To purchase a car warranty, or not??

[Seanbort]

Hello!,

Avid reader, first time poster. First of all I would like to point out that I live a pretty frugal lifestyle, and my spouse is mainly on-board with most frugal/financial decisions. However, she is still a little stubborn and not as motivated as per say, you and I are at becoming FI.

Anyway! We are purchasing her a car as her old one is a baseline student discount vehicle with endless problems (2005 Pontiac wave). We have settled on purchasing a 2011 Ford Fiesta with only 10,000 miles on it. Price: $11,998 CAD (We're Canadian). Seems like a fair deal in my opinion, as I know this vehicle will last a very long time, is very fuel efficient, and is a small car.

My dilemma is about a so called "warranty" that Ford offers when purchasing the vehicle. It costs $2,700 and it doesn't expire until you hit 124,000miles. I figure we will drive it 9300 miles/year. Therefore the warranty should be good for the next 12 years. Hooray!

The warranty basically covers anything besides the wear components of the vehicle. (ie. tires, rotors, brake pads, oil changes are not covered). Any other issues will fall under the warranty (apparently).

Lastly, which is killing me on the inside (but due to stubbornness and the sake of our happy marriage), we have to take out a small car loan. The loan will be approx. $5000 (+4.99% interest rate) and should be paid off before summer is over. If we buy the warranty this will increase to almost an $8000 loan.

Would it be facepunch worthy to buy this warranty?

Thanks :)

[Milizard]

So, you'll only come out ahead if repairs are > $2700 + TVM 4.99%.  If that is the case, you should look for a more reliable car and not buy this one.

[Vorpal]

You don't need the extended warranty. They exist to prey upon the worriers (just like most insurance).  It is HIGHLY unlikely that you would have $2700 worth of covered repairs needed in the first 125,000 miles.

These things exist to make money for the companies that provide them and for the car dealer, nothing more.

[vern]

http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/should-you-buy-extended-warranty.html

[Seanbort]

Thanks for the replies. I highly suspected it wasn't worth it, and if it were my sole decision I wouldn't have bothered even asking.

Thanks for the article Vern - just sent it on over to my spouse for a quick read! Hopefully that clears her mind as well :)

[Dorje]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

Warranties on cars are like gambling. You know they make money on warranties, and it's actually extremely profitable. Are you feeling lucky...  ;)

[Vorpal]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

Good enough to not worry about it:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/ford/fiesta-4-door-sedan/2011

[forummm]

Vern's link references this, but if you do buy a warranty, the offer the dealer is giving you is probably triple what it's worth to them. You can get a much cheaper price elsewhere or negotiate the price down. Keep in mind that this warranty is likely not going to increase the resale value because extended warranties are generally not transferable to a new owner.

[RoadLessTravelled]

Why are you buying a Ford product?  Why not buy a more reliable product with an existing warranty?

For example, look at the following list of warranty comparisons.
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=buy&story=manWarranty&subject=warranty

If you bought a 2011 Hyundai (as an example) that the original owner bought new in late 2011, then it would still have some warranty that would transfer to you.  Basic:  5yr/60,000mi. good till late 2016; 5/60k powertrain; 7yr/unlimited corrossion (good till late 2018); 5yr roadside till late 2016.

At your 9300 mi/year estimate, do the math.  If you buy one with under 45,000 miles on the clock, you will probably run out of time on the warranty before the mileage limit.  So buying today, you will get 1.5 years of warranty for free on basic and powertrain, 3.5 years on corrosion and 1.5 years on roadside assistance. 

I really don't understand why people continue to buy American cars. 

[Digital Dogma]

I may be a little late to the story, however Ive been successful at negotiating a free warranty but only in a specific instance. I helped someone else to purchase a subaru with a CVT transmission which is very new tech. The gist of it was that we wanted a reliable vehicle and if they stood by their product and it was durable they would never pay a dime on that free warranty. So we got lifetime transmission and drive train coverage, onwards to 250k miles and beyond!!!

