Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Crossover Suv shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Crossover Suv offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Crossover Suv at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Crossover Suv? Wrong! If the Crossover Suv is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Crossover Suv then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Crossover Suv? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Crossover Suv and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Crossover Suv wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Crossover Suv then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Crossover Suv site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Crossover Suv, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Crossover Suv, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
A
crossover SUV (also called
CUV for
Crossover Utility Vehicle) or
XUV (not to be confused with
GMC (General Motors division)'s
GMC Envoy) is an
automobile with a sport utility vehicle appearance but is built upon a more economical and fuel-efficient
unibody construction.
The CUV nomenclature was created by automotive marketing departments to move away from the station wagon, which has declined in popularity, and the SUV, which has been stigmatized by some people in American culture as environmentally-unfriendly, over-sized, and wasteful with fuel. The word "CUV" or "Crossover" is not a ubiquitous term and is primarily used by people in the automotive industry.
The nomenclature's unpopularity may be due to the fact that some CUVs are compact- to mid-sized SUVs built with car drivetrains and suspensions (Lexus RX330, BMW X3), while most CUVs are actually station wagons or 5-door hatchbacks with truck-like characteristics such as elevated suspensions and upright seating (Volvo XC90, Mazda CX-7, Dodge Caliber).
In some cases, marketing departments may sometimes blur the line between vehicle body types.
History
wagon, an early crossover model-Matra Rancho, based on the Simca 1100 SUV
The first of this class of vehicles was the 1957
Moskvitch 410 (the 4WD version of the Moskvitch 402), but more well-known examples are probably the Lada Niva and the
AMC Eagle, which debuted in 1977 and 1980 respectively. The Eagle combined
Jeep four-wheel drive off-road functionality with the AMC Concord car-based platform and bodywork. It sold enough to build a small following in sedans, station wagon, and short Spirit based body styles. It was discontinued in 1988 when Chrysler phased out old AMC heritage designs. The Niva is still in production, and many Eagles are still on the road.
In the 1990s, a sport utility vehicle and
pickup truck craze took hold of the North American vehicle market, catapulting the light truck segment. What once was a small piece of the market that was originally dedicated to farmers and outdoorsmen, it became another car type used by families for personal transportation. By the end of the decade,
light trucks accounted for almost 50% of all new vehicle sales in the United States, and the popularity of the SUV segment was responsible for this shift in buying patterns.
Traditionally, SUVs were heavy-duty
truck-based appliances, with
body-on-frame construction. In response to market demands, automakers had been continually making each successive generation of their SUVs more and more "car-like" but the inherent limitations of this configuration made them poorly suited for their new primary function as family haulers.
Research showed that a vast majority of SUV owners never took their vehicles off-pavement, much less used them for fording streams or climbing boulders, which was their original purpose. An opportunity to provide what this new type of SUV owner
actually wanted was seized.
Customers liked the idea of all-weather traction provided by four-wheel drive, the ability to haul large items or a good number of people, and enjoyed the "commanding" seating position and sense of security that they believed the mass of an SUV provided, but mostly they liked the illusion of an active, outdoorsy lifestyle that an SUV suggested, and that minivans and station wagons implicitly did not.
The Toyota Camry-based Lexus RX300 was introduced as a 1998 model and was an instant success. It provided all of the aforementioned attributes that customers were looking for in an SUV, but additionally its unibody architecture provided car-like attributes such as a smooth ride, relatively good handling, low step-in height and decent gas mileage, all while providing the desired SUV psychological imagery.
All wheel drive cars vs. car-like SUVs
A more precise term for "Cross-Over" might be a design that is not a direct modification of an existing car, or truck. "Cross-Over" was applied to the Lexus RX300 to indicate its indeterminate status, and has often been retroactively applied to modified cars such as the AMC Eagle. Much of the Eagle's market would be served when Subaru switched to all AWD cars.
EagleWeb is "put off by Subaru's unjust claim" and
Automobile magazine commented, "Subaru calls the Outback the "'world's first sport-utility wagon,' a claim that AMC Eagle owners seem too embarrassed to dispute."
Given the inherent fuzziness of the "Crossover" designation, and automakers' desire to introduce vehicles into this currently "hot" segment, any number of improbable vehicles that are far removed from the original SUV concept are grouped in this category. The designation now signifies almost any non-truck based model that carries some form of SUV styling cues or attributes.
