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Originally Posted by surf twang
Thanks for the replies so far. I'm a bit concerned about the wear-and-tear on the engine if it has to work that hard on grades/hills. I guess a question I really need to answer is how much should I let a driving situation that would occur less than 10% of time influence our decision. I've test-driven one and I think it would be fine for our every day driving. But those 17 hour drives can be killer...  |
Repeating myself to some here, but you really should know. I live up in the Sierras and drive down to work in the valley every day. It's a big big change going from our Dmax truck or Denali to the H3. In this one regard, the H3 needs help and no one will argue it unless they're suffering from denial: We want more motor.
If you have patience, it's not bad. Passing in the mountains, forget it.
As far as being able to do it? Yeah. I've got 25 k on ours and it's all up and down the mountain. I shag it really hard going up hill because that's what it takes. Of those 25k, I figure that less than half of that is in overdrive. I don't redline it, but the 3500-4000 figure is pretty accurate!
But, let's look at what it takes to have a major hill climbing vehicle. It takes a big big motor, or a light light vehicle. The H3 is heavy. For it's size, it's built like nothing else on the road save a Land Rover.
The serious four wheelers are all underpowered except for the Dodge Powerwagon, and it gets 13mpg on a good day.
2008 is supposed to bring us a surprise I hope!