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I know what you mean, Blind Cleric, sometimes they'll take a perfectly good truck and 'fix it' so it can't make it over a speed bump, let alone a rock in the road. Oh well, it at least gives them mechanical skills if they do themselves. Usually they can give the rest of us advice when we need some sort of car work done if not help us do it so being car crazy is useful.
Nyfinestbxtf, it's not just the school system which is done at the state level, most public services are done at either a state or County level. We don't have incorporated cities or townships or much of anything else smaller than County level. If we want to get sidewalks in our town or village we have to talk to our County Council person about it.
The Counties pretty much are the whole island, although Maui County also has Lanai and Molokai added in. Must kinda suck to be Lanai and Molokai since they'd have to fly over to chat with their council people. Not sure who has Niihau, Kauai County most likely. Kahoolawe doesn't have any population anymore since the military broke it, but it's probably under Maui County, too.
I keep thinking it might be nice to have a Town Community or some such so we can directly do things like put in sidewalks, spruce up the swimming pool, maybe look into having a community clinic free to all folks within the community. I'd think it'd be less expensive for a community clinic than health insurance but then folks howl about socialized medicine or some such so that probably won't fly. Guess the insurance companies don't want to lose money. In any case, though, when we want to do those sorts of things we have to run it through the County Council first. Guess maybe I should get more politically active, but I just want some sidewalks in town and going the political route to do that seems like a lot more work than just mixing up a bit of concrete.
So, it's just another instance of how things are different in Hawaii.
"So, I really don't see the high flyers as "rednecks", identified by any common social characteristics or political bent.
Some may try to defend this practice, saying it's needed for off roading. Nonsense! In most cases, the vehicle would actually be worse for those conditions. Posers, they are. It's just macho horseplay. "
I know people with the lifted trucks and the illegal tires. It's a "fashion" thing. They actually have to buy a separate set of tires/wheels (or they borrow) to put on each year to pass their vehicle safety. The majority (there are exceptions) never traverse roads I can't handle in a sedan with the standard 5 inch clearance. They are "high heels" for trucks. Pretty to look at (in their opinion) but very impractical. Imagine dealing with a flat tire when your tire jack at maximum extension doesn't touch your vehicle, you have to climb into the cab like a monkey, and you need 4 people to lift your tutu up into the vehicle. I saw a woman the other day in a parking lot pull a plastic 2-step stair thing off the driver seat, use it to get in, use one arm to dangle from the steering wheel to put her head below her waist to pick it up, and eventually drive away. No thanks.
Having a proper lift will unlock your off road potential. If you do not plan on doing any real off road driving, no point in a lift kit other than to make your truck or Jeep look bad ass. If you are into off-roading, you will want the ground clearance, the ability to put on bigger tires that is better suited for off-roading. For our Jeep we installed a 2" short arm lift with 31" tires to enhance our off road capabilities while not seriously compromising our on-road performance. Point is a lift will most definitely enhance your off road capabilities all depending on the type off lift you have installed. Some lifts are just for looks without really unlocking off road potential.
Having a proper lift will unlock your off road potential. If you do not plan on doing any real off road driving, no point in a lift kit other than to make your truck or Jeep look bad ass. If you are into off-roading, you will want the ground clearance, the ability to put on bigger tires that is better suited for off-roading. For our Jeep we installed a 2" short arm lift with 31" tires to enhance our off road capabilities while not seriously compromising our on-road performance. Point is a lift will most definitely enhance your off road capabilities all depending on the type off lift you have installed. Some lifts are just for looks without really unlocking off road potential.
OK sure, but: 1. That's not what you typically see. Come on, puny 31" tires? Local boys will snicker about you as just another limp dick with that set up.
2. The Big Island ain't Moab. The few off road opportunities to be found can be negotiated by a stock 4WD.
" It's a "fashion" thing. They actually have to buy a separate set of tires/wheels (or they borrow) to put on each year to pass their vehicle safety. The majority (there are exceptions) never traverse roads I can't handle in a sedan with the standard 5 inch clearance. They are "high heels" for trucks. Pretty to look at (in their opinion) but very impractical. Imagine dealing with a flat tire when your tire jack at max...
"High heels"-that's a great analogy new to me. k And the rest is so true...
OK sure, but: 1. That's not what you typically see. Come on, puny 31" tires? Local boys will snicker about you as just another limp dick with that set up.
2. The Big Island ain't Moab. The few off road opportunities to be found can be negotiated by a stock 4WD.
31's arent monster tires by any stretch of the means, but they are a good off-road on-road tire. You can go a lot of places with 31's with deep groves. On the mainland we also do a lot of highway driving either back and forth from Virginia to Pennsylvania or Virginia to Florida. Yeah, putting 35's on would be absolutely miserable. On Hawaii, it doesn't matter when the speed limit doesn't go above 55 and is 45 on most stretches. You can put whatever tire on your vehicle.
I don't know what off-roading is like in Hawaii, but like I said previously, I didn't see one truck with mud on it. You have your truck muddied up to the point you can't even see the paint, that truck has been seriously off-roading or mudding. They could snicker at 31's all they like, we will snicker at them as another limp dick with that set up for have a jacked up truck with 35's+ with no mud on their truck.
It's also not a hard switch to 35's if need be, but will cost you.
Again, Hawaii is different than the mainland. There is not much mud in off roading. Hawaii doesn't have muddy streams to pile through. The biggest full time river we have is the Wailua in Hilo and that's an urban center (well, maybe not true city 'urban' but it's a solid 'town' at least) and is surrounded by park. You can paddle a kayak on the water (not many canoes in Hawaii unless they're the outrigger type which is usually rowed by a crew on the ocean) anyway, you can paddle a boat in there but no motors. And definitely no 4WDs tearing across the river.
