderati]

The pickup trucks look like garbage in the table in that article. Both the passenger cars and SUVs are apparently much safer.

Also, that table of fatalities per million registered vehicles is probably the wrong metric. You want fatalities per miles driven. As it is now, you're penalizing cars that get driven more.

I don't know if you can say fatalities per registered vehicles is the wrong metric but I do agree fatalities per miles driven is a better metric if the information is available. Which is a big if and probably why registered vehicles is being used instead.


Straight from IIHS:

How do a vehicle's size and weight affect safety?
All other things being equal, occupants in a bigger, heavier vehicle are better protected than those in a smaller, lighter vehicle. Both size and weight affect the forces people inside a vehicle experience during a crash. The magnitude of those forces is directly related to the risk of injury.

In the case of size, the longer distance from the front of the vehicle to the occupant compartment gives a bigger vehicle an advantage in frontal crashes, which account for half of passenger vehicle occupant deaths. The longer that distance, the bigger the crush zone, and the lower the forces on the occupants.

Weight comes into play in a collision involving two vehicles. The bigger vehicle will push the lighter one backward during the impact. As a result, there will be less force on the occupants of the heavier vehicle and more on the people in the lighter vehicle.

IIHS demonstrated the role of size and weight in a series of crash tests in 2009 in which a microcar and two minicars were each crashed into a midsize car from the same manufacturer. The Smart Fortwo, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris all had good ratings in the Institute's moderate overlap frontal test, but all three performed poorly in the crashes with midsize cars. 1

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/ve...d-weight/qanda

[Sirshredalot]

I don't know if you can say fatalities per registered vehicles is the wrong metric but I do agree fatalities per miles driven is a better metric if the information is available. Which is a big if and probably why registered vehicles is being used instead.


Straight from IIHS:

How do a vehicle's size and weight affect safety?
All other things being equal, occupants in a bigger, heavier vehicle are better protected than those in a smaller, lighter vehicle. Both size and weight affect the forces people inside a vehicle experience during a crash. The magnitude of those forces is directly related to the risk of injury.

In the case of size, the longer distance from the front of the vehicle to the occupant compartment gives a bigger vehicle an advantage in frontal crashes, which account for half of passenger vehicle occupant deaths. The longer that distance, the bigger the crush zone, and the lower the forces on the occupants.

Weight comes into play in a collision involving two vehicles. The bigger vehicle will push the lighter one backward during the impact. As a result, there will be less force on the occupants of the heavier vehicle and more on the people in the lighter vehicle.

IIHS demonstrated the role of size and weight in a series of crash tests in 2009 in which a microcar and two minicars were each crashed into a midsize car from the same manufacturer. The Smart Fortwo, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris all had good ratings in the Institute's moderate overlap frontal test, but all three performed poorly in the crashes with midsize cars. 1

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/ve...d-weight/qanda

If we are saying a Camry performs better in a crash than a Yaris and a RAV4 is comparable to the Camry (once you set aside the rollover concern), that makes sense and it seems reasonable to draw that conclusion from the tabs linked above.

But the thing that stood out to me is that despite (or perhaps because of) the weight, the pickups look awful. Maybe the culprit is the body-on-frame construction? So I guess if you're concerned about safety, get an Avalon or a Highlander but run away screaming from a Tacoma. I don't think a rational concern for safety is killing large sedans and boosting small and midsize pickup sales numbers, at least not if anyone is reading the table linked above.

[MontuckyFried]

If we are saying a Camry performs better in a crash than a Yaris and a RAV4 is comparable to the Camry (once you set aside the rollover concern), that makes sense and it seems reasonable to draw that conclusion from the tabs linked above.

But the thing that stood out to me is that despite (or perhaps because of) the weight, the pickups look awful. Maybe the culprit is the body-on-frame construction? So I guess if you're concerned about safety, get an Avalon or a Highlander but run away screaming from a Tacoma. I don't think a rational concern for safety is killing large sedans and boosting small and midsize pickup sales numbers, at least not if anyone is reading the table linked above.

Exactly. So while I will concede the points that you (may) fare better in a head on collision if you're the one with more mass, many people evidently haven't seen the pickup truck crash test videos when choosing a big truck for safety reasons. It's pretty crazy seeing the bed crunching right into the rear passenger area.

The Edmunds piece linked above also mentioned the issue of "underslide." I'm sure becoming more of an issue with the prevalence of jacked up trucks with big steel bumpers, brush guards, and skid plates. When a truck's bumpers are literally over the hood of the vehicle they collide with, then yeah, it's an issue. So what's the solution, America? Git yerself a BIGGER truck! Let's not stop until we're ALL driving Canyoneros!!! Now with hybrid models!

[plugboots]

In Junior High, (that would be 45 years ago), my biology teacher talked about this, and said we should all be driving tanks.


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