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Four Wheeler
6420 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90048-5515.
All letters become the property of Four Wheeler, and we reserve the right to edit them for length, accuracy, and clarity. The editorial department also can be reached through the Web site at www.fourwheeler.com. Due to the volume of mail, electronic or otherwise, we cannot respond to every reader, but we do read everything.
The Brakes
Reader: I can't believe that nobody wrote you about your choice of Pickup Truck of the Year, the Dodge Ram Quad Cab. To quote Craig Perronne, who wrote the story for you, "The mechanical category counts for 25 percent of the total, and takes into account such aspects as performance of the engine, transmission, transfer case, brakes, and steering." If you take into account the lack of performance from the brakes on the Dodge Ram you have an obvious last-place truck being awarded First place. This truck crashes through a distance equal to the width of three Tundras before it can stop from 60 mph. Am I missing the point of your comparison?
Rob
Elk Grove, California
Editor: Nope, you're not missing the point. The point is to measure performance-all areas of performance. As we noted, the Dodge Ram didn't do so well in braking tests. In other areas, however, it performed very well, enough so that its scores still made it victorious in this comparison in spite of its poor braking scores.
TrailBlazer Times
Reader: While I agree with your judges' appraisal of the Chevy TrailBlazer's off-road capabilities in your recent Four Wheeler of the Year testing, I certainly don't agree with their rating for 0-60 performance time. Your statement to avoid it if "You expect excitement when you plant your right foot," is very inaccurate.
Immediate response to throttle input is a bit slow at first, but to build an impressive 0-60 time of 7.7 seconds as reported by others, plus my own tests, is way off. Perhaps your vehicle had some performance problems? In your specs at the end of the Four Wheeler of the Year article you showed a rear axle ratio of 4.10. Mine has a 3.73 and provides a 0-60 of 7.9 seconds and quarter-mile times of 15.9 at 88 mph. I have read many reviews and have never seen anyone appear disappointed in the performance of the TB/Envoy/Bravada triplets. On the contrary, it's always one of the tester's impressions as being a strong point. In towing tests, the TB "ran away and hid" from a V-8-powered Jeep Grand Cherokee, as reported in a recent 4x4 magazine article. I and many other triplet owners would appreciate a follow-up appraisal of the TrailBlazer performance if possible to correct this inaccuracy, or to confirm it as reality, in your report.
Tim Moulton
Via the Internet
Editor: Tim, the TrailBlazer we tested accelerated from zero to 60 mph in a legitimate 10.34 seconds. We don't care what kind of times other publications, or other testers, get. We cannot vouch for their methodologies. We can vouch for our own. And though there is no way to confirm this, we do suspect that our TrailBlazer may have been victimized by some early-production, or even pre-production glitches, in several areas. We can only test what we're given, but we have queried the good folks at General Motors about a rematch. If they approve, that's just what we'll do.
A Nissan Loyalist
Reader: I have never written to a magazine before, but after reading the letter from E. Wilson in your February issue, I feel compelled to write in defense of Nissan.
Nissan has obviously taken great strides in the small pickup/sport-utility market. The company goes to great lengths to do more with less. They were the first to release a four-door version of a small pickup in the U.S., and were the first to introduce a "back-to-basics" sport-utility vehicle. Now all the manufacturers want an Xterra look-alike. Nissan even got smart and put a fullsize bed on the Frontier this year. My family currently drives an '01 Xterra, an '89 Nissan Hardbody, and an '02 Jeep Wrangler. Nissan 4x4s, in my opinion, are right up there with Toyota 4x4s. They have made some poor marketing decisions in the past, and this is why they just don't get the same attention as Toyota. Some of the parts on early-model Toyota and Nissan pickups have even been known to be interchangeable.
To be honest, I am surprised Jeep put a solid rear axle in the Liberty, because when you look at the rest of the vehicle, it reminds you of a Toyota RAV4, Chevy Tracker, or a Honda CR-V. The Xterra, on the other hand, is really a reincarnated early '90s Pathfinder with an even greater capability than the Pathfinder had. Nobody has come out and made the point that the Xterra is simply a bigger SUV than the Liberty, with it being 13.6 inches longer (taking into account 10 inches for the spare tire on the Liberty). Look at the incredible 35.4-foot turning diameter on the Xterra. When at full lock, it feels almost as if the wheels are perpendicular to the body; this thing gets around trails or into any parking space with ease. Give the Xterra a slightly toned-down version of the 255hp 3.5L engine out of the Pathfinder, and better gearing in the T-case, and it would easily run circles around the Liberty.
Chad Schmidt
Warner Robins, Georgia
Editor: Chad, we test 'em as we get 'em, not as we might like them to be. For the record, however, we don't disagree with your points about Nissan's equipment; we chose the Pathfinder as Four Wheeler of the Year in 2001.
Win!
Four Wheeler's "Letter of the Month" is the most interesting or informative letter we receive each month. The letter's author will be sent one of Four Wheeler's highly prized Four Wheeler license plates. So be sure to include your full name and address when you write Four Wheeler.
Letter Of The Month
Flying The Flag
Reader: Gentlemen, gentlemen, by no means am I a millionaire with my own mag. I'm just a working stiff with two rigs upon which I pride myself. I by no means want to offend you guys, you know your stuff and I'd be the first to recognize that. But here's the problem:
I checked out your Four Wheeler of the Year competition, which is supposedly your search for the "Best of the Best." I am offended. Since when can you consider Japanese rigs like the Isuzu Axiom or the Nissan Xterra, or a German-made Mercedes-Benz, as contenders for a title like that? You sold me on your mag with a lifted Chevy on Boggers getting with the program, not the leader of a nancy-boy parade driving some wimpy rice burner.
The best is Ford and Chevy. Don't lose sight of our roots, guys.
Justin Moore
Klamath Falls, Oregon
Editor: For many of us, our roots involve four-wheeling in Toyota FJ-40 Land Cruisers, as well as in Jeeps and in Ford and Chevy pickups. And for what it's worth, the Mercedes-Benz ML rigs are built in Alabama, Toyota builds Tacomas and Tundras here in the U.S., and Nissan, in addition to having its design center here, builds the Frontier and Xterra here in the U.S. As you see, the world has become a very small place, and lines of national origin often are very blurry. But the larger issue seems to suggest that nothing but a domestic vehicle should be considered in Four Wheeler's testing programs. We test everything because we really want to know which is best out of the entire universe of vehicles offered. Let the record show that two American vehicles-the Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland and the Jeep Liberty-did indeed finish at the top of our most recent comparison, the Four Wheeler of the Year competition, which appeared in our February issue. They didn't finish there because of any bias, one way or another, however. They finished there because they racked up the top scores in our test program. We'd prefer to evaluate vehicles this way, using objective measurements, rather than using measurements like the names of the companies that appear on the hood badges of the respective vehicles.