When there is water in the gulches, it's rain runoff and too dangerous to drive a truck through. The terrain is frequently too steep so if your truck does get washed down the stream, more than likely neither the truck nor the driver will either survive or even be found again. There's one road up mountain which is paved and goes through a gulch area. There's an intermittent stream in that gulch. One side of the road has a nice little swimming hole, the other side has a ledge about fifteen feet down and below that ledge the next one is about three hundred feet. When water is washing across the road, folks don't drive on it. There's all sorts of places like that so off roading is usually done in areas the driver is familiar with. Actually, most 'off roading' is done on a road, it's just a 4WD road. Sometimes the roads are sorta paved, but sometimes just rocks.
Hmm, I'm not sure if the 'river' in Waipio valley is long enough to be a river or not? Maybe it's a river, too. You can drive across that one but it's not a muddy bottom, it's a sandy bottom. It also eats trucks occasionally. Most of Waipio valley is private property, too, so you don't want to tear around down there unless you're with someone from down there. There's also a river crossing down in Hakalau, but that's paved and isn't gonna make mud.
Hawaii soils don't really stay muddy that long. You can have a couple of inches of rain and then it will be dry enough within hours to not fly mud around. No swamps, no mudbogs. If we did have a swamp, it would be protected because we have so many endangered species around.
Actually, a lot of the off roading in Hawaii is just folks going about their business, mostly, it's not as much of huge sport sort of thing. They go off road to get home, get to a fishing spot, they go off road to go hunting, they go off road to gather up the cattle (although now they've pretty much switched back to horses since they're better at rough terrain than ATVs), they don't really go off road just to go off roading as a sport all that often.
Part of it may be the underlying respect for the land. In Hawaii two things are of the utmost importance. Family (ohana) and the land (aina). There's also the underlying current that all of us are island ohana (at least once you're here and have been integrated into the island). Ohana isn't always the family you started with and it can include hundreds of folks.
Again, Hawaii is different than the mainland. There is not much mud in off roading. Hawaii doesn't have muddy streams to pile through. The biggest full time river we have is the Wailua in Hilo and that's an urban center (well, maybe not true city 'urban' but it's a solid 'town' at least) and is surrounded by park. You can paddle a kayak on the water (not many canoes in Hawaii unless they're the outrigger type which is usually rowed by a crew on the ocean) anyway, you can paddle a boat in there but no motors. And definitely no 4WDs tearing across the river.
When there is water in the gulches, it's rain runoff and too dangerous to drive a truck through. The terrain is frequently too steep so if your truck does get washed down the stream, more than likely neither the truck nor the driver will either survive or even be found again. There's one road up mountain which is paved and goes through a gulch area. There's an intermittent stream in that gulch. One side of the road has a nice little swimming hole, the other side has a ledge about fifteen feet down and below that ledge the next one is about three hundred feet. When water is washing across the road, folks don't drive on it. There's all sorts of places like that so off roading is usually done in areas the driver is familiar with. Actually, most 'off roading' is done on a road, it's just a 4WD road. Sometimes the roads are sorta paved, but sometimes just rocks.
Hmm, I'm not sure if the 'river' in Waipio valley is long enough to be a river or not? Maybe it's a river, too. You can drive across that one but it's not a muddy bottom, it's a sandy bottom. It also eats trucks occasionally. Most of Waipio valley is private property, too, so you don't want to tear around down there unless you're with someone from down there. There's also a river crossing down in Hakalau, but that's paved and isn't gonna make mud.
Hawaii soils don't really stay muddy that long. You can have a couple of inches of rain and then it will be dry enough within hours to not fly mud around. No swamps, no mudbogs. If we did have a swamp, it would be protected because we have so many endangered species around.
Actually, a lot of the off roading in Hawaii is just folks going about their business, mostly, it's not as much of huge sport sort of thing. They go off road to get home, get to a fishing spot, they go off road to go hunting, they go off road to gather up the cattle (although now they've pretty much switched back to horses since they're better at rough terrain than ATVs), they don't really go off road just to go off roading as a sport all that often.
Part of it may be the underlying respect for the land. In Hawaii two things are of the utmost importance. Family (ohana) and the land (aina). There's also the underlying current that all of us are island ohana (at least once you're here and have been integrated into the island). Ohana isn't always the family you started with and it can include hundreds of folks.
So the bottom line there is no need whatsoever to have any kind of lift with massive tires. A decent 4X4 will pretty much get you anywhere you need to go and no one in their right mind is going to trek through the forest in their truck (something like that would leave a footprint in the habitat or you will never see your truck and others may never see you again)? It sounds like getting tires any bigger than 31's would be a waste of money.
Location: Southernmost tip of the southernmost island in the southernmost state
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My fleet of work trucks are 4wd Ford F150s to 550s. We take them into some pretty crazy areas, 4-low going 2 miles Mauka up a semblance of a road on a 900 acre coffee farm. We have worksites even those trucks can't get into with a bit of rain. We run most of our fleet with a 29 inch equivalent off road tire which is larger than oem. Many of our trucks have been high-centered or had their undercarriage damaged. Not routine enough to warrant putting a lift on our trucks, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
There definitely isn't the opportunity to go wheeling like you would find on the mainland, but there are plenty of available places to go if one desires to. Some local beaches can only be accessed via 4wd.
I will say that one reason folks might not wheel as much here, lava. It will go through tires faster than aunty goes through malasadas.
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k And the rest is so true...
