Thieves Suck
I have a small off-road motorsports shop called North Coast Side x Side in Northern California. I have been a desert rat since I can remember, always into trucks and OHVs. I have a boy 7, two girls, 5 and 3, and wife who all love the desert as well. Last February 2011 on Super Bowl Sunday night my ‘99 F-350 was stolen, then hooked up to my fully loaded 24-foot enclosed trailer. The trailer was all locked down but didn’t do any good since all the keys to it were in the truck. I had insurance only on the truck, but had none of the accessories on the policy. The trailer had a $20K four-seat rhino, CRF 450R, TTR50, brand new TRX 400EX, LT50, PW50, and miscellaneous camping stuff. No insurance at all.
A few months later I found a drug addict sleeping in a truck that was identical to mine but black. He was arrested, the police found drugs and a loaded modified shotgun. There was a digital camera found in truck with photos of the criminals dismantling my truck also pictures of my OHVs. The next day my family’s toys were found along with the corpse of my Super Duty. Two months before they stole mine they stole an F-550 crew cab flat bed from another local family, which was recovered cut in half.
The black F-350 I found the drug addict in actually turned out belonging to the thieves that stole my truck, but all the parts on it were stolen. I purchased the thieves’ black truck for a good deal from the tow company that had ended up with it and figured that was sweet retribution. I didn’t have it long. It kept breaking down, so I sold it to buy a more dependable family tow truck.
Dealing with insurance and tow companies sucks, by the way. I would like to make my story known to protect my fellow off-roaders. This has cost me a lot of time, stress, and money. After receiving the pathetic insurance check, I have replaced the truck with the same thing only new. I hope I am able to someday I will be able to make it like the old one. Here are a couple of photos: one just before it was stolen, and one of the carcass afterwards next to my new one.
Dustin Gipson
NorCal
Any More ‘Mudders or ‘Hawgs?
I was wondering if anybody was going to start making the Monster Mudders and the Denman Ground Hawgs again.
Joseph Packard
Arlington, Texas
Joseph, we asked David Guidry of Interco Tire to help us with this one, and he let us know that neither the Monster Mudder nor the Ground Hawgs will be produced again. There are still a bunch of big tires that Interco offers—Boggers, Trxus, and Iroks all in stock—but those particular two won’t be around again. Sorry.
Not the Last American Mini Truck!
In your newest issue’s Rant, y’all are talking about minitrucks and you say that the Chevy Colorado is the last American minitruck. But the Toyota Tacoma is still being being produced, and the plant that makes them is in San Antonio, Texas. So wouldn’t that make it the last American made minitruck?
Steve
Georgetown, Kentucky
Steve, I wrote that with the assumption that Toyota is a Japanese company, and therefore the Tacoma is a Japanese vehicle. But when considering where it’s built, I guess that you could be correct. Although, if we’re getting technical, one could also argue that neither the Colorado nor the Tacoma are all-American trucks, since some of the parts are shipped from overseas to produce both of them.
Is the V8 Really a Better Brake Kit?
I’m really interested in how the SSBC V8 brakes that you installed on the F-350 are performing.
Brien Lumppio
Duluth, MN
The brakes have been an excellent addition to our Super Duty, Brien. The eight-piston calipers have been working well, and the performance hasn’t seemed to fade. The truck doesn’t get driven as often as it used to, but we have about 6,000 miles on the brakes and they’re still seemingly as good as they were when new (once broken in). It appears we have about 75 percent of the pads left on our F-350 truck with 40-inch tires.