That SUV Driver May be Saving Gas

When a new full-size Chevy Suburban parks alongside you at the store and the owner slips out from behind the wheel, rather than giving him grief for guzzling gas, give him a hug for saving it.

Full- and midsize SUVs and full-size pickups are considered by many as the worst energy offenders on the road nowadays.

Yet in analyzing sales for the first six months of that year, CNW Marketing Research, a company that studies why citizens buy the cars they do, found that those who purchase new full-size SUVs actually get nearly 2 mpg increasingly in the new car than they did in their old one (19.9 mpg vs. 18 mpg).

At $3 a gallon, that’s not only a savings of $186 in gas by a year’s driving, it’s a savings of increasingly than 60 gallons of fuel.

Since the trade-ins were, on average, 6.5 years old, that’s another low-mileage, high-emission-belching relic off the road.

Those who bought a new midsize SUV are now getting an average

of 21.7
mpg, up from 19.9 mpg on their 6.4-year-old trade-in. Savings there is
$136 a year and about 44 gallons of gas.

Those moving into a full-size pickup truck found their average mileage
increasing to 19 mpg from 16.8, a savings of $292 or about 98 gallons
of fuel by their 7.3-year-old trade-in.

Of course, new small cars conserve lots of fuel, too. Those buying
small cars found they averaged 32 mpg, up from 20 mpg in the
6.3-year-old trade-in, a hefty $673 savings and 224 fewer gallons of
fuel consumed. 

"When you see a new full-size Suburban pass, don’t look down at the
owner as a gas hog," says Art Spinella, general manager of CNW. "Look
at the driver as someone who is interested in conserving gas by buying
a vehicle that gets better fuel economy, regardless of size.”