Another Rebuttal to the Buy A Nice Car blog post

[ginmqi]

I just stumbled upon the Buy A Nice Car blog post a bit late and tried to submit this on that post but wouldn't go through so figured I will post here to spur further discussion/critique of my own thoughts which I fleshed it out a bit more here on the forums:

For reference, the original blog appears here: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/should-you-drive-a-nice-car-a-procon/

As a car guy myself here's my rebuttal to supplement WCI for the Buy a Nice Car argument:

Opportunity Cost - Craig argues that a "beater car" is likely to break down more than the alternative (which he does not define...is it a BMW 5 Series? A Lexus GS? Or something even more exotic like a Range Rover/Maserati/lower end Porsche?) causing lost time and more stress due to repairs. And what is a "beater car?"

Opportunity Cost Rebuttal - German luxury brands are actually not known for their reliability, at all. (this is in response to the BMW photo posted in the blog) While they have improved dramatically compared to the 90s and the early 2000s, Audi/BMW/Mercedes-Benz all have their weaknesses. A dentist recently posted a youtube video breaking down his ownership of a 2013 Porsche 911...and admitted he had to make many trips to the dealer for warranty repairs and things going wrong. Lexus is an outlier and is legendary in their reliability. Unless you buy a Joe Backyard Mechanic Special for $1000....there are PLENTY of very economical, affordable cars that will not breakdown constantly. There are plenty of very affordable Hondas and Toyotas and even used Lexus out there that have had hundreds of thousands of miles of stress-free ownership. You don't need to buy a luxury, "nice" car to ensure reliability. In fact, certain German brands/models may be even less reliable than cheaper brands/models. (see Audi's carbon issue/timing chain with their engines, Mercedes with their Active Body Control suspension that are infamously expensive to repair, etc.)

Safety - Craig's position is that quality new vehicles compared to a cheap beater is much safer. And that luxury large cars are safer such as large sedans and SUVs as well as offer more safety features.

Safety Rebuttal - Again he fails to define what is a "cheap beater car" and he does not define the parameter for comparison. If you buy that Joe Backyard special $1000 car from the early 90s....yes obviously that is MUCH more dangerous than a brand new car. But I doubt that is what most residents are doing. But let's look at this whole thing about safety. He mentions that there are 0 fatality-models which attests to the luxury's better safety...and let's look at the nine models that were found to have 0 fatalities:

Non-luxury/nice models:
Kia Sorento
Subaru Legacy
Toyota Highlander
Honda Odyssey
Toyota Sequoia

Luxury/nice models:
Audi A4
Lexus RX350
Mercedes-Benz GL
Volvo XC90

So out of 9 models, 5 were non-luxury/nice, and 4 were luxury/nice. This easily shows that luxury/nice cars does not have a monopoly over superior safety.

If you look at the same IIHS data, they DO show that larger cars in general and SUVs in general have lower driver death rates. But of course the key point to safety is: driver smartness/awareness (seatbelts, defensive driving) and proper vehicle maintenance and proper tires. Certain SUVs may actually cause overconfidence in drivers during wintry conditions because they mistakenly assume that a AWD/4WD will be completely superior when they fail to drive properly AND fail to use proper winter/snow tires.

In addition physics also works against SUVs and higher center of gravity vehicles as they are more likely to rollover than a car. Of course technology has improved that quite a bit but some models you need to be careful of (look up the Jeep Grand Cherokee moose test on youtube....).

Not to mention the data from the fatalities are HEAVILY confounded by other factors. We see associations between certain car types and low fatalities but we have no idea of the driver, other cirumstances, road, tires, car condition, etc. So to assume that by buying a "safer" car (which does not have to be luxury as we have already seen) purely by statistics is not a smart idea.

In this regard, you can buy a very affordable, economical Toyota/Honda with top IIHS safety rating and both brands have very extensive safety feature offerings as well.

Another issue with newer technologies...the Tesla autopilot is a great example. It can instill a false sense of overconfidence and reliance on technology to save you. That one case of the Tesla driver falling asleep (some report he was watching a movie) and the autopilot fail to detect a tractor trailer against a bright white sky...caused his death. So here we see again that common sensibility and smart driving is of paramount importance..
Stress - Craig argues that cheap cars are more likely someone else's headaches and that a new car with a warranty is less headache. Again this is only partially true and the conditions can vary wildly. To go back to my example...do you find that Joe Backyard special or do you do your due dilligence and find many many reliable used cars? And notice here there is NO requirement to buy a luxury/nice car (which infact can be less reliable than economy brands). You can easily buy a pre-owned Toyota/Honda for much much less than a luxury brand/model.

