6 Modding Mistakes Owners Make On Their Daily-Driven Pickup Trucks
Pickup truck culture in the United States is stronger than ever. That’s because pickup trucks are no longer just the bare-bones work vehicles they used to be. Today’s modern pickups are all-in-one family machines, capable of transporting six adults in decadent luxury while also carrying 3000 pounds of cargo, and that doesn’t include the 10,000-pound trailer tethered to the back. They’re big, powerful, and the people who drive them do so with crazy amounts of pride.
Pickups have evolved with the times, and in defence of the truckin’ faithful out there, so has the pickup truck aftermarket. What’s unfortunate is that many owners still fall back to some of yesterday’s truck trends when it comes time to modding their rides, and in doing so they generally ruin them.
Now I’m not talking about dedicated custom show trucks, or the machines that people build to actually perform a certain function. I’m talking about the truck owners who decide that any of the following six modifications are a good idea for their daily-driven pickup. Maybe they made more sense once upon a time when trucks were rude, crude, cheap and fun. But times have changed.
Nothing can stop a pickup truck with a lifted suspension. Except when the axles and frame get hung up on snow. Or a 25mph corner. Or any sort of gradient that must be traversed sideways. Once upon a time, lifting a truck way up to go mud bogging was a fun thing to do, and it still is - on cheap trucks that aren’t used every day. Is anybody installing $10,000 worth of lift and suspension kits onto a $40,000 daily driver then actually driving through mud? Instead, they’re taking a massively expensive truck, raising the centre of gravity dangerously high (not good for on-road driving and seriously not good for off-roading), inflicting all kinds of stress to driveline components, and adding a significant amount of horsepower-robbing weight.
2. Big wheels
To be fair, this affects cars just as much as it does trucks. Big, heavy wheels suck horsepower like a parasite, but at least with cars people can opt for a low-profile tyre to maintain some measure of on-road performance (albeit at the expense of ride quality). Truck owners must stick with a fairly prominent tyre to support the truck’s fairly prolific mass, and that usually leads to a no-win situation. Here’s why: big wheels on trucks require tyres that are too low-profile to be useful off-road, yet too high-profile to provide any legitimate on-road benefits for a three-tonne vehicle.
3. Aggressive off-road tyres
For folks who often find themselves on dirt roads, trails, or just open countryside, a good off-road tyre is vital for traction. Notice I said good off-road tyre, not a massive cleated rubber monster that could claw the face off a stone statue. Such a setup is fine for a recreational-use off-road pickup, but every person I know that did this to their on-road daily-driver regretted it.
Aside from the scary-high centre of gravity, knobby tyres are ridiculously noisy on pavement, and unlike a good exhaust system, tyre whine never, ever sounds good. Aside from that, such aggressive tyres aren’t suited at all for dry pavement and they’re shockingly poor in the wet. And though you might think they’d be good for snow, on plowed hard-pack roads they’re as useful as racing slicks.
4. Bed caps
This one is tough for me to cover, partly because that red F-250 used to be mine (yes, I once thought the cap was cool) but also because my dad still thinks caps are cool, including the one he just put on his brand new 2015 Chevy Silverado. I’ve since found caps to be counter-productive to the point of owning a pickup. Why limit your cargo-carrying capability? With a cap over the bed, forget about tossing the dirt bikes or snowmobiles in the back or hauling anything of moderate size. If you want enclosed cargo space, get a van. If you don’t like vans or need four-wheel drive, get an SUV. At least then you can have the option of extra seats in case you want to take everyone out to dinner. If you’re reading this dad, sorry for the revelation. Caps on pickup trucks make as much sense as eating chocolate cake with a diet Coke to drink.
When American vehicles were choked with emissions, lopping off half the exhaust for better flow and an aggressive sound was rather commonplace, if slightly illegal. I don’t see people doing this to brand new pickups (yet) but as five-year-old F-150s and Dodge Rams fall to younger generations, the hacksaws come out and the mufflers go buh-bye. At least they’re cutting after the catalytic converters (most of the time), but apparently they don’t understand that modern engines are designed to work best with bit of back pressure. Often times, such backyard modifications reduce horsepower and fuel economy on modern pickups, and that aggressive V8 sound is more reminiscent of a 1970s Cadillac with curb feelers and rust - lots of rust. Not impressing anyone there JimBob.
