I'm the outlier. When my 20 year old Tacoma pickup finally succumbed to a suicidal deer jumping onto a busy highway, I got a small SUV with roughly 50% better gas mileage.<p>By that time Tacomas had grown about 50% larger (so it seemed) but mainly about 50% more costly than the SUV, so I went with the SUV. AWD really is a necessity in the hills.<p>And my (smaller) cargo doesn't get wet.<p>Most SUV's apparently are way larger, but here in the hills, small ones abound.