Not to mention just because a car is warrantied does NOT mean it will be stress-free. When that expensive BMW breaks down under warranty, you still have to make appointment and drive/tow the car to the dealer and get a loaner and then hope the car is fixed quickly. So that already is stressful.

And with the TONS of online help in how to find/inspect a used car, it's easier than ever to find reliable "beaters" if you are willing to put in the work. You can find 1-owner cars with all service records and that have been meticulously taken care of. And are going to be much cheaper than a new luxury car.
Little Expense - Craigs claims reliable car doesn’t have to be expensive.

Little Expense Rebuttal - This is very very true. And here he finally mentions a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry. Of course here we can get into the debate over NEW car vs USED car or even how much used. Though the premise of the article seems to be more towards "nicer" cars (given the tone of the post and the photo of a BMW). And again certain nicer cars are actually less reliable than Toyota/Honda and can induce more stress with more trips to the dealer for warranty work.

With proper maintenance and proper driving (check out model specific forums for specific items to keep up with, and look at youtube for things NOT to do with an automatic transmission, etc.) many cars can EASILY hit 200-300k miles without major work.

Conclusion - "Spending a little extra money on quality, reliable transportation is a sound financial investment which is easily affordable for virtually every physician."

Agreed in principle. You don't have to spend $1000 to get a super beater...when you can likely find reliable cars for less than $10k (sometimes way less than that). There's certainly some argument to be made for a possible pre-owned car that is 2-3 years old. And certainly not much argument to be made for an expensive luxury/"nice" car.

[Zaphod]

Okay I skimmed it, and coming from a rambler that was TL;DR.

Bigger cars are safer, it is simply a physics problem. As long as there are smaller cars on the road this will be true, it is simply ke=mv^2, and that there is more space between you and the car. Its not really that they are safer, just relatively so, and its really a risk transfer to those in smaller cares. Think semi truck vs smart car. Thats all it is. If you can, bigger is better.

On the luxury standpoint (discl. I own an RX350) there is more to just models, its the subset of buyers and the way they behave that make a bigger difference than the model. Its a different demo. I'd take a huge bet on that. Put 16 year old kids from lower SES into those vehicles and the stats would equal cheaper vehicles.

There actually have been good engineering improvements over the last ten years (watch crash videos), within 5 years it doesnt matter as much. I personally have never bought a brand new car, it makes no sense. 1-3 years older seems a great balance point.

[Craigy]

I wrote the initial piece after growing weary of reading posts where the ed would place his old Dodge Durango on a pedestal and demonize the thought of ever buying a new car or spending any extra money on something a little nicer.  I just wanted to point out that there were many, many benefits from spending a little money on a car, which to a physician might be very valuable, and that as a physician, a few hundred dollars a month to spend on a car is a drop in the bucket.

IMO the ed then proceeded to convert that into more of a me vs. you pro-con, my situation against his, which was not my intent.  Some of the comments even pulled that further as if I was advocating that residents should go out and buy a Mercedes or a Ferrari.

You can find a million individual circumstances that fit your argument.  But the fact is, in general, cars are a wear item, newer is more reliable than older, newer is safer than older, larger is safer than smaller, heavier is safer than lighter, and so on and so forth.  The market reflects these realities and so do the insurance claims statistics.  You can add to that that more expensive typically means added safety features too.

The ed asked for pictures and I threw him a few, including the one of me trading in my BMW M3.  That's all it is, don't read too much into it.  I never told anyone to go buy a BMW M3 as a reliable cheap piece of transportation.  But ************************, if a physician wants to buy an M3, again, it should be a drop in the bucket and a very small portion of his or her expenses.

[The White Coat Investor]

Craigy wrote:

Some of the comments even pulled that further as if I was advocating that residents should go out and buy a Mercedes or a Ferrari.

.......That’s all it is, don’t read too much into it.  I never told anyone to go buy a BMW M3 as a reliable cheap piece of transportation.

Click to expand...