Chrysler, after absorbing American Motors Corporation would not market cars and wagons like the
AMC Eagle until the Chrysler Pacifica (low minivan derivative) and the
Chrysler 300C (AWD sedan) of the 2000s. With the
Ford Five Hundred (tall large sedan) and
Ford Freestyle (wagon version of the Five Hundred, both to be replaced in 2008 by the Ford Taurus and Ford Taurus X), and Saturn VUE (SUV derived from small car), all of the Big 3 would have crossover cars or SUVs. The Subaru B9 Tribeca is a dedicated 3-row SUV redesign starting with the Legacy platform, while the popular
Honda Pilot is a redesign of the Honda Odyssey minivan, and the Honda Ridgeline is a crossover pick-up truck. Ford's first AWD sedan was the Ford Tempo, from 1987 to 1991, but was not sold in a wagon or SUV-like version. Currently, the Ford Taurus, Taurus X, Edge, Escape, and Fusion are all car-based vehicles available from Ford with AWD.
Advantages
Car-based crossover SUVs vehicles have three primary advantages over truck-based SUVs:
- Handling - The unsafe handling characteristics of trucks with respect to sudden, evasive maneuvers has been demonstrated and accepted. Their high center of gravity, tall tire sidewalls, and long-travel suspensions (designed for heavy cargo and off-road use) make designing a truck-based SUV to be resistant to rollovers extremely difficult. Car-based crossovers ride lower and feature more road-appropriate suspension designs that, while limiting their ultimate off-road utility, makes them much more stable and responsive. The fact that many XUVs are front wheel drive makes them easier to handle in slippery weather.
- Economy - Car-based crossovers are much lighter than their heavy-duty truck-based cousins. They also feature four-wheel drive#Full-time all-wheel drive or even just two-wheel drive rather than less-efficient and heavy four-wheel drive, and use lighter unibody construction as well as coming equipped with more practical "on-road"-oriented tires. As a result, most crossovers get only slightly worse fuel economy than station wagons and sedans based on the same platform owing primarily to the fundamentally less efficient aerodynamics of the SUV shape.
- Cost - Light-duty car components can be cheaper to build and in fact, many modern crossovers are based on small economy cars, driving underlying costs lower still.
Continuing proliferation
Given the market's demonstrated insatiable appetite for SUVs and SUV-like vehicles, automakers have been scrambling to imbue the desired characteristics (with varying success) to a wide range of disparate products from station wagons such as the Subaru Outback and the Audi Allroad Quattro to minivans like the
Pontiac Montana, and the
Mazda MPV, extending even to sedans like the Subaru Outback and Ford Five Hundred and running the gamut from entry-level, inexpensive models like the Honda CRV to the luxurious and pricey
Cadillac SRX.
Almost every automaker participating in the North American market has a "crossover" vehicle, and the selection of choices has exploded. A short list of current crossovers with their platform genealogy follows (similar vehicles are grouped together):
{] and
Honda Pilot|-|[Audi Allroad Quattro|-|[BMW X3 ([BMW 3 Series)]|BMW 5-Series/[Pontiac Aztek|-|[Cadillac SRX|-|[Chevrolet Captiva|-|[Chevrolet HHR ([Chevrolet Cobalt)]|
Chrysler S platform (
Chrysler Town and Country/Dodge Caravan)]/
Mazda Tribute/
Mercury Mariner|-|[Ford Ecosport ([Ford Fiesta)] (replaced by Ford Taurus X for 2008)] (
Ford Five Hundred, replaced by Taurus for 2008)]|Ford Falcon (Australia)|-|GMC Acadia/
Saturn Outlook/Buick Enclave|-|[Holden Adventra/HSV Avalanche|-|[Holden Crewman/HSV Avalanche XUV|-|[Honda CR-V and Honda Element|-|[Hyundai Tucson|-|[Hyundai Veracruz and
Hyundai Santa Fe|-|[Infiniti FX ([Infiniti G35)]/
Ford Edge ([Lincoln MKZ, Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, Mazda6)|-|Kia Rondo|-|[Toyota Harrier and
Toyota Kluger|Toyota Camry|[Ford CD3 platform|[Mitsubishi Galant|[Mitsubishi Lancer|[Nissan Altima|[Nissan Almera|[Subaru Impreza|[Subaru Outback/Legacy/Tribeca (shared)|[Suzuki Swift/[Pontiac Vibe|-|[Volvo XC70|-|[Volvo XC90 ([Volvo S80)|}
See also
References
- Ford Edge CUV concept article (in French)
External links
A
crossover SUV (also called
CUV for
Crossover Utility Vehicle) or
XUV (not to be confused with
GMC (General Motors division)'s
GMC Envoy) is an
automobile with a sport utility vehicle appearance but is built upon a more economical and fuel-efficient unibody construction.