[frpeebles]

This is relevant, right?

http://dougdemuro.kinja.com/why-your-next-unreliable-luxury-car-should-come-from-ca-814250605

[nobodyspecial]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

[paddedhat]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

[ltt]

We bought a warranty on a Toyota we purchased; we just didn't purchase through the dealer we bought from.  We went elsewhere after doing some research online and purchased at a much deeper discount from a high volume Toyota dealership in another state.  The warranty was an actual Toyota warranty and was much cheaper.  We purchased it; and we've needed to use it; and yes we've gotten our money's worth from it.  It was up to 100K miles.  The interesting thing about the warranty, which I find to be almost ridiculous, is that when we needed a major new part that was covered under warranty, they had to call an insurance adjuster out from another area and get their approval, etc.  It's such nonsense.

[nobodyspecial]

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

If your plan is to get a lifted truck so that in an accident you drive over the other vehicle that works.
But roll an F150, because you tried to go around a corner at more than 30mph, and they can hose out what remains of you.

At our site in Chile we had somebody run off the road and in their big pickup. Turns out the cab roof doesn't support the weight of the vehicle too well. Fortunately the driver managed to duck into the passenger seat before getting crushed, then just had to wait a few hours until somebody found them and got the gear to cut them out.

We switched all the site transport to the Mercedes salons the local taxi drivers use. Next person to flip one on a mountain switchback (flipping a car with ABS rather than a top heavy pickup took some talent) just hung upside down in their seat belt, was then able to open the door and get out. They just had to wait for a loader to lift the car back onto it's wheels, reset the fuel cut-off and could drive home.

[paddedhat]

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

If your plan is to get a lifted truck so that in an accident you drive over the other vehicle that works.
But roll an F150, because you tried to go around a corner at more than 30mph, and they can hose out what remains of you.

At our site in Chile we had somebody run off the road and in their big pickup. Turns out the cab roof doesn't support the weight of the vehicle too well. Fortunately the driver managed to duck into the passenger seat before getting crushed, then just had to wait a few hours until somebody found them and got the gear to cut them out.

We switched all the site transport to the Mercedes salons the local taxi drivers use. Next person to flip one on a mountain switchback (flipping a car with ABS rather than a top heavy pickup took some talent) just hung upside down in their seat belt, was then able to open the door and get out. They just had to wait for a loader to lift the car back onto it's wheels, reset the fuel cut-off and could drive home.

You have managed to toss irrelevant conjecture, assumptions, and anecdotal evidence into one big stew here. First, nobody said anything about modified vehicles, or rolling anything. Second, a vehicle with a badge that's familiar to you, but built and sold in a third world country, has little to do with a similar product in North America.  Case in point, Fiat had to basically redesign and rebuilt the 500 from front to back to meet safety standards here. The Euro version wasn't even close to being able to meet the federal safety standards.  My point still stands. In a medium speed head on between a new Fiesta, and a new typical 4WD F-150, claiming that the Fiesta is "a lot better that an F-150" is horseshit. You may, or may not,  survive in the little shit-box, but chances are you are going to walk away from the truck with some bruises from the bags and the belt.

To put it in anecdotal terms, last year a local from my area was hit in the worst possible way, a frontal offset. Both vehicles were moving at highway speeds, when a small car drifted a few feet into his lane lane. My neighbor was driving a full sized Dodge Durango. He nearly had his left leg torn off as the small vehicle penetrated the firewall, and tore through the cabin. The operator of the small car was killed instantly. Had it been two full sized trucks, maybe they both would of made it, who knows? Had it been a pair of tiny shitboxes, they both would of been gone.

[Bob W]

If I read this right the Ford has 10K?    The original warranty should go to 60K?     So no.  Pay the damn thing off.  Drive it for 7K per year for 30 years and call it good. 

Even if there is no original warranty in tact I would not do it.     

By the way,  I'm a former back end closer who sold 100S of extended warranties.  We made a shit ton off them.   


So no.

[Tetsuya Hondo]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

Well, you're more likely to be in a crash to begin with in your F150 given its sloppy handling, long breaking distances, and high center of gravity. Given your increased mass, you're also several times more likely to kill other drivers when you do crash. Thanks.

