ragingf80

Heaven forbid that there is 1001 cars in front of you rather than 1000.

Ride height does not reduce your comfort level over potholes, proper suspension does. You can stiffen a lifted truck to eat **** on a pothole as much as a lower height car. Also, in a heavy truck, if indeed your truck is heavy, your stopping distance is increased and chances of a rollover are increased when things go wrong, either someone hits you in the "sweet spot" of you have a blow out at high speed.

See what happens when this Escalade(?) is hit in the rear quarter:

He flipped. Although not impossible, that would be less likely to happen if that were a sedan. Point being, you don't have to be THAT HIGH for city driving. It's actually not as safe. I think crossover and smaller SUVs are the perfect hight for city driving, if you want to be a little higher than the rest, since it does provide a good balance between visibility, versatility, handling, and ride comfort. Of course, crossovers and small SUVs are less "manly", a ridiculous notion imho.

And no, large trucks and large SUVs are NOT built stronger than smaller cars and crossovers and are NOT more protection for the passengers because of it's size. It's size is actually a detriment to the integrity of the vehicle. A larger vehicle is more susceptible to crumpling unless more structural material is strategically placed, but that makes the vehicle heavier, which worsens handling (and stopping distance) AND increases the forces upon it during a crash. F=MA after all, and a heavier vehicle with more mass will have more forces placed upon it at the same acceleration as a smaller vehicle with less mass. Acceleration being traveling 55mph and decelerating to 0mph in a fraction of a second in a collision with a wall for instance.

Science experiment: Take a metal coat hanger and cut off a 1 inch section and a 12 inch section. Try to bend the 1 inch section with your bare hands. It's difficult. Now try to bend the 12in section. It's easy. That's torque helping you. Now imagine that the section of hanger is a section of the frame of a car vs the longer frame of a truck. True, the truck is not going to be 12 times longer than the car, but you get the point: it will be easier to bend that frame than the smaller one. Now apply this science to not just the frame, but to door panels, a, b, and c, pillars, structural reinforcements etc. A truck, without significant structural enhancements that add significant mass, is actually more fragile than a car.

The whole idea of a big bad truck being tough kind of takes a big giant dump doesn't it? Makes me wonder why these jackasses in giant trucks think they are invincible. It's born of ignorance really. Big trucks are useful: they can tow a lot of weight, they can climb over terrain but they are NOT better in an accident and they certainly are not more invincible, it's quite the opposite.

davyjordi

I love sitting as low to the ground as posssible. My IS is lowered and I wouldn't have it any other way. The car is just so agile and responsive when lowered. I can really tell the difference when I drive my husband's car which is at stock height.

Coleroad

you're right and you're wrong. Structural integrity of the passengers greenhouse is important. What sticks out from there is crumple zone. The more crumple zone you have the slower the rate of deceleration. Your organs are basically floating in liquid sacs including your brain. The faster the deceleration of the auto in an accident the harder those organs hit each other, hit bones, so on. Smart cars have an extremely strong greenhouse for the passengers, but a lack of crumple zone. That lack of crumple zone makes you more susceptible to serious injuries. So for best protection you need both crumple zone, and a solid passenger greenhouse. One can't say just because a vehicle is large it's safe. Case and point the Dodge Ram. You have to look at the crash safety data to know what's built for safety.

Johnhav430

The thing that I always wonder is how reliable is crash data? How many say S550s are crashed before a conclusion is drawn, 1? In my mind, at least through methodology, clinical trials on drugs are conducted scientfically, unlike say, an EPA estimate on mpgs.

ragingf80

good points, thanks for the additional insight.

BrownPride

I'm the exception, but I prefer being low to the ground in a car with sportier handling and a stiffer suspension.

Whenever I drive SUVs, even ones as capable as X5s and Cayennes, I always feel like the vehicle is going to "tip over" in corners unless I take those corners at slow speeds. I enjoy cornering fast and being low to the ground instills more confidence when doing this.

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

I like sitting low. I've gotten used to driving lowered cars for the past seven years that It's hard for me to drive anything high up.

i would take a mint condition LX470 in a heartbeat though. That thing rides like my LS but is a stylish SUV instead.

