"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve)
06/08/2014 at 14:57 • Filed to: None
4
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"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve)
06/08/2014 at 14:57 • Filed to: None | 4
| 9 |
As many of you know, I'm working for an aftermarket automotive company called Classic Soft Trim. We do leather interiors, sunroofs, and some other dealer-installed-option stuff. I work in the office doing most of the inventory, ordering, customer service, and clerical stuff so that the sales guys can concentrate on selling and everyone else can just concentrate on their own jobs. I guess you could say I'm an all-around support guy. I love it, because I get to be around new cars all day and I can work on autopilot. I need to save my smartiness and thinking power for school.
Most of the driving I do is taking the boss' old F150 over to the UPS hold station to pick up our ground orders so we can get started on stuff before the delivery truck gets to the door. However, sometimes I get to drive customer cars for delivery and pickup. Most of the drivers are retirees who just want to get out of the house, but some afternoons I'm on the road.
Sometimes we get cool stuff in the shop, like the Camaro SS that got black-and-white two-tone leather with matching door panels. The big Hurst Cueball shift knob was pretty sweet, even if the clutch was far too light for a 3800-lb, 400 hp muscle car. Most of what we do is just leather interior for rolling appliances. Sometimes our customers surprise us — like the guy with the gray Accord Sport that did black leather with gray !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! inserts, but generally it's all just factory-matched .
Anyway, now that you're three paragraphs in and wondering what the title has to do with what I'm writing. One of the vehicles that came in for factory-matched gray leather was a lifted GMC sierra like this one:
It actually had the same flares and wheels, taller but similar tires, and was bright-ass blue. It was a '12 model with under 2,000 miles and it really looked cool to the six-year-old inside me. The window sticker was on the passenger floorboard. Asking price was close to $55k. I felt a little sick.
Then I had to drive it out of the shop. It was so tall it nearly clipped the top of the garage door. I had to fold in the mirrors to get it out. Granted, we're in a relatively old building but FFS. I can get the boss' '99 F150 in and out with barely a look. Then they told me, "Take it for a test drive and see if there are any rattles inside."
I understand the suspension is softer than stock because it's "designed," to go off road. The big, heavy chrome wheels and knobby tires don't do it any favors on the road either. Corners that the boss' 200k-mile Ford could handle at normal residential traffic speeds were shaky and tenuous in this thing. Even at about 30 mph, I had to fight to keep it in its lane when the wind gusted. Road noise was tremendous. The brakes were at once both spongy and grabby. The pedal feel was vague: it felt like nothing was happening until I was nearly standing on it, at which it snapped into attention. Normal stopping was impossible with this thing. The nose dove like I was panicking at every stop.
Merging onto the interstate was insane. I guess they didn't re-gear it to compensate for the bigger tires because the 5.3 Vortec revved with all the vigor of a tree sloth with a Benzo habit. I finally got up to speed, running right along with traffic, and the truck told me that I was going 50 or so MPH. When I stopped and checked my phone's GPS Speedometer app, it told me that the top speed for the trip was 63.
Parking this thing reminded me why so many cars have back-up cameras. Pulling into a normal space at the shop, I had to back out and straighten it up twice. I finally just leaned out of the window to make sure I wasn't going to bump into or crush the Versa that was parked next to me.
Anyway, I was thoroughly unimpressed. I don't understand how so many dudes drive these things on the road every day. I'd much rather have a stock-height 4WD truck any day. The '14 4WD Silverado I delivered to a customer a week earlier was worlds apart. It was smooth, planted, and stable on the highway.
Logansteno: Bought a VW?
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 15:06 |
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That truck sounds like it was really poorly done up.
My dad's lifted '04 Silverado is a whole different animal compared to that truck. Mind you, it was all professionally done by a dealer. The transmission was re-geared, speedo re-calibrated, suspension retained normal stiffness, brakes upgraded, etc.
If you do them up right, they're perfectly fine and livable.
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Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
> Logansteno: Bought a VW?
06/08/2014 at 15:09 |
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I guess they sent it for interior before it was finished. This thing was from a Chevy dealer and done in their shop. It was scary to drive.
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Logansteno: Bought a VW?
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 15:14 |
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Oh god. They shouldn't be selling this damn thing then.
TillTheWheelsFallOff: Brocoma
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 15:22 |
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Does CST sell waterproof materials?
jkm7680
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 15:29 |
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Sounds.....Er Scary enough.
lonestranger
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 15:49 |
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To me, this truck is all kinds of odd. Here in western Canada, there are generally two kinds of Bro Trucks:
1: Brand-new latest-gen trucks with nearly every option. Crew Cab, diesel, leather, the works. Either driven off the lot straight to the shop for a lift kit, or sold by the dealer with the lift already installed. Either way, few of these have either cloth interiors or gas engines.
5 to 10 year-old second- or third-owner trucks of average spec that were lifted by their current owner.
The truck you describe splits the difference between the two.
PS9
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 16:35 |
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Fenton motors. For the Dumas texan within all of us.
BeholdTheCamaro
> Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
06/08/2014 at 22:22 |
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I got the "opportunity" to drive a friend's bro truck a while back, and it was a similarly nerve-wracking experience. I was so high off the ground that I actually had trouble seeing some cars behind me out the rear view mirror. I live in Texas, so bro trucks are all over the place here. Personally, I don't understand what all the rage is about.
Back when I had my Camaro, bro trucks scared me because A) I knew how terrible they were to drive and B) if one of them hit me it would probably just roll right over my car and crush me in the process.
Still, I don't really have anything against the trucks. If that's what they want to do to their vehicle and they know how to handle the truck responsibly after it's been modded, I'm cool with it. Most bro truck drivers seem to be fairly competent (not all though!) and I am much more afraid of women who can't get off their cell phones while behind the wheel. I may be a tiny bit biased because I was hit by a woman who ran a red light while on her phone.
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Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
> TillTheWheelsFallOff: Brocoma
06/08/2014 at 23:05 |
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nah. Just leather, some vinyl, ultrasuede (think Alcantara but Japanese) and a few exotics like ostrich and Crocodile