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The reason that SUVs burn more gas than regular cars are due to several factors, the size, the weight, and the engine. I currently drive a '95 Mitsubishi Montero myself from personal experience, I can definitely say that burns up more gas than my old car which was an '88 Toyota Corolla.

When you have the size, you have to factor in the weight as well. The bigger the car, the greater the weight is going to be. Like a truck, an SUV is going to require a 6-cylinder engine at least while others require an 8-cylinder engine which will consume much more gas than a 4-cylinder engine. The Toyota Scion is the only SUV that has a 4-cylinder engine in place of a 6-cylinder engine. Then again, a Scion isn't really an SUV. The Scion is much smaller than your typical SUV.

To handle the weight that comes along the height, the SUV is going to require more power. So it's going to eat up fuel to give that engine power. Those are the three main factors that constitute to the reason that SUVs end up consuming more fuel than a regular car. Since gasoline is getting more expensive in this country whereas before fall of 2003, the price of gas was at least $1.50 a gallon, I would open up the window instead of turning on the AC because it's going to put more strain on the engine and eat up more gas.

When increasing an SUV's speed, it's going to also require more power on the engine's part because of the weight and mass factor of the vehicle. That's going to require more engine output which it's going to need an input of fuel. The input required for that engine output will also factor into the SUV's consumption of fuel. Plus add in the turns you have to take to get onto another street or go into a parking lot. It takes effort on the engine's part to slow down and speed up as well. When you stop, you just can't stop, you have to slow down. All that effort is going to consume fuel as well.

With weight, SUVs are also designed to carry lots of weight thought not as much weight as regular trucks. But it's enough weight to put strain on the vehicle and slow down it's movement. So that's also going to require more output on the SUV's engine.

But what's going to eat up fuel much quicker is the use of the air conditioning. Air conditioning's going to cause the engine to heat up more. It'll put more strain on the engine and it's going to input more fuel to keep the engine running and to maintain the AC. Use of AC is going to speed up the already fast fuel consumption of SUVs.

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