6. Rolling Coal
Believe it or not, there are many diesel pickup owners tweaking their trucks specifically to roll coal. In essence they’re mucking with the air-fuel mixture, thus creating all kinds of soot and smoke out the exhaust under hard throttle. I won’t give the whole speech on it being asinine, (because smokey burnouts really aren’t much different and we love them to death), but I will say this: Such modifications generally reduce fuel economy, create excess carbon in the valve train, and deliver soot straight into the engine oil. All to put on a little smoke show that nobody else finds amusing. Hey diesel owners - if you want to show other drivers how much smoke your truck can make, just spin the tyres like normal people. Your engine - and possibly some impressed bystanders - will thank you.
Comments
I like this. If you drive it every day, there’s no need for massive lifts, and when you get low profile tires and big wheels, doesn’t the weight rating decrease?
Yup, but those people never actually haul anything anyway
Cheap bright lights?
https://youtu.be/TzQQnYKe59k
Why not ? Seems fun :D
Nothing about leaving your tow mirrors out cause you think it’s cool.
Since when is leaving your tow mirrors out a “modification”? (Not defending the idea of hauling a ghost trailer, but your comment doesn’t work for this list, sorry.)
You need tow mirrors out if you have a lift because it alters the geometry of your vehicle.
Does this “ rolling coal “ modification give any kind of HP gain at all ? Or it’s just for the smoke ? :-/
nope its throwing a crap tune on a diesel truck to make it run like trash and spew smoke. they also have something called a lope tune that mimics a huge cam by making it misfire
Most of the time it reduces horsepower because you’re changing the air fuel ratio from the peak efficiency to an overly rich mixture (I’m pretty sure).
Yes you can make horsepower with coal rollers. The more HP you have the more it’ll smoke. There’s a guy in my area with a CAT at 3500hp it idles black smoke.
I agree with everything except the cap. We have a pick up in pakistan and the cap has huge benefits compared to nothing or a shutter. Examples include having to travel hundreds of miles with luggage through heavy rain, sand storms and bandits
Wait…. Bandits?? Are you sure you don’t live the Mad Max universe?
Same here. I can agree with the list except for the cap. What you lose in height load space you gain in protection. Besides a they can usually be taken of if you need the space again.
HAHAH pakistani bhai
is ka acha opai hai mere paas
window se ak47 ki naal nikal ke rakho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCwIz_KO79U
I would actually suggest something like what Unbox Therapy have on his F150 (ignore the iPhones). It is easy to retract and cover and is enough to protect the luggage inside the bed and give you the capacity to load bigger stuff when you need it.
I completely agree, my family has an F150 for when we go camping and the cap is probably the most useful thing you can do to truck if you don’t want all of your stuff stolen, soaked, snowed on, or laying on the side of the interstate cause the wind blew it out of the bed. The shutters are the most useless thing in my opinion since they limit anything you can put in your truck to about 2.5 ft tall.
I agree with all of these things apart from the bed cap one, my dad has a 2013 hilux with a bed cap and it’s very helpful because we don’t haul big stuff but it’s good for putting the dog in and also for transporting hay and for putting suitcases in for when we go on holiday.
Then his argument of buying an SUV or a minivan would apply. If you don’t load big stuff, why get a big truck? Then again, hardly any of us buy cars for practical reasons!
Rolling coal is just the excess diesel coming out in the exhaust, basically people are giving their motor a bad tune.
Agree with everything except the bed caps, the one we have on ours is very useful at protecting stuff in stormy weather(living in Florida it pretty much rains every week) and if it is a proper fitting topper it will actually look nice. Having the topper allows you to transport lots of stuff the you wouldn’t want in the back of a van or suv because it smells or you actually have more space instead of a shotty set of folded down chairs. Topper also has to flow like the example below, not a mismatched, miscolored, too many windows to count topper.
What kind of cap is that? I have 15 silverado black. L ike urs..that looks sweet
Bed caps make sense to me. My grandfather was a carpenter and had a cap on his toyota pickup to protect his tools and materials. If he needed to haul insulation, lumber, or his motorcycle, he would just take the cap off.