Welcome to my world. I keep finding myself in arguments with two other people at once, where I'm the moderate position and one is more extreme on one side and the other is more extreme on the other side!

[Craigy]

After reading your post a little more thoroughly, I'll add regarding your examples:

Definition of a beater - If you're a long-time reader you'll remember the editor's beautiful classic Durango  This ancient Dodge Durango with a very solid six figures of mileage was a common guest star in WCI posts on cars.  I am no expert on Durango values, but I would venture to guess that this was somewhere in the neighborhood of a $750 to $2,000 car, at its best, most earliest guest star appearance on WCI.  Thankfully the ed has since let it die.

If you're still driving your mom's hand-me-down Camry and it's still running great, absolutely keep it long as you can.  But IMO a physician (or anyone else for that matter) shouldn't go out and spend two or three grand on a used high mileage Mopar product and expect it to be a reliable source of transportation.

Your 0 fatality examples - all of those are new cars, regardless of make and model  None of those are cheap used cars.  Also, I believe that list is different depending on where you look and when whoever it is starts their counting (you better believe many have died in a Kia Sorento  :P ).  But the theme whenever you look is always larger, luxury vehicles.

Yes, you can absolutely get good safety tech on a Honda or Toyota.  But the best safety tech is found in their new and lightly-used offerings, and you have to spend extra to get things like autobrake/safety sense, etc.  You're not going to get that in an old beater Honda or Toyota, period.  And then with a 10-year old Honda you're liable to buy a car with a takata airbag grenade which will blow shrapnel though your chest if you get into a fender bender.   :lol:

Two big things with safety ratings:  1) IIHS and NHTSA both clearly state and acknowledge that a top pick or 5-star car from a smaller class won't pair up with a similarly rated car in another class.  This is just physics.  A Honda Accord has a longer crumple zone than a Honda Fit.  An F-150 has more mass, inertia and a higher ride height than a Ford Focus.  2) a top pick/5-star rated car from 1990 is not the same as one from today.  The testing gets more stringent every year, and as it goes up, manufacturers beef up the cars.  A funny tidbit here: after IIHS introduced the small overlap test, several manufacturers began beefing up the drivers side (the one commonly tested) but not the passenger side.  One of the worst offenders was Toyota who had completely asymmetrical crash structures, and this came out a couple years ago forcing another redesign.  So your 2016 or 2017 RAV4 is likely to be substantially safer than your 2014 or 2015, even just a couple years newer.

Rollover risk of SUVs has been mitigated by new vehicles with modern traction control systems.  This has not been a thing for several years now, over a decade in most brands.

Stress/reliability - again you can find anecdotes of any given situation.  Your boss's new Mercedes that had to be lemon lawed.  Your cousin's Daewoo that has 400,000 miles and he hasn't changed the oil since the Bush administration.  You name it.  These are all anecdotes.  The market does not reflect this.  And even in the "my buddy's '95 Probe runs great!" example, I have a hard time believing that all of the switches work, the AC blows ice cold and the interior doesn't smell like eau-de-cladosporium.

Expense - I think you and I generally agree here.  Spending just $8k on a quality used car over a $3,500 one is going to save you headache.  $10k, even better.  And as a physician there's no reason to feel guilty spending $20k on a new Honda Accord.  But yeah, don't go buy an M3 and expect it to be cheap to maintain or easy on depreciation.   :lol:

[Craigy]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Craigy wrote:

Some of the comments even pulled that further as if I was advocating that residents should go out and buy a Mercedes or a Ferrari.

…….That’s all it is, don’t read too much into it.  I never told anyone to go buy a BMW M3 as a reliable cheap piece of transportation.

Click to expand…

Welcome to my world.  I keep finding myself in arguments with two other people at once, where I’m the moderate position and one is more extreme on one side and the other is more extreme on the other side!

Click to expand...

It is UNCONSCIONABLE that you drive an expensive SUV, throwing so much money away.  Don't you know you can do EVERYTHING an SUV does with a good bicycle and one of these?? https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Cycle-Schwinn-Trailblazer-Bicycle/dp/B002QAVQ5A/    :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Zaphod]

Craigy wrote:

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Craigy wrote:

Some of the comments even pulled that further as if I was advocating that residents should go out and buy a Mercedes or a Ferrari.

…….That’s all it is, don’t read too much into it.  I never told anyone to go buy a BMW M3 as a reliable cheap piece of transportation.