Also, the death rate for drivers of Mini Coopers and Toyota Prius's are on par with F150s: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates just as a couple of examples based on actual data, not anecdotes. They aren't the gas pigs that the F150 is either.

Until recently, a lot of large vehicles, including the F150 had pretty terrible crash test results. People always say bigger is better with safety, but if you look at the actually fatality rates by vehicle you'll see that there's a lot of variance by make and model. You can find plenty of safe, smaller vehicles.

[use2betrix]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

Well, you're more likely to be in a crash to begin with in your F150 given its sloppy handling, long breaking distances, and high center of gravity. Given your increased mass, you're also several times more likely to kill other drivers when you do crash. Thanks.

Also, the death rate for drivers of Mini Coopers and Toyota Prius's are on par with F150s: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates just as a couple of examples based on actual data, not anecdotes. They aren't the gas pigs that the F150 is either.

Until recently, a lot of large vehicles, including the F150 had pretty terrible crash test results. People always say bigger is better with safety, but if you look at the actually fatality rates by vehicle you'll see that there's a lot of variance by make and model. You can find plenty of safe, smaller vehicles.

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

The nhtsa gave the f150 a 5 star rating, while the Prius received a 4 star.

Moral of the story, you didn't do any research and know little about auto's other than what you can justify in your head to drive a little car.

Safer than an f 150... haha.

[Tetsuya Hondo]

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

The nhtsa gave the f150 a 5 star rating, while the Prius received a 4 star.

Moral of the story, you didn't do any research and know little about auto's other than what you can justify in your head to drive a little car.

Safer than an f 150... haha.

What forum is this? It can't be MMM. You don't have to drive an F150 to be safe.

There are many vehicles that provide high levels of safety through both accident avoidance, which smaller vehicles do better than larger ones in general, and crash testing and safety engineering. Just off the top of my head, if you want 5 star crash tests, you can get a Subaru Forester and save a hell of a lot of money over an F150.

As for the Prius, it's one of the most notoriously sloppy handling small cars on the market. And yet with its low resistance tires still has better braking that an F150 according to your source? Fatality rates, using actual real world data, are hardly any different between these two radically differently sized vehicles.

[GuitarStv]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

Well, you're more likely to be in a crash to begin with in your F150 given its sloppy handling, long breaking distances, and high center of gravity. Given your increased mass, you're also several times more likely to kill other drivers when you do crash. Thanks.

Also, the death rate for drivers of Mini Coopers and Toyota Prius's are on par with F150s: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates just as a couple of examples based on actual data, not anecdotes. They aren't the gas pigs that the F150 is either.

Until recently, a lot of large vehicles, including the F150 had pretty terrible crash test results. People always say bigger is better with safety, but if you look at the actually fatality rates by vehicle you'll see that there's a lot of variance by make and model. You can find plenty of safe, smaller vehicles.

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

So, safety advantage Prius . . . in both cases you put forward?

[a1smith]

Why are you buying a Ford product?  Why not buy a more reliable product with an existing warranty?

For example, look at the following list of warranty comparisons.
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=buy&story=manWarranty&subject=warranty

If you bought a 2011 Hyundai (as an example) that the original owner bought new in late 2011, then it would still have some warranty that would transfer to you.  Basic:  5yr/60,000mi. good till late 2016; 5/60k powertrain; 7yr/unlimited corrossion (good till late 2018); 5yr roadside till late 2016.

At your 9300 mi/year estimate, do the math.  If you buy one with under 45,000 miles on the clock, you will probably run out of time on the warranty before the mileage limit.  So buying today, you will get 1.5 years of warranty for free on basic and powertrain, 3.5 years on corrosion and 1.5 years on roadside assistance. 

I really don't understand why people continue to buy American cars.

Maybe because Toyota/Lexus/Scion recalled more vehicles than any other manufacturer in 2013 and 2014.

Automakers With The Lowest (And Highest) Recall Rates

[use2betrix]

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

The nhtsa gave the f150 a 5 star rating, while the Prius received a 4 star.

Moral of the story, you didn't do any research and know little about auto's other than what you can justify in your head to drive a little car.