The CUV nomenclature was created by automotive marketing departments to move away from the station wagon, which has declined in popularity, and the SUV, which has been stigmatized by some people in American culture as environmentally-unfriendly, over-sized, and wasteful with fuel. The word "CUV" or "Crossover" is not a ubiquitous term and is primarily used by people in the automotive industry.
The nomenclature's unpopularity may be due to the fact that some CUVs are compact- to mid-sized SUVs built with car drivetrains and suspensions (Lexus RX330, BMW X3), while most CUVs are actually station wagons or 5-door hatchbacks with truck-like characteristics such as elevated suspensions and upright seating (Volvo XC90, Mazda CX-7, Dodge Caliber).
In some cases, marketing departments may sometimes blur the line between vehicle body types.
History
wagon, an early crossover model-
Matra Rancho, based on the
Simca 1100 SUV
The first of this class of vehicles was the 1957 Moskvitch 410 (the 4WD version of the Moskvitch 402), but more well-known examples are probably the
Lada Niva and the AMC Eagle, which debuted in 1977 and 1980 respectively. The Eagle combined
Jeep four-wheel drive off-road functionality with the
AMC Concord car-based platform and bodywork. It sold enough to build a small following in
sedans, station wagon, and short Spirit based body styles. It was discontinued in 1988 when Chrysler phased out old AMC heritage designs. The Niva is still in production, and many Eagles are still on the road.
In the 1990s, a sport utility vehicle and pickup truck craze took hold of the North American vehicle market, catapulting the light truck segment. What once was a small piece of the market that was originally dedicated to farmers and outdoorsmen, it became another car type used by families for personal transportation. By the end of the decade, light trucks accounted for almost 50% of all new vehicle sales in the United States, and the popularity of the SUV segment was responsible for this shift in buying patterns.
Traditionally, SUVs were heavy-duty
truck-based appliances, with body-on-frame construction. In response to market demands, automakers had been continually making each successive generation of their SUVs more and more "car-like" but the inherent limitations of this configuration made them poorly suited for their new primary function as family haulers.
Research showed that a vast majority of SUV owners never took their vehicles off-pavement, much less used them for fording streams or climbing boulders, which was their original purpose. An opportunity to provide what this new type of SUV owner
actually wanted was seized.
Customers liked the idea of all-weather traction provided by four-wheel drive, the ability to haul large items or a good number of people, and enjoyed the "commanding" seating position and sense of security that they believed the mass of an SUV provided, but mostly they liked the illusion of an active, outdoorsy lifestyle that an SUV suggested, and that minivans and station wagons implicitly did not.
The
Toyota Camry-based Lexus RX300 was introduced as a 1998 model and was an instant success. It provided all of the aforementioned attributes that customers were looking for in an SUV, but additionally its
unibody architecture provided car-like attributes such as a smooth ride, relatively good handling, low step-in height and decent gas mileage, all while providing the desired SUV psychological imagery.
All wheel drive cars vs. car-like SUVs
A more precise term for "Cross-Over" might be a design that is not a direct modification of an existing car, or truck. "Cross-Over" was applied to the
Lexus RX300 to indicate its indeterminate status, and has often been retroactively applied to modified cars such as the AMC Eagle. Much of the Eagle's market would be served when
Subaru switched to all AWD cars.
EagleWeb is "put off by Subaru's unjust claim" and
Automobile magazine commented, "Subaru calls the Outback the "'world's first sport-utility wagon,' a claim that AMC Eagle owners seem too embarrassed to dispute."
Given the inherent fuzziness of the "Crossover" designation, and automakers' desire to introduce vehicles into this currently "hot" segment, any number of improbable vehicles that are far removed from the original SUV concept are grouped in this category. The designation now signifies almost any non-truck based model that carries some form of SUV styling cues or attributes.