Click to expand…

Welcome to my world.  I keep finding myself in arguments with two other people at once, where I’m the moderate position and one is more extreme on one side and the other is more extreme on the other side!

Click to expand…

It is UNCONSCIONABLE that you drive an expensive SUV, throwing so much money away.  Don’t you know you can do EVERYTHING an SUV does with a good bicycle and one of these?? https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Cycle-Schwinn-Trailblazer-Bicycle/dp/B002QAVQ5A/        

Click to expand...

I also have an expensive bicycle to go with my fancy SUV, but we only have one car if thats any saving grace. Two beaters traded for one nice one.

[The White Coat Investor]

Craigy wrote:

After reading your post a little more thoroughly, I’ll add regarding your examples:

Definition of a beater – If you’re a long-time reader you’ll remember the editor’s beautiful classic Durango  This ancient Dodge Durango with a very solid six figures of mileage was a common guest star in WCI posts on cars.  I am no expert on Durango values, but I would venture to guess that this was somewhere in the neighborhood of a $750 to $2,000 car, at its best, most earliest guest star appearance on WCI.  Thankfully the ed has since let it die.

If you’re still driving your mom’s hand-me-down Camry and it’s still running great, absolutely keep it long as you can.  But IMO a physician (or anyone else for that matter) shouldn’t go out and spend two or three grand on a used high mileage Mopar product and expect it to be a reliable source of transportation.

Your 0 fatality examples – all of those are new cars, regardless of make and model  None of those are cheap used cars.  Also, I believe that list is different depending on where you look and when whoever it is starts their counting (you better believe many have died in a Kia Sorento   ).  But the theme whenever you look is always larger, luxury vehicles.

Yes, you can absolutely get good safety tech on a Honda or Toyota.  But the best safety tech is found in their new and lightly-used offerings, and you have to spend extra to get things like autobrake/safety sense, etc.  You’re not going to get that in an old beater Honda or Toyota, period.  And then with a 10-year old Honda you’re liable to buy a car with a takata airbag grenade which will blow shrapnel though your chest if you get into a fender bender.   

Two big things with safety ratings:  1) IIHS and NHTSA both clearly state and acknowledge that a top pick or 5-star car from a smaller class won’t pair up with a similarly rated car in another class.  This is just physics.  A Honda Accord has a longer crumple zone than a Honda Fit.  An F-150 has more mass, inertia and a higher ride height than a Ford Focus.  2) a top pick/5-star rated car from 1990 is not the same as one from today.  The testing gets more stringent every year, and as it goes up, manufacturers beef up the cars.  A funny tidbit here: after IIHS introduced the small overlap test, several manufacturers began beefing up the drivers side (the one commonly tested) but not the passenger side.  One of the worst offenders was Toyota who had completely asymmetrical crash structures, and this came out a couple years ago forcing another redesign.  So your 2016 or 2017 RAV4 is likely to be substantially safer than your 2014 or 2015, even just a couple years newer.

Rollover risk of SUVs has been mitigated by new vehicles with modern traction control systems.  This has not been a thing for several years now, over a decade in most brands.

Stress/reliability – again you can find anecdotes of any given situation.  Your boss’s new Mercedes that had to be lemon lawed.  Your cousin’s Daewoo that has 400,000 miles and he hasn’t changed the oil since the Bush administration.  You name it.  These are all anecdotes.  The market does not reflect this.  And even in the “my buddy’s ’95 Probe runs great!” example, I have a hard time believing that all of the switches work, the AC blows ice cold and the interior doesn’t smell like eau-de-cladosporium.

Expense – I think you and I generally agree here.  Spending just $8k on a quality used car over a $3,500 one is going to save you headache.  $10k, even better.  And as a physician there’s no reason to feel guilty spending $20k on a new Honda Accord.  But yeah, don’t go buy an M3 and expect it to be cheap to maintain or easy on depreciation.   

Click to expand...

The Durango was 8 years old, had 107K miles, and cost $4K when I bought it. I drove it for 6 years and then got $300 or so for it. There were a few repairs along the way, the most expensive a transmission at something like 125-130K miles, fairly expected for a Durango of that age.