Safer than an f 150... haha.

What forum is this? It can't be MMM. You don't have to drive an F150 to be safe.

There are many vehicles that provide high levels of safety through both accident avoidance, which smaller vehicles do better than larger ones in general, and crash testing and safety engineering. Just off the top of my head, if you want 5 star crash tests, you can get a Subaru Forester and save a hell of a lot of money over an F150.

As for the Prius, it's one of the most notoriously sloppy handling small cars on the market. And yet with its low resistance tires still has better braking that an F150 according to your source? Fatality rates, using actual real world data, are hardly any different between these two radically differently sized vehicles.

I'm not saying you have to drive an F150 to be safe. I'm saying it's safer than a Prius in a collision.

I drove 600 miles last weekend in my 16 year old Camry, obviously it's not a huge concern for me. That being said, I obviously know that if you have a 250 lb linebacker and a 105 lb ballerina running full speed at each other, one is going to win, and it's not going to be the ballerina.

[use2betrix]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

Well, you're more likely to be in a crash to begin with in your F150 given its sloppy handling, long breaking distances, and high center of gravity. Given your increased mass, you're also several times more likely to kill other drivers when you do crash. Thanks.

Also, the death rate for drivers of Mini Coopers and Toyota Prius's are on par with F150s: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates just as a couple of examples based on actual data, not anecdotes. They aren't the gas pigs that the F150 is either.

Until recently, a lot of large vehicles, including the F150 had pretty terrible crash test results. People always say bigger is better with safety, but if you look at the actually fatality rates by vehicle you'll see that there's a lot of variance by make and model. You can find plenty of safe, smaller vehicles.

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

So, safety advantage Prius . . . in both cases you put forward?

Apparently you've never had to accelerate quickly to merge into traffic. A 10 second 0-60 is only a benefit for someone who doesn't know how to drive.

And my point for the braking distances is that the F150 takes less than 10 feet more to stop, yet it weighs around 1.5x as much.

[GuitarStv]

It's true, I've never been in a situation where accelerating from a stop to sixty miles an hour in 6.5 seconds over 10 seconds would have made any real benefit to safety.  Maybe you would feel better about using on ramps (and Prius safety) if you didn't completely stop your vehicle at the bottom of one?

:P

[a1smith]

A Fiesta? How does it perform in a crash? If I were buying a car for a loved one this would be a very high priority.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/ford/fiesta/10922
A lot better than an F150 !

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

Well, you're more likely to be in a crash to begin with in your F150 given its sloppy handling, long breaking distances, and high center of gravity. Given your increased mass, you're also several times more likely to kill other drivers when you do crash. Thanks.

Also, the death rate for drivers of Mini Coopers and Toyota Prius's are on par with F150s: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates just as a couple of examples based on actual data, not anecdotes. They aren't the gas pigs that the F150 is either.

Until recently, a lot of large vehicles, including the F150 had pretty terrible crash test results. People always say bigger is better with safety, but if you look at the actually fatality rates by vehicle you'll see that there's a lot of variance by make and model. You can find plenty of safe, smaller vehicles.

Using your same IIHS source here is the overall US fatality data for cars, trucks & SUVs, and large trucks for 2013.

Cars	12,639
Trucks & SUVs	8,285
Large trucks	586

Seems to be related to mass, eh?

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview
Scroll down to the Motor vehicle crash deaths by road user type and state, 2013 table

If you're still not convinced, you can read 1993 research by Evans and Frick of GM Research.  Mass ratio and relative driver fatality risk in two-vehicle crashes.

The results show that if a driver transfers to a car lighter by 1%, that driver's fatality risk in a two-car crash compared to the risk to the other involved driver increases by between 2.7% and 4.3%, the specific value depending on other factors, such as model year.

They present lots of other data as well.  If you're interested in seeing more of Leonard's work you can go to his website - Science Serving Society

[gt7152b]

Using your same IIHS source here is the overall US fatality data for cars, trucks & SUVs, and large trucks for 2013.

Cars	12,639
Trucks & SUVs	8,285
Large trucks	586

Seems to be related to mass, eh?