Aron9000

Main thing I was talking about with potholes, is a truck with proper tires with a sidewall, you aren't going to have a blowout or damage a wheel on big potholes. Seems like A LOT of passenger cars now days run skinny sidewalls on 18" or 19" rims, very susceptible to pothole damage. Plus the suspension on a truck is more robust, you are less likely to break crap or knock it out of alignment. Just saying driving my truck is a lot less stressful than driving my car on 18's with 245/30/R18 sized tires, I kind of have memorized where the holes in the roads are and which lane is better. I have destroyed a tire and wheel on a pothole in that car a couple years ago after a real bad ice storm destroyed the roads around here.

As for your other suggestions about trucks/suv's being less safe, in a wreck MASS IS KING. Also in a car, you're a lot more likely to take a bumper to the head in a side impact, since your car rides lower. Look at the bumper height on some semi trucks(concrete trucks, bucket trucks, back of semi-truck trailers), don't tell me riding higher in a truck isn't safer.

Although I will agree with you about those lifted "bro-trucks" being more dangerous, you alter the factory suspension geometry and increase the center of gravity, the handling is a lot less stable and they are more roll prone. Not to mention increased braking distances since the trucks are heavier, have bigger, heavier wheels/tires. Thing is the guys who drive them generally drive like douche bags. Still, I think if you drive them in a sane manner and kind of treat them like a semi truck(ie you don't swerve to avoid an accident) I don't think they're THAT unsafe.

mmarshall

Although it depends on the specific circumstances/specs/conditions, all else equal, in general, yes, it will reduce ride comfort over bumps and bad pavement. That's because the less room there is for suspension-travel (with usually comes with a vehicle's lowering), that means less available space for the suspension and shocks to compress and absorb bumps, no matter how softly or stiffly the suspension itself is tuned. That also applies to electronically-adjusted suspensions like with GM's Magna-Ride. Lowered suspensions stiffen up ride comfort for the same reason that low-profile tires do.....less available space in the tire's sidewall to compress and absorb bumps/potholes. Among many other reasons, that is one reason why I'm generally not a fan of aftermarket suspension lowering.

ragingf80

True to an extent, but you can get a cushy enough ride in a sedan or small SUV to be just as comfortable over potholes as a large lifted truck. Again, it's how the suspension is tuned. Of course, you can't compare a sports oriented car like a Porsche to have the same characteristics of a large truck, but that's not what I meant to imply. I'm talking about small SUVS and passenger sedans.

Those lifted trucks are usually harsh rides on the freeway because they were made for low speed, off road clearance, and not on road handling: so they are either super harsh, or too soft and cause instability on the road. Most of the time they are too harsh. (I'm talking about lifted trucks here.). OEM suspension heavy trucks are usually tuned stiffer than small SUVs and cars to minimize body roll. Remember, they are not necessarily tuned for comfort, they are tuned for ground clearance, towing weight, and cargo weight. So if I take a stock Tacoma, and a RAV4 with stock wheels (not the upgrade bigger wheels with smaller sidewalls), over the same average size pothole, the comfort level will be very very close. Bigger holes at varying speeds and the larger sidewalls will have more of an effect, but those are outside the norm in daily driving unless you live in a rural area for example.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

I prefer being low to the ground with a low CoG. Easier to maneuver away from dangers very quickly when I need to. I'm fine being high off the ground when I rent a diesel box truck or get into an actual off road vehicle that is going to be used off road. Or a pickup truck that I'm using to haul something with.

The rest of the time (which is the overwhelming majority of the time) I prefer to drive lower to the ground with much sharper handling.

AJT123

I'm not sure I agree with this. My old Yukon is built strong, i.e. it's a truck. My LS430 is a tank too but guess which vehicle of mine I run over curbs with, tear around off road, slam over things, basically abuse to death with no problem, etc. I'd feel much more confident crashing through a brick wall with my truck than my car. BOF trucks that are made to haul 2000lbs and tow 8000 are built stronger than crossover Escapes and Camry sedans, lol. Trucks just have much much tougher suspension components, etc. You're forgetting one major part of a truck's equation: mass. Like the wreck involving Bruce Jenner a few years back on the PCH where a Hummer hit an LS430 head on, killed the driver. I have no doubt that the LS430 is an extremely, extremely safe car (and still am a little surprised the driver didn't make it), but physics won out. The damage was much much worse on the car vs the truck in that situation.

FrankReynoldsCPA

High clearance paid off for me yesterday.
Our office had our annual community service project yesterday, doing some general clean-up at a youth camp in the mountains. Only a few of us were actually able to drive our vehicles into the camp. The rest had to hike in from the road or be shuttled in.