Chrysler, after absorbing
American Motors Corporation would not market cars and wagons like the
AMC Eagle until the Chrysler Pacifica (low minivan derivative) and the
Chrysler 300C (AWD sedan) of the 2000s. With the Ford Five Hundred (tall large sedan) and
Ford Freestyle (wagon version of the Five Hundred, both to be replaced in 2008 by the Ford Taurus and Ford Taurus X), and Saturn VUE (SUV derived from small car), all of the Big 3 would have crossover cars or SUVs. The
Subaru B9 Tribeca is a dedicated 3-row SUV redesign starting with the Legacy platform, while the popular Honda Pilot is a redesign of the Honda Odyssey minivan, and the
Honda Ridgeline is a crossover pick-up truck. Ford's first AWD sedan was the Ford Tempo, from 1987 to 1991, but was not sold in a wagon or SUV-like version. Currently, the Ford Taurus, Taurus X, Edge, Escape, and Fusion are all car-based vehicles available from Ford with AWD.
Advantages
Car-based crossover SUVs vehicles have three primary advantages over truck-based SUVs:
- Handling - The unsafe handling characteristics of trucks with respect to sudden, evasive maneuvers has been demonstrated and accepted. Their high center of gravity, tall tire sidewalls, and long-travel suspensions (designed for heavy cargo and off-road use) make designing a truck-based SUV to be resistant to rollovers extremely difficult. Car-based crossovers ride lower and feature more road-appropriate suspension designs that, while limiting their ultimate off-road utility, makes them much more stable and responsive. The fact that many XUVs are front wheel drive makes them easier to handle in slippery weather.
- Economy - Car-based crossovers are much lighter than their heavy-duty truck-based cousins. They also feature four-wheel drive#Full-time all-wheel drive or even just two-wheel drive rather than less-efficient and heavy four-wheel drive, and use lighter unibody construction as well as coming equipped with more practical "on-road"-oriented tires. As a result, most crossovers get only slightly worse fuel economy than station wagons and sedans based on the same platform owing primarily to the fundamentally less efficient aerodynamics of the SUV shape.
- Cost - Light-duty car components can be cheaper to build and in fact, many modern crossovers are based on small economy cars, driving underlying costs lower still.
Continuing proliferation
Given the market's demonstrated insatiable appetite for SUVs and SUV-like vehicles, automakers have been scrambling to imbue the desired characteristics (with varying success) to a wide range of disparate products from station wagons such as the
Subaru Outback and the Audi Allroad Quattro to minivans like the Pontiac Montana, and the
Mazda MPV, extending even to sedans like the Subaru Outback and Ford Five Hundred and running the gamut from entry-level, inexpensive models like the
Honda CRV to the luxurious and pricey
Cadillac SRX.
Almost every automaker participating in the North American market has a "crossover" vehicle, and the selection of choices has exploded. A short list of current crossovers with their platform genealogy follows (similar vehicles are grouped together):
{] and
Honda Pilot|-|[Audi Allroad Quattro|-|[BMW X3 ([BMW 3 Series)]|BMW 5-Series/[Pontiac Aztek|-|[Cadillac SRX|-|[Chevrolet Captiva|-|[Chevrolet HHR ([Chevrolet Cobalt)]|
Chrysler S platform (Chrysler Town and Country/Dodge Caravan)]/Mazda Tribute/
Mercury Mariner|-|[Ford Ecosport ([Ford Fiesta)] (replaced by Ford Taurus X for 2008)] (
Ford Five Hundred, replaced by Taurus for 2008)]|Ford Falcon (Australia)|-|GMC Acadia/Saturn Outlook/
Buick Enclave|-|[Holden Adventra/
HSV Avalanche|-|[Holden Crewman/HSV Avalanche XUV|-|[Honda CR-V and
Honda Element|-|[Hyundai Tucson|-|[Hyundai Veracruz and Hyundai Santa Fe|-|[Infiniti FX ([Infiniti G35)]/
Ford Edge ([Lincoln MKZ, Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, Mazda6)|-|Kia Rondo|-|[Toyota Harrier and Toyota Kluger|Toyota Camry|[Ford CD3 platform|[Mitsubishi Galant|[Mitsubishi Lancer|[Nissan Altima|[Nissan Almera|[Subaru Impreza|[Subaru Outback/Legacy/Tribeca (shared)|[Suzuki Swift/[Pontiac Vibe|-|[Volvo XC70|-|[Volvo XC90 ([Volvo S80)|}
See also
References
- Ford Edge CUV concept article (in French)
External links