We need to see the percentages not total number of fatalities. There are simply more passenger cars on the roads than full size trucks/SUVs. The best stat I could find with a quick search is:

183,171,882 were classified as "Light duty vehicle, short wheel base," while another 50,588,676 were listed as "Light duty vehicle, long wheel base." -- Wikipedia for 2012 registered vehicles

The break point between SWB and LWB is 121". An F150 has a wheelbase of at least 141". There are more than 3 times as many SWB vehicles out there yet the fatalities are only 50% higher. The categories don't correlate exactly but it gives you a good idea that smaller cars are less deadly per capita.

[gt7152b]

This is a good place to compare stats:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/passenger-vehicles

See the chart labeled "Driver deaths per million registered passenger vehicles 1-3 years old, 2013"

SUVs are the really the least deadly. With trucks the larger size makes them more deadly. With cars and SUVs larger size helps up to a certain point and then they become more deadly. Looks like there is a sweet spot for weight and the small trucks out there might have already found it or be beyond it. Small trucks of today are really like full size from 10 to 20 years ago.

These stats are probably biased by the type of driver that buys a certain type of vehicle. A single guy buying a pickup or small sports car probably has a different driving style than a family man buying a SUV.

[Tetsuya Hondo]

Using your same IIHS source here is the overall US fatality data for cars, trucks & SUVs, and large trucks for 2013.

Cars	12,639
Trucks & SUVs	8,285
Large trucks	586

Seems to be related to mass, eh?

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview
Scroll down to the Motor vehicle crash deaths by road user type and state, 2013 table

If you're still not convinced, you can read 1993 research by Evans and Frick of GM Research.  Mass ratio and relative driver fatality risk in two-vehicle crashes.

The results show that if a driver transfers to a car lighter by 1%, that driver's fatality risk in a two-car crash compared to the risk to the other involved driver increases by between 2.7% and 4.3%, the specific value depending on other factors, such as model year.

They present lots of other data as well.  If you're interested in seeing more of Leonard's work you can go to his website - Science Serving Society

Yes, mass is a factor. But, so is engineering and safety mechanisms. So, is how you drive and how often you drive. So, is the vehicle's ability to help you avoid an accident. Go beyond a simple correlation and actually plot the individual makes and models by size and fatalities. You'll see that there are lots of vehicles much smaller than F150s that do quite well.

For example, here's some fatality rates by vehicles:
Subaru Legacy 4WD   0
Acura TSX   7
Volkswagen CC   8
Honda Accord   19
Volkswagen Jetta   20

Ford F-150 Regular 2WD   30
Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Ext 4WD   36
Ford F-150 Super 4WD   39
Toyota Tundra Crew Max 2WD   41
Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew 4WD   79

So once again my point is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY A GIANT VEHICLE TO BE SAFE ON THE ROADWAYS!

[Digital Dogma]

The Toyota Prius has a 60-0 braking distance of 121 ft. The 2015 f150 did it in 129 ft.

0-60 in a Prius is over 10 seconds, in the f150 it's about 6.5 seconds.

The nhtsa gave the f150 a 5 star rating, while the Prius received a 4 star.

Moral of the story, you didn't do any research and know little about auto's other than what you can justify in your head to drive a little car.

Safer than an f 150... haha.

What forum is this? It can't be MMM. You don't have to drive an F150 to be safe.

There are many vehicles that provide high levels of safety through both accident avoidance, which smaller vehicles do better than larger ones in general, and crash testing and safety engineering. Just off the top of my head, if you want 5 star crash tests, you can get a Subaru Forester and save a hell of a lot of money over an F150.

As for the Prius, it's one of the most notoriously sloppy handling small cars on the market. And yet with its low resistance tires still has better braking that an F150 according to your source? Fatality rates, using actual real world data, are hardly any different between these two radically differently sized vehicles.

I'm not saying you have to drive an F150 to be safe. I'm saying it's safer than a Prius in a collision.

Not if you roll over, trucks are notorious for causing head trauma and spine injuries during rollover collisions, and the taller the suspension, the more likely you are to roll. The illusion of safety in a truck causes risky behavior in some drivers. Ive seen more fatal truck crashes on the highway this year than I care to think about.