It's not ancient and it wasn't a $2K car. You must be thinking of the Mazda 626 I bought for $1850 as a new attending. Now that was a good deal. Sold 4 years later for $1500- only repair was a new battery and some wipers. The Durango wasn't that good. I'm not even convinced it was all that much safer. I definitely prefer Sequoias.

The current Sequoia I'm driving has 195K miles on it and is 12 year old. I'll be surprised if I don't get 5 more years out of it.

[Craigy]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Click to expand…

The Durango was 8 years old, had 107K miles, and cost $4K when I bought it. I drove it for 6 years and then got $300 or so for it. There were a few repairs along the way, the most expensive a transmission at something like 125-130K miles, fairly expected for a Durango of that age.

It’s not ancient and it wasn’t a $2K car. You must be thinking of the Mazda 626 I bought for $1850 as a new attending. Now that was a good deal. Sold 4 years later for $1500- only repair was a new battery and some wipers. The Durango wasn’t that good. I’m not even convinced it was all that much safer. I definitely prefer Sequoias.

The current Sequoia I’m driving has 195K miles on it and is 12 year old. I’ll be surprised if I don’t get 5 more years out of it.

Click to expand...

Please forgive my anti-mopar bias    I remember back in peak '90s when the 1st-gen Durango first arrived, they were supremely cool.  I remember being really disappointed that my dad didn't buy one after a test drive, but at least my aunt did.  These days though, the very few early Durangos that survive where I live are all quite, quite rough and serve as a reminder that I am in a particularly insalubrious neighborhood or possibly at walmart.

From a quick search of WCI, the first mention of it was circa 2011, but the first appearance was in 2015.  You know, this pic that kept popping up a lot from 2015-2016:



I suspect by the time we first got that pic it was a $2,000 car    And I'm not going to do a forensic valuation, but I also suspect that in 2011 it wasn't far off from $2k.

Yeah it's probably not a particularly safe vehicle, not many vehicles from the '90s were, particularly domestic.  However I would be very confident that it is substantially safer than a comparable Dodge (or Plymouth, Chrysler or Eagle) product of the same era, pre-Mercedes merger.

Your old Sequoia is miles ahead of the Durango in the quality department.  Next 5 years should be easy.  I wouldn't be surprised if you got 300,000 miles out of it.  This guy pegged his odo at 999,999  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL7fyyUNRmA

 

 

 

[Donnie]

This thread has reached rapidly diminishing returns, but I'll go ahead and chime in anyway. I don't think it matters whether a person making a high income buys a new car. What could make a difference in becoming FI is how often that person buys a new car since depreciation is not constant each year.

[ginmqi]

Zaphod wrote:

Okay I skimmed it, and coming from a rambler that was TL;DR.

Bigger cars are safer, it is simply a physics problem. As long as there are smaller cars on the road this will be true, it is simply ke=mv^2, and that there is more space between you and the car. Its not really that they are safer, just relatively so, and its really a risk transfer to those in smaller cares. Think semi truck vs smart car. Thats all it is. If you can, bigger is better.

On the luxury standpoint (discl. I own an RX350) there is more to just models, its the subset of buyers and the way they behave that make a bigger difference than the model. Its a different demo. I’d take a huge bet on that. Put 16 year old kids from lower SES into those vehicles and the stats would equal cheaper vehicles.

There actually have been good engineering improvements over the last ten years (watch crash videos), within 5 years it doesnt matter as much. I personally have never bought a brand new car, it makes no sense. 1-3 years older seems a great balance point.

Click to expand...

That is a fair point regarding risk transfer of bigger vs smaller cars. Though of course model specific issues needs to be address as well as modern technology is helping alot. A demonstration of a 1959 Chevy Impala vs a 2009 Chevy Impala is quite dramatic. And as I already mentioned above SUV models are more prone to roll-over risk (again, simple physics rules applies here as well) and some models are terrible at it (look up the Jeep Grand Cherokee Moose Test....)

Not to mention that certain SUV/pickup/large car drivers may have an over-confidence of their safety and in fact may drive less safe than if they had that sense of fear/caution. Ie, you see people in rainy/wintry conditions driving SUVs way too fast thinking that 4WD/AWD will help them stop faster (they do not) if they are not careful about driving technique and tires.

The confounding of the type of buyer is very true and I addressed that as well in my OP. This is to show that just by looking at models is insufficient to say that you should buy this model because it is "safe" from a statistics point of view without knowing other factors of accidents.

