What a Truck!!!

[MacDR50]

I know all you old hands will smile at this but for us newcomers to diesel trucks and for prospective owners I just have to share this experience.

I had backed a small trailer down a gravel incline that serves as an ad hoc boat launch. The launch is not maintained and has some pretty serious holes and bumps. The roadway is narrow and has a ditch on the other side so a sharp turn out of the launch is necessary. You guessed it! As soon as I tried to pull forward the back wheels spun and locked. Not wanting to gravel blast trailer and boat a no spinning exit is what I was trying to accomplish. OK put it in 4 HI, keep it in 2nd and just try again. No luck! The gravel wins again. Last choice 4L. Amazing! As soon as I let up on the brake, with no accelerator at all, the truck just idled itself onto the road, through the tight turn. I have had several 4wd vehicles including a Jeep Cherokee and none could have accomplished that feat. Makes all that hard earned brass spent invested in this vehicle definately worth it.

Good-on-you GM.

[Mark Rinker]

Agreed!

Diesels make most of their torque very very low in the RPM band. Its amazing what they can do in 4LO, with very little throttle input. Since you weren't overrevving (...looking for torque high in the RPM band where a gasser makes it) you were much less likely to break traction - which was your challenge in the circumstances described. Success!

Like A Rock - isn't it a great feeling when your investment comes through for you in a pinch like that?

[DickWells]

Got back to Klatskenie, OR, from the Dunes, back in early May to find my Brother-In-Law had been stuck with his PS and trailer at the end of his looong 900 ft. drivway. He's not very addept at backing, or controlling his throttle, either. His Step-Son had gotten him straightened out by the time I got there. I had a harder, tighter place to park, at the end of the same loop, but drove in up there, before I realized that all the room was taken. No room to turn around and park the trailer! So, I backed all the way down that curvey drive, though the trees and wet, slippery gravel, turned around at the paved road, and backed all the way back up there and around the loop and parked the trailer on a slippery grass slope, all in 4-low. B-I-L couldn't believe it! The only time I had to set over more than once, was when I backed around the intersection at the narrow paved road, and again at the tight loop around the flower garden at the top.
Yep, 4 low is great with a tow rig. Just wish I had J K's mirrors, or B-I-L's Ford mirrors, instead of those GM things! Maybe soon.
Love that DMax!
Dick Wells:)r