Jennifer Kelly
Problems With Modern SUVs
An SUV is a powerful all-wheel-drive car that can carry a lot of weight and help you feel confident during any weather conditions. If you have long dreamed of this car and want to buy a new four-wheel-drive car for off-road driving, then take your time. Of course, modern SUVs are more technological, have lower fuel consumption, and more comfortable. But at the same time, they have several problems that turn these cars into "SUVs" created only for urban conditions.
Below are 6 common problems of modern SUVs that can help you understand whether you really need this car.
High ground clearance coupled with large wheels is what has always distinguished SUVs from other cars. Old SUVs had a high ground clearance, which makes it possible to drive through almost any obstacle without hitting the bottom of your car.
But with the growing popularity of SUVs, manufacturers realize that most buyers almost always drive in the city. For this reason, they reduce the ground clearance so much that it reaches the standard ground clearance of passenger cars. Of course, low ground clearance gives a lower center of gravity. This improves handling, reduces air resistance, and improves fuel economy. But this deprives SUVs of their main advantage, which is a cross-country ability.
Modern SUVs are equipped with a large number of high-tech devices that are designed to improve the comfort and safety of the driver and passengers. This is good until the moment when the car gets into the wild environment and the driver needs to repair the car on his own.
Thanks to advances in technology, engineers have learned to reduce engine power while improving performance. These changes are mostly designed to reduce the level of emissions of the car. To compensate for power losses, turbocharging is installed in the engines. This is a good feature, especially on the track, where the turbine gives a nice boost to acceleration.
But as soon as an SUV gets somewhere out of city roads, the advantages of turbocharging disappear. The turbines do not give traction at low speeds, which are necessary for driving on unsteady surfaces and overcoming obstacles. Of course, not all SUVs have poor traction at low revs. If you are looking for a reliable car for off roads, the specialists from the auto leasing company can help you choose the best option.
One of the biggest challenges is keeping up with current trends and moving away from the original concept of a strong car that can withstand a variety of weather conditions and any road surface. Modern SUVs have the same paintwork as passenger cars, which can be easily scratched with a nail, not to mention small stones on the road.
As soon as you get off-road, you can immediately start calculating the cost of repairs. It's all about the plastic bottom, poorly protected plastic gas tank, and fenders made of the same material. Less and less metal, and more plastic is used in modern SUVs.
The modern SUVs are no longer specialized cars for harsh road conditions. This is most likely an expensive car that shows your financial wellbeing or just a basic transport to drive from home to work. Because they become more similar passenger cars, manufacturers quickly remove them from production and put on the conveyor a similar model, but not compatible with the previous car.
Of course, this means that buyers have more options to choose from. But if you decide to buy such an SUV, be ready that it will be removed from the lineup in several years.
Most modern cars are the successors of the same line rather than novelty. Engineers and designers take a certain template, for example, a hatchback, increase it in size, remove and add some new features and here it is, a new SUV.
The problem is that due to the unification some of their parts aren’t designed for off-road because they are taken from passenger cars that are not suitable for heavy loads. As a result, cars that look like a quite reliable SUV can actually break after a couple of hundred kilometers over bumps and pits just because their chassis is taken from an average passenger car.