I do see a point in buying a 3-year old car if you're financially able.

[ginmqi]

Donnie wrote:

This thread has reached rapidly diminishing returns, but I’ll go ahead and chime in anyway. I don’t think it matters whether a person making a high income buys a new car. What could make a difference in becoming FI is how often that person buys a new car since depreciation is not constant each year.

Click to expand...

I agree.

The danger with buying the latest/greatest "safe" car mentality is that how often DO you replace your car?

If you bought something new 10 years ago...it's obviously not as safe as modern day cars. Maybe every 5 years? It's difficult to tell. And of course if you are splurging on a large, luxury SUV with all the gadgets it could easily be 50k+ and that can be quite a financial hit.

Modern cars I noticed have these little lights that flash on at the side mirrors when a car is next to them and these are becoming every more frequent and I suspect will become the standard very soon in new cars (if not already). This can be a great deterrent in lane change safety but at the same time I wonder if this will instill overconfidence in drivers who will start to rely on these technologies/computers more and more instead of safe driving habits. IE, just looking for that little amber light to change lanes instead of actually looking physically.

Future car safety may be more and more associated with technology reliability.....

[Craigy]

Your claims re rollover risk are simply no longer backed up by the facts.

Here's just some of the information out there:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/50/1/1

A decade ago, SUVs had some of the highest rates, due to their propensity to roll over (see Status Report special issue: driver death rates, March 19, 2005). However, the spread of electronic stability control (ESC) through the fleet has dramatically lessened the risk of rollover crashes in these and all vehicles. The rollover death rate of 5 per million registered vehicle years for 2011 models is less than a quarter of what it was for 2004 models.

With ESC dramatically reducing rollover risk, the inherent advantages offered by SUVs' greater size, weight and height emerge more clearly. Today's SUVs have the lowest driver death rate of any vehicle type.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/09/autos/suv_rollover/

Once feared for their dangerous rollover tendencies, high-riding SUVs are now much less likely to be involved in the deadly crashes than ordinary cars.

In fact, someone driving a 2009 model year car is almost twice as likely to die in a rollover accident as someone driving a 2009 model year SUV.

Sure, the Jeep product you cite is poor, but the whole segment shouldn't be judged by one or two poor performers.

Arguments like overconfidence, driver ability have little merit since again the stats simply don't back up the claim that driving an SUV will somehow make you a less safe driver.  Good driving will help you be safer in any car.  And no matter how good a driver you are, it's not going to stop a bad driver from rear-ending you, running a red light, etc.  With all of the aggressive drivers out there in their pickups and SUVs, you really don't want to be the lightweight billiard ball on the table.

The fact remains that modern SUVs are the safest place to be on the road by a very large margin.

[ginmqi]

Technology has certainly improved rollover risk dramatically and we're all very thankful for that.

Looking at the data it is very true, from the IIHS, that overall death rates for SUV as a vehicle type is quite low from that link you cited.

But if you look at those quotes they do not address the fact that SUVs still do rollover much more so than cars. Again physics. (I don't see how our current level of technology can break the law of physics/equations....) Those quotes specifically tout the low death rate, which is true...and the lower rollover risk than before...which is also true.

But the IIHS states this on their own website regarding rollover risk for SUV:

source: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/rollover-crashes/qanda

"Are rollovers more common for SUVs than for other vehicles?

Rollovers are much more common for SUVs and pickups than for cars, and more common for SUVs than for pickups. In 2014, 50 percent of SUV occupants killed in crashes were in vehicles that rolled over. In comparison, 44 percent of deaths in pickups and 22 percent of deaths in cars were in rollovers.

Pickups and SUVs tend to be involved in rollovers more frequently than cars largely due to the physical differences of these vehicles. SUVs and pickups are taller than cars and have greater ground clearance, causing their mass to be distributed higher off the road relative to the width of the vehicle. Additional passengers and cargo can increase the center of gravity even more. Other things being equal, a vehicle with a higher center of gravity is more prone to roll over than a lower-riding vehicle. 2

Driver behavior may contribute to the increased rollover involvement rate of SUVs and pickups. Pickups and SUVs are more likely than cars to be driven on rural roads, where rollovers occur more frequently. Lower belt use among pickup occupants 3 means they are more likely to be seriously or fatally injured when rollovers occur."

