Does Your Truck Have Character?

[rbattelle]

In the March 1998 issue of Road&Track, columnist Peter Egan presented a sort of "quiz" that asked "Does Your Car Have Character?". It asked readers to score their vehicles based on certain characteristics to which points were assigned so you could determine whether your car had character.



Inspired by that article, I thought I'd start a thread about character for our trucks. Here are a few examples from Peter Egan that I thought applied to our vehicles:



"If you feel compelled at the time of purchase to buy a 300-page official factory shop manual"



"If you died suddenly and no one else on earth would be able to start the [truck] or keep it running"



And a few I made up myself:



If the hood latch is the most frequently used lever in your truck.



If you have more aftermarket gauges than factory gauges.



If a child has ever given you the trucker "honk the horn" sign when you passed by.



-Ryan

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

"If a child has ever given you the trucker "honk the horn" sign when you passed by. "



By NO means do I consider my truck anything radical in apparance or operation - but John Day is sort of a small town, so anything out of the ordinary sort of stands out.



#ad




So, one day as I passed the basketball courts at the county fairgrounds - right next to the street - all the high school kids there playing basketball saw/heard me coming and all ran over to the fence and gave me a group "thumbs up"...



Sorta neat...

 

[Buffalo]

Hi, RBatelle,



Thanks for posting this. It made me stop and think about my '03, HO, 3500, 6-sp, 4X4, QC, LB.

I installed a 14" Magnaflow muffler replacement with a 5" Chrome turn-down tip, an AFE Proguard-7 airfilter system with Torque Tube & Prefilter, and BD X-monitor guages. Put a couple of bends in the shift lever, painted it silver & installed a new shift knob I had always wanted, plus a few other add-ons.



Basically, the truck was a little boring in it's stock form. Fun at first but, started to get boring, quickly. The modifications really personalized it and it's a lot of fun, now.



I find myself, on long trips, driving with the radio off, just listening to the intake/ turbo & exhaust sounds. It's kind of like having a "Harley". You "don't need no stinking radio", just listen to the exhaust note.



Two of my friends have Duramaxes & think I'm nuts to have done what i've done to my truck. They think I ruined a perfectly good truck. They believe, "the quieter, the better". They try to insulate themselves from the driving experience, as much as possible. If they could sit in their living rooms, in their Lazyboy Recliners and get "transported" to where they wanted to go, that would be perfect.



For me, the destination is important, and fun, but getting there should be fun. also.



Their Duramaxes are very nice trucks but, I wouldn't trade my "noisy" Dodge for either one of them.



Joe F. (Buffalo)

 

[bgilbert]

Sorry guys, but after the 93 model year, your Dodges lost ALL character :-laf .

 

[JRD]

Buffalo I definatly understand what you are saying, and I do the exact same thing with my truck. I spent a good 6 hours once on a road trip with the radio off so my girlfriend could sleep in the back and I enjoyed evey minute of it. Nothing beats the sound of the intake and exhaust. Every now and then I'll turn the radio on to see if theres anything good on.

 

[EricBu12]

Character? ... uh yeah I guess you can say that...



#ad

 

[DKizerian]

My 03 definitely has some character... . not as much as my race car or my old civic with 270,000 + miles, but for a nearly new vehicle it definitely has some.



I find myself taking the long way home occasionally because it goes through a nice underpass that really lets me hear it...



This morning I was driving into work in my civic, and I was next to a 3rd gen that had an exhaust and I'm sure some other stuff because I could just hear the turbo screaming... . I kept next to him for a few miles just enjoying the turbo noise... .

 

[JVolpe]

I downloaded the service manual before I bought the truck. I already have more gauges than on the dash and one more coming. I was in the chevy 4x4 gasser world for the most of 30 years before I bought the Cummins. Every truck had a personality, I used them for what they were designed for. Had a GMC 3/4 ton with small block 400, midrange cam, 5:13 gears, 7" lift, 40" mudders, etc. it would go anywhere. Pulled my 21 Wellcraft anywhere, got 6mpg no matter what the load.



Within one week of driving the Cummins I got the strange idea that I wanted to go back to the drag strip. Had not been on a drag strip in over 30 years. Now the truck is starting to take on a personality of its own. My own unique little touches here and there, and a lot of performance work by inovative 12v guy. Soon to be in the low 13s and maybe go lower. I expect to have this truck for many years, acutally it will be many years before I am not upside down on the note, but that is another story.

 

[tURBOdIEZEl]

i think ive added some character



#ad




#ad

 

[mcoleman]

turbodiezel that Rams head in the back glass is just plain cool.

 

[CHolman]

My wife hates to go anywhere with me in the truck because I like to drive with the window's down, radio off and let the turbo and stacks scream.

 

[Scrappy]

my wife thinks my truck is the spawn of Satan and my mistress here are some pics;

 

[tURBOdIEZEl]

my wife thinks my truck is the spawn of Satan

LOL. i get the same thing! if she could have it her way, she would sell my truck when i was out of town! :{ seems like everytime the truck comes up in any discussion or we see a nice lookin dodge, it turns into one of these :-{} :-laf

turbodiezel that Rams head in the back glass is just plain cool.

thanks..... i got it a couple years back at a sportsman show near carlisle, pa. ive seen them on ebay for about 15 bucks...