View Single Post
Old 06-06-2019, 04:21 PM   #36
k5ate
Junior Member
 
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 3
Quote:
Originally Posted by friz View Post
If you promise always always to drive on pavement and never ever to put any of your wheels off payment then no you don't need 4WD. The only time I have ever been stuck was in my '91 F350 dually 2WD. Besides, 4WD gives you bragging rights when you belly up to the bar.
You're funny!

There's a YouTube video on the Long Long Honeymoon channel where they drove up a gravel road to take some pretty pictures in the summer and had turn turn around in the level grassy area to get out and got stuck on dry, green grass. Just the juice in the grass was enough to stop them dead in their 2wd truck.

Since I've been towing a 5th wheel (3 years and two different trucks), I've probably used 4x4 five or six times in similar situations.

In one case; over the holidays I was towing NE towards Seattle past Boise and the hwy was so rough it shook my 7pin connector loose. I pulled off the first exit as the hwy was like the Indy 500 and there was almost no shoulder. There was no place to even get off the road but a gravel lot in front of a chained off industrial yard. It was covered in ice and snow and the outside temp was in the 20s (F). I got my trailer hitch reconnected and, when getting out, dropped both front tires into a hole where the pavement meets the gravel. The lot was iced over so there's no way I could have seen it and the ice was thick enough I could have jumped on it and not even known it was there. I busted off my front air dam, and got stuck HARD. I had to put it in 4x4 low but I got out, maneuvered around, and back out on the hwy after I determined only cosmetic damage had been done.

I could have stopped on the hwy, with four feet of rig still IN the hwy due to the narrow shoulder, put on my blinkers and called roadside service because I was scared to be out on the hwy in black rain at ten pm with cars whizzing by at eighty. I could have stopped when I dropped my axle in the hole and called roadside service and got a tow. I could sell my truck and fiver, get a Prius, and live in a senior living apt complex with a balcony and my Chihuahua and drive my Prius real slow to the senior center to play dominoes with the other old ladies. Instead I just did what I had to do. Had I not had 4x4 I'd have been stuck out there for a long time.

It sucked to ding up my truck. It would have sucked worse to be stuck there for three to six hours. It would suck worse to not go places because I was a scaredy cat.


Peace,
Kate
k5ate is offline   Reply With Quote