Owners of midsize utility vehicles like the Honda Pilot, Chevrolet TrailBlazer, and Ford Explorer chose to move into smaller vehicles at a greater rate in the first quarter of 2008 than in the same period last year.
According to J.D. Power and Associates only 16.2 percent of midsize utility owners purchased another vehicle in that segment during Q1 of this year, that’s down 6.5 points from 2007. The largest percentage of consumers moved into a compact crossover vehicle like the Honda CR-V, Ford Escape, or Toyota RAV4, with the small CUVs getting 13.2 percent of trades in the first quarter. Conventional midsize sedans represented the third greatest target of former utility owners, with a substantial 12.8 percent of buyers defecting to the segment.
(Click through the jump to see the full breakdown of Midsize Utility Destinations or on the thumbnails to check out an upcoming small CUV, the 2009 Ford Kuga)
Top 6 Trade Destinations of Midsize Utility Vehicle Owners
JDPA/PIN Subsegment % of Total JDPA/PIN Subsegment % of Total Midsize Utility 22.7% Midsize Utility 16.2% Compact CUV 10.8% Compact CUV 13.3% Large Pickup 10.0% Midsize Conventional 12.8% Midsize Conventional 9.3% Midsize CUV 10.9% Midsize CUV 7.6% Compact Conventional 9.7% Compact Conventional 7.3% Large Pickup 8.7% Total Compact 26.6% Total Compact 31.5% Source: Power Information Network (PIN), a division of J.D. Power and Associates (January-March 2007 and 2008)
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However, I don’t think that necessarily reflects the fact that those compact SUVs all have gotten bigger in the past couple of years. If we extrapolate a little, and assume that the midsize owners were replacing 4-5 year old models with new ones…well, a five year old Pilot or Highlander isn’t much bigger than a new CR-V or RAV4, right? I mean, it’s a trend, sure, but it’s perhaps not as obvious a conclusion as one could make it out to be.
GM is not producing the T-blazer/envoy any more. did they put that into account. i agree with jeb. with time, all cars are getting bigger. it is good for advertising and so. and at one point the maker puts a smaller car than the beefed up car.a great example is nissan sentra, now there is versa that is almost as big as the old sentra.
Actually, for most city drivers, a crossover makes more sense than an SUV. I welcome the shift.
My hope is that some SUVs can go back to being vehicles designed to go “off-road”. Most SUVs today rarely even see a dirt road, and their designs reflect that. I expect that most SUVs will disappear, but it would be nice if a few “real” ones survived.
Who did not see that coming with the gas prices the way they are
Not suprising that this trend is occuring, I’ve owned two CR-Vs, and was impressed with their full size interior room and compact exterior size, with good fuel economy. What I don’t get is that this wasn’t self-evident to everybody, are they just stupid? Ironically, as everybody jumps on the bandwagon, I traded my CR-V in on a crossover that has less interior volume and poorer MPG, but ohhhh, that acceleration… A bucket list purchase, I guess.
GO AWAY mo, you intolerant idiot!
Really mo, you need to join Jalonik or Autoblog, they are more your crowd, as they also hate gays, can’t use a shift key properly, have poor syntax, etc. And also you should come out of the closet.
it seems that somebody was dumped by his boyfriend. no, make that two ppl were dumped by their boyfriends.
X3 SoB and Brett, if you guys are really pissed off coz you were dumped by your boyfriends, how about you guys start meeting each others. it seems, after all, that you have a lot in common.
P.S: once you guys have successful relationship, there is no need to thank me.
@ jeff, you seem totally right. for a person who is always on asphalt, an SUV or even a CUV is less practical than a sedan. when i tried a rental car, a G6, instead of my T-blazer i found a huge difference in acceleration and manoeuvrability. that is beside the difference in gas mileage. made me think of buying an awd sedan for my next car.
The truck-to-car issue came up at the shop I work at. The owner of a Nissan pickup said he was considering going back to a car, but loved the higher ride height, brawniness, and the feeling other drivers were being more cautious around him. Security and power are strong sport-ute traits, even if the gas costs are painful.
For all the complaints about gas prices, the average household income in the United States is around $40,000 per year–higher than Britain, Germany, Japan, or France. The price of gas may be starting at $3.50 here in Orange County, but drivers here do nothing but complain and stick with their F-150 and Silverado pickups.
but drivers here do nothing but complain and stick with their F-150 and Silverado pickups.
One of my co-workers said that he didn’t care how high gas went, he was going to continue driving his dualie pickup to work. He said, as a matter of fact, that he was looking to get a new dualie to replace his current one. I thought he was crazy until I remembered that he’s probably getting better gas mileage than my wife’s 1/2 ton pickup.
Why doesn’t Honda get smart and bring us the FR-V, in CDTi trim. It is 10X better looking than the CR-V, the diesel is great, and packaging is out of this world. I would give up my E500 for it. I wish someone in Torrance would get a clue!
As Ducati said, security, power, and I will add capability, are the reasons I own a true, multi purpose vehicle. Yea, it doesnt get great fuel economy, but I dont care, its a great vehicle, does everything well, and I cant bring myself to replace it. Its a little old, 2002 Jeep GC limited, but its in perfect shape, well kept, gets 21MPG HY, 15-17 in the city. For me CUVs and cute-utes dont cut it. I own a mid size sedan also, and would rather drive a sedan then a CUV, any day of the week. But I can see why people “think”, they are better off in a CUV then a SUV.
Honda doesn’t make the FR-V any longer.
mo: GM is still building the Chevy Trailblazer and GMC Envoy. They are built at Moraine, OH. (temp. shut down due to AAM strike, but are still scheduled to build for test of MY 2008 and at least 2009)
ohh really …. didn’t know that. my bad
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