[r3dt4rget]

Right............... You jump in your munchkin sized Fiesta, and have a head on at 30MPH or so, with an F150 of the same vintage and see how that works out for you.  Good luck.

If your plan is to get a lifted truck so that in an accident you drive over the other vehicle that works.
But roll an F150, because you tried to go around a corner at more than 30mph, and they can hose out what remains of you.

At our site in Chile we had somebody run off the road and in their big pickup. Turns out the cab roof doesn't support the weight of the vehicle too well. Fortunately the driver managed to duck into the passenger seat before getting crushed, then just had to wait a few hours until somebody found them and got the gear to cut them out.

We switched all the site transport to the Mercedes salons the local taxi drivers use. Next person to flip one on a mountain switchback (flipping a car with ABS rather than a top heavy pickup took some talent) just hung upside down in their seat belt, was then able to open the door and get out. They just had to wait for a loader to lift the car back onto it's wheels, reset the fuel cut-off and could drive home.

You have managed to toss irrelevant conjecture, assumptions, and anecdotal evidence into one big stew here. First, nobody said anything about modified vehicles, or rolling anything. Second, a vehicle with a badge that's familiar to you, but built and sold in a third world country, has little to do with a similar product in North America.  Case in point, Fiat had to basically redesign and rebuilt the 500 from front to back to meet safety standards here. The Euro version wasn't even close to being able to meet the federal safety standards.  My point still stands. In a medium speed head on between a new Fiesta, and a new typical 4WD F-150, claiming that the Fiesta is "a lot better that an F-150" is horseshit. You may, or may not,  survive in the little shit-box, but chances are you are going to walk away from the truck with some bruises from the bags and the belt.

To put it in anecdotal terms, last year a local from my area was hit in the worst possible way, a frontal offset. Both vehicles were moving at highway speeds, when a small car drifted a few feet into his lane lane. My neighbor was driving a full sized Dodge Durango. He nearly had his left leg torn off as the small vehicle penetrated the firewall, and tore through the cabin. The operator of the small car was killed instantly. Had it been two full sized trucks, maybe they both would of made it, who knows? Had it been a pair of tiny shitboxes, they both would of been gone.

Exactly why we should all drive these:



You're right that small cars are more likely to get you killed in a multiple car accident. But you should also bring in some context, specifically that SUV and truck drivers are more likely to be killed in single vehicle accidents than small cars. Nearly half of fatal accidents are single-vehicle crashes. What you are falling for when you buy a huge truck with 4wd is fear marketing. The same goes for most insurance, and most warranties. People are terrible at rationalizing purchases based on risk vs reward. Sure you can buy a large truck to have less chance of dying in a car accident, but what is the tradeoff? Double or triple the purchase price, half or 1/3 the fuel economy, higher maintenance, taxes, and insurance. And how much safer are you statistically? Not much. If you look at deaths per million vehicles registered for vehicles 1-3 years old in 2013, the death rate for cars and trucks is nearly identical. Statistically you are a bit safer in that truck, but rationally it isn't worth the extra costs associated with buying the truck over the small car. Any decision otherwise is not rational, it's fear based.

Also realize that auto deaths are influenced much more by the drivers than the car they drive. The death rate for people age 25 and less is triple that of people age 25-29. And quadruple the death rate of drivers age 40. Also, males are much more likely to die in car crashes than females.

When you look at all the facts and statistics, without cherry picking small details, picking the safest car has very little impact on your statistical chances of dying in a car crash. The best and most obvious way to be safer is to drive less or not at all, not buy the biggest thing you can.

[nobodyspecial]

Mercedes are selling an SUV version of that truck (the awsome Unimog)

[a1smith]

Using your same IIHS source here is the overall US fatality data for cars, trucks & SUVs, and large trucks for 2013.

Cars	12,639
Trucks & SUVs	8,285
Large trucks	586

Seems to be related to mass, eh?

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview
Scroll down to the Motor vehicle crash deaths by road user type and state, 2013 table

If you're still not convinced, you can read 1993 research by Evans and Frick of GM Research.  Mass ratio and relative driver fatality risk in two-vehicle crashes.

