Bill McAuliffe

Jul. 13, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- The golden age of the big sport-utility vehicle has come to a rapid end.

Surging gas prices are making tens of thousands of Americans reconsider their desire for ever-bigger SUVs, with the largest fuel-hungry vehicles turning from status symbols to expensive burdens.

Sales of full-sized utility vehicles in the past three months dropped to less than half what they were at their national peak in 2002 and lower than they have been in at least 13 years. As recently as three years ago, light trucks and SUVs made up 55 percent of the new-vehicle market.

Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for J.D. Power and Associates, said high gas prices are forcing a "pretty permanent change" in the vehicles Americans choose to drive -- away from the full-sized SUV to smaller ones, and even back to cars.

It feels much like lost love for those who in some cases have spent a generation using their SUV to tow snowmobiles, store multiple strollers and carpool kids to soccer games.

Six years ago, the Chevy Tahoe was just the thing for Mike Bendickson and his wife -- big enough to haul fishing gear, with four-wheel drive for snow and ice, and enough seats for what would someday be a young family.

Then came $4 gas, each gallon of which moves his Tahoe only about 17 miles.

"It used be, I'd fill up and it would cost me maybe $50 or $60," said Bendickson, a marketing director who commutes from St. Louis Park to downtown Minneapolis. "Now it's over $100. It hurts."

Those who want to sell their vehicles are finding fewer and fewer takers. Bendickson said he wouldn't even try to sell his Tahoe right now.

"I've come to the realization that I'm driving this thing until it dies," Bendickson said.

Last month, sales of the Ford Explorer were down 52 percent from a year ago. The nation's No. 3 seller in 2001, the Explorer now isn't among the top 50, Libby said. But sales of compact SUVs in the first quarter were 62 percent higher than three years ago.

Among cars, sales of the diminutive Ford Focus hit a monthly record in May, up 53 percent over the year before, while the Honda Civic had its biggest U.S. sales year for any Honda model, ending the Ford F-150 pickup's 17-year reign atop the best-seller list.

Meanwhile, used SUVs have been selling for an average of $6,000 less in the first half of 2008 than in 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal. And they were staying on the market for more than two months, up from 49 days the year before.

"Two years ago a Tahoe would be gone in five minutes," said Greg Evans, a salesman at All Wheels, a neighborhood used-car lot on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis. "Now we'd be lucky if it goes in five months."

For Bob Stamos of Robbinsdale, it has been that long since he posted his 2006 Jeep Commander for sale on the online car market CarSoup.com. He's had one caller. A dealer offered him $16,000 for it, but he'd have to pay $20,000 to get out of his lease. Online he's asking $21,700, "which I'll never get," he said.

"I love it," he said of the Commander, which gets about 16 miles per gallon. "And another problem is, I'm kind of a big guy. I don't fit in these smaller cars, and safety is important to me."

It's not really a serious problem for Stamos. He's selling because he and his wife now have three vehicles, but if it doesn't move, he'll just drive it until the lease runs out.

Likewise, Bendickson and his wife, Carlene, are fond of their Tahoe. They prize its durability and space, particularly now that they have two kids, ages 3 and 1, who require strollers, car seats and other accoutrements. They'd like better gas mileage, but these days it's unlikely they could sell or trade the Tahoe, which has 145,000 miles on it.

That's what Rob Tregenza, a transportation consumer strategist for Iconoculture, a Minneapolis-based trend research firm, called a "behavioral holding pattern," with SUV owners facing a stalled market while waiting for more options from automakers.

Part of that dynamic, Tregenza added, is actually a behavioral change, with many people driving less -- either through commuting options, shorter-distance road trips, better-planned errand-running or all the above. Nationally, driving mileage was lower every month this year than it was in the corresponding month in 2007.

Diane Armitage of Minnetonka said she and her family are putting fewer miles on their 2002 Ford Explorer. That might involve fewer trips to the cabin, but also taking those trips in the family's other vehicle, a Toyota Prius hybrid.

"It's a nice blend," she said. "It's nice to have the SUV when we need it. But we aren't traveling as often."

That mirrored what Evans, the used-car salesman, has been doing. He owns a Cadillac Escalade. But what's he been actually driving?

"A '97 VW Passat," he said.

The repossession service that Brian Bowman runs out of La Crosse, Wis., operates in four states, including Minnesota. Last year around this time, he was getting five to 10 new orders a week; right now, it's more than 20. And most of the vehicles he's taking away are bigger ones, including a Cadillac Escalade on Thursday.

"I've talked to a lot of the people I'm repo-ing [repossessing] from," Bowman said Friday, and gas prices "are killing them." The owners are forgoing car payments to pay other bills, and selling the vehicle often isn't an option -- not only is demand down, but tighter credit markets also make it harder to find potential buyers, Bowman said.

Auto industry observers noted that for now, the devaluation of the SUV means two things. First, trading or selling one to buy a more fuel-efficient car will often cost thousands more than the potential gas savings, so many won't or can't sell. (The online automotive information site edmunds.com has recently developed a "Gas-Guzzler Trade-In Calculator" to help people make the right call. Look under "Green news and info.")

Second, prices on both new and used SUVs are falling so steeply that soon SUVs may become a bargain.

Chuck Eck, managing partner of ABC Minneapolis auto auction, said SUV prices have fallen 25 percent in the past year and 10 percent to 15 percent in the past several months. But the big SUVs are still hard to move. Uncertainty about gas prices "has thrown a scare into the market," he said. "Nobody knows when cheap is cheap enough."

Bendickson doesn't buy the view that $4-a-gallon gas is the death warrant for the full-size SUV.

"The purist in me hopes it is. But I don't think it is," he said. "We're a cyclical bunch in America. We got away from big cars in the 1970s, but they all made it back. I hope this is the permanent change we need. But in the end I think we'll come back to the big vehicles again."

Paul Walser, CEO of Walser Automotive Group, said he thinks that the SUV market has been going through an "overreaction" to high gas prices, and that demand and price will move back toward a balance in several months.

Still, Walser added, full-sized SUVs are not likely to return to being the profit center for automakers or the dominant silhouette on the highways they were a few years ago. That, Walser said, is because fuel prices have reached the point where many people have misgivings about being seen driving a vehicle that gobbles so much gas.

"The country is concerned about our dependence on foreign oil. People want to see manufacturers put more emphasis on more fuel efficient products," Walser said. "I think that's the part of this that's here to stay. And I think that's probably good for all of us."

Newstex ID: KRTB-0281-26646898