Current crop of SUV'S

"when then vast majority of them are glorified station wagon"

Speaking of the Tahoe only, my 2015 had 1595 pounds of payload and a max tow weight of 8400. I don't think that is a "glorified station wagon."

azdryheat wrote:
...We'll never go back to a car.

Us either, but we won't do SUVa eiter. We now have 2 pick-up trucks. I don't think we'll ever own anything else now. We love our 2 pick-ups! One is a grocery getter, the other is a towing beast! Both are 4 door, full crew cab and covers over the bed.

Anything CAN tow and they all have OEM ratings

Heck, a half ton CAN tow the Space Suttle (190,000 lbs)...have seen videos shoeing a VW towing a 747

Pure marketing and lost is how long will it do that, what incline CAN it tow those things. How will they be able to manhandle them in a Mr Murphy moment

Monocoque can be designed to tow heavy and monocoque failures like breaking in half are rare...they will rattle like crazy towards their end of life. Understanding how spot welds fail is key to any discussion of monocoque designs...like a monocoque can be much tirsionally stiffer vs a ladder frame...initially...down the road may be a different story

SUV...CUV...has blurred. OK...the fashion statement crowd typically do not care about details underneath the skin...bells and whistles at the top of their list

Just buy what you like and enjoy your decision...towing has additional metric which should be considered...

Mitsu tow 2500+

subby tow 1000+

Cavy tow 1000+

you guys keep thinking you can't tow anything with these, call it what u want, i love my mini-van more than all of them combined.

I don't understand this hatred for unibody, i have NEVER seen one broken in half.

i literally towed 1500 pounds with a unibody Chevy cavalier for years and it did fine and now i tow 2000+ plus with a mitsubishi outlander

i also towed over 40,000 miles with a 93 subaru outback and that had 0 issues as well.

the 98 cav destroyed the 93 subaru and the 07 outlander destroyed the 98 cav, im really not sure what you people want that makes a suv so crappy, and all my pulls were mountains, maybe not outwest mountains but a bigger tranny cooler and i would have no concerns.

no one is expecting 10k towing out of a small suv, even though i thin the grand cherokee is around 9k.

dully to pull a popup comes to mind.

There is no industry standard for SUV or CUV. Differeent manufacturers, engineers, sales, marketing cannot agree, so neither can consumers. The vast majority of what I think the OP is calling SUV are unibody crossovers, or CUV. There are not many nameplates and sales volume that are actually body on frame today.

colliehauler wrote:
Why do they call them SUV'S when then vast majority of them are glorified station wagons? To me a SUV is a truck based full frame vehicle. Got to love marketing.

Simple-SUV's sell, station wagons don't.

I used to have a Taurus station wagon and loved it but Ford couldn't sell those. Make a similar vehicle with a sexier name and it sells like crazy. Kind of like Chrysler couldn't sell Volare's but put a few hundred dollars worth of bling on it, raised the price $10,000, called it a 5th Avenue then and couldn't make enough of them. It is often about vanity.

Grit dog wrote:

ACZL wrote:
If you parked all the "SUV'S" side by side, then looked at them from the side, they all have the same body shape!! At least I think so.

OMG ROFL, funniest statement of the week!
Same shape? Uhhh you're right, they're SUVs. Should they put the hood in back and the back seats up front to make one look different?
That's like saying line up pickup trucks....dayum, they're all the same shape. Copycats, putting that bed thing behind the cab.....Where's the originality? LOL

Haha, I was thinking the exact same thing!

Love my new Toyota Highlander SUV. Easier to get into (over a car), lots of power, smooth ride, very roomy inside. And it tows 5,000 pounds. We'll never go back to a car.

Well, the world of motor vehicles just keeps changing to match customer demand. Unfortunately, customer demand is often based on fads, and superficial characteristics. I've had some small wagons and I think they are about the best, most sensible way to go.
The performance, handeling, weight and mileage of a car with more cargo space. Whereas, many think they have to "set up higher" which is overrated. Just make a small wagon a couple inches taller if desired. A small hatchback is next best or better. Still light and a car with great mileage. Some of them look sharp and are quick also. I don't get SUVs for 90% of buyers. My Ford Focus certainly isn't the perfect car in quality but it's fun, great ride, back seats fold flat and I'm averaging well over 30 city/highway combined.