The results show that if a driver transfers to a car lighter by 1%, that driver's fatality risk in a two-car crash compared to the risk to the other involved driver increases by between 2.7% and 4.3%, the specific value depending on other factors, such as model year.

They present lots of other data as well.  If you're interested in seeing more of Leonard's work you can go to his website - Science Serving Society

Yes, mass is a factor. But, so is engineering and safety mechanisms. So, is how you drive and how often you drive. So, is the vehicle's ability to help you avoid an accident. Go beyond a simple correlation and actually plot the individual makes and models by size and fatalities. You'll see that there are lots of vehicles much smaller than F150s that do quite well.

For example, here's some fatality rates by vehicles:
Subaru Legacy 4WD   0
Acura TSX   7
Volkswagen CC   8
Honda Accord   19
Volkswagen Jetta   20

Ford F-150 Regular 2WD   30
Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Ext 4WD   36
Ford F-150 Super 4WD   39
Toyota Tundra Crew Max 2WD   41
Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew 4WD   79

So once again my point is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY A GIANT VEHICLE TO BE SAFE ON THE ROADWAYS!

I went to the webpage you mention and found these trucks also:
Dodge Ram 1500 Quad 4WD    8
Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew 2WD    12
Honda Ridgeline 4WD    13
Toyota Tundra Double short bed 4WD    15
Dodge Ram 1500 Crew short bed 2WD    18
Toyota Tundra Double short bed 2WD    18
Ford F-150 Crew 2WD    19
Toyota Tundra Crew Max 4WD    20     (I stopped at 20 since that was the highest rate for cars you listed.)

And five of these trucks have confidence intervals that go down to 0.  Confidence intervals are very important for statistical data!!!!!!!

And I found these cars:
Honda Civic    76     (2dr)
Toyota Prius hybrid   16    (rest of these are 4dr)
Toyota Corolla   32
Chevrolet Cruze   42
Kia Forte   46
Honda Civic   49
Ford Focus   70
Nissan Versa hatchback   71
Nissan Versa sedan   130

So now, using same source, I can make it look like trucks are better.  Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

I did not say mass was the ONLY factor.  In fact, if you go to Leonard Evan's website that I listed above he makes a compelling case that the DRIVER is the main cause of all vehicle accidents.  He has 40 years of experience in the vehicle safety field . . . .

[Tetsuya Hondo]

So now, using same source, I can make it look like trucks are better.  Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

I did not say mass was the ONLY factor.  In fact, if you go to Leonard Evan's website that I listed above he makes a compelling case that the DRIVER is the main cause of all vehicle accidents.  He has 40 years of experience in the vehicle safety field . . . .

Once again, my only point is that you do not have to drive a large vehicle like an F150 to be safe.

I was not arguing that small cars are safer as a class, but that there are many small cars you can buy that do quite well in a crash and that their better maneuverability may help you to avoid one to begin with. In fact, there are some very large but poorly engineered vehicles that do very poorly in crashes (especially from a few years back) and that the added mass and high centers of gravity can work against you in many circumstances. If you only look at a simple correlation or lump all types of vehicles together in the aggregate, then this important point gets lost. I just get tired of people running out and buying the biggest thing they can find because they haven't stopped to think about the other factors involved in automobile safety, of which mass is only one part of the equation.

MMM has talked about this in multiple posts, so if anyone still wants to argue with my point, then I'll refer you to his writings on the topic. Perhaps I'm not articulating this well, or maybe we're arguing past each other, but I don't think there's any point in continuing to do so. And apologies to the OP for contributing to the tangent here.

[a1smith]

MMM has talked about this in multiple posts, so if anyone still wants to argue with my point, then I'll refer you to his writings on the topic. Perhaps I'm not articulating this well, or maybe we're arguing past each other, but I don't think there's any point in continuing to do so. And apologies to the OP for contributing to the tangent here.

For vehicle safety issues I'll stick with Leonard Evans.  He has been working on vehicle safety longer than MMM has been alive.

[mathlete]

Not.