If you’re in the business of trying to save a significant amount of money when it comes to your vehicle, you may want to adjust your thinking to look for a smaller vehicle. Remember the days of giant sports utility vehicles like the Ford Expedition and Hummer? Well, recently, it would be hard to see anyone driving a Ford Expedition. And as for the Hummer, the decision was recently made to stop producing the Hummer vehicle due to problems within the auto industry and people stretching their pockets.
Smaller cars are definitely the way to go. If you have ever traveled abroad to a foreign country, particularly Europe; You’ve probably noticed how much smaller the vehicles were. In fact, whenever someone books some kind of Europe travel plan where renting a car is an option, car rental agencies will put a size comparison on their vehicles to give you an idea of the size difference for that you can be aware of it before you pack. This difference is sometimes important as it can mean the difference between carrying more or less luggage.
Are Americans greedy or selfish? Is that why we have such big cars compared to other countries? I don’t think this is true. However, there’s no arguing that having a bigger car is certainly more comfortable when you’re transporting other people or goods or if you’re on a long road trip somewhere. I can still remember driving from New York to North Carolina in my little Nissan Altima when I was a freshman in college. I made a mistake the minute I left New York because I ended up sitting in over sixteen hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic for almost the entire trip. The trip was only supposed to last eight or nine hours, and when you’re traveling in a small car with a lot of luggage in the middle of summer, it’s enough to drive you crazy. A few years later, when I got my Jeep, I was thankful to be in a bigger vehicle.
However, having a larger vehicle has its drawbacks. For starters, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the bigger the vehicle, the more gas it’s going to use. With my little Altima, at the time, it only cost me about $13 to fill up my car, and that money would go a long way. Yet just a few years later, when I was driving my Jeep, the US economy took a nosedive and headed for a recession. Gas prices skyrocketed just a couple of weeks after I bought my Jeep. The result? I was now paying around $70 each time to fill up my vehicle. The worst part of this was that because my Jeep was four-wheel drive and a V-6, the gas didn’t go up much before I found myself back at the gas station. Combine this with poor traffic conditions and I was quickly draining my bank account.
Ultimately, I ended up ditching the Jeep in favor of a smaller, more practical vehicle. It’s worth it in the long run!