 

The sheer number of fatalities by pure number are higher due to more people buying them these days but the rates are lower.

"How has the number of rollover fatalities changed over time?

The number of fatalities in rollover crashes on U.S. roads increased as SUVs became more popular. However, the newest SUVs have much lower rollover fatality rates than earlier models and even have lower rates than the newest cars. For 1-3-year-old passenger vehicles of all types, the rollover fatality rate has declined from 27 driver deaths per million registered vehicles in 2000 to 6 deaths per million in 2014. "

 

Looks like rollovers overall are a small % of crash types, about 2%, but they are quite deadly. And with the ESC the cars that STILL rollover are probably more severe/harsh in their circumstances leading to likely more serious crashes. Definitely a safe behavior is to always wear seatbelts and drive safely with proper maintenance/tires and not to always trust technology to save you.

In general given the rarity of the rollovers, even though SUVs are more likely to do so than cars, and given that in other crashes SUVs will fare better I do see a logical reason to go for SUVs rather than smaller/lighter cars. Whether it's worth it financially is up to the buyer. I myself am very intrigued by this and I'll likely look at SUVs as a potential vehicle type in my future car buying list.

[Zaphod]

ginmqi wrote:

Technology has certainly improved rollover risk dramatically and we’re all very thankful for that.

Looking at the data it is very true, from the IIHS, that overall death rates for SUV as a vehicle type is quite low from that link you cited.

But if you look at those quotes they do not address the fact that SUVs still do rollover much more so than cars. Again physics. (I don’t see how our current level of technology can break the law of physics/equations….) Those quotes specifically tout the low death rate, which is true…and the lower rollover risk than before…which is also true.

But the IIHS states this on their own website regarding rollover risk for SUV:

source: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/rollover-crashes/qanda

“Are rollovers more common for SUVs than for other vehicles?

Rollovers are much more common for SUVs and pickups than for cars, and more common for SUVs than for pickups. In 2014, 50 percent of SUV occupants killed in crashes were in vehicles that rolled over. In comparison, 44 percent of deaths in pickups and 22 percent of deaths in cars were in rollovers.

Pickups and SUVs tend to be involved in rollovers more frequently than cars largely due to the physical differences of these vehicles. SUVs and pickups are taller than cars and have greater ground clearance, causing their mass to be distributed higher off the road relative to the width of the vehicle. Additional passengers and cargo can increase the center of gravity even more. Other things being equal, a vehicle with a higher center of gravity is more prone to roll over than a lower-riding vehicle. 2

Driver behavior may contribute to the increased rollover involvement rate of SUVs and pickups. Pickups and SUVs are more likely than cars to be driven on rural roads, where rollovers occur more frequently. Lower belt use among pickup occupants 3 means they are more likely to be seriously or fatally injured when rollovers occur.”

 

The sheer number of fatalities by pure number are higher due to more people buying them these days but the rates are lower.

“How has the number of rollover fatalities changed over time?

The number of fatalities in rollover crashes on U.S. roads increased as SUVs became more popular. However, the newest SUVs have much lower rollover fatality rates than earlier models and even have lower rates than the newest cars. For 1-3-year-old passenger vehicles of all types, the rollover fatality rate has declined from 27 driver deaths per million registered vehicles in 2000 to 6 deaths per million in 2014. “

 

Looks like rollovers overall are a small % of crash types, about 2%, but they are quite deadly. And with the ESC the cars that STILL rollover are probably more severe/harsh in their circumstances leading to likely more serious crashes. Definitely a safe behavior is to always wear seatbelts and drive safely with proper maintenance/tires and not to always trust technology to save you.

In general given the rarity of the rollovers, even though SUVs are more likely to do so than cars, and given that in other crashes SUVs will fare better I do see a logical reason to go for SUVs rather than smaller/lighter cars. Whether it’s worth it financially is up to the buyer. I myself am very intrigued by this and I’ll likely look at SUVs as a potential vehicle type in my future car buying list.

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You'll settle on an SUV, its just the overall best mix of features and safety. Picking even the one spot that its not as good at is way overshadowed by the relative infrequency of that event. Nothings perfect. There are lots of reasonably priced SUVs, you dont have to have the biggest or a Lexus, its more the mass that matters and Im sure Toyotas are very similar to their Lexus counterparts.