I CHANGED THE TITLE OF THIS THREAD TO AVOID WASTING ANOTHER THREAD OVER NOTHING BUT ME BLABBERING ABOUT MY BIG TOY. ONE PIC IN THIS POST, MORE A COUPLE OF POSTS DOWN.


I picked up a new H2 last thursday afternoon & drove it over the weekend before returning it tomorrow for painting & various interior and other mods.

Some highlights:

-a (must have been or at least close) 90 year old lady asked me for a ride in a grocery store parking lot, and then explained that her husband was too old to get any trucks, and she missed them, and she'd never seen one that was quite as weird as these. that was darn funny

-all the other hummer drivers tended to flip me a thumbs up

-this thing gets looked at by about 2/3 of people you drive by. i have never been in a car that gets attention like this thing. A friend, in an attempt to spare me the horror of hummer ownership, lent me a 5 series beemer (to see how much better life can be). Now, that isn't that great of a car, but its pretty nice and there isn't a dealer here, so its rare... in 1/2 a week with the 550, i think i got zero looks. in a typical cruise across town in the stock H2, i got about 1,347.51 (or so). kinda fun. EDIT: i test drove a 911 and an sl500 pretty extensively before settling on the humm, and they aren't ballpark. anybody have a theory? the size? the fact that it looks like an invading war vessel? lol

-the most compliments i got on it were about being in it. it's just cool up there & the interior has a snug comfortable sort of aura, and that's what attracted me to the H2 in the first place. nice to know that others thought the same.

-getting about 11.4 mpg aroudn town on the first tank. EDIT: that is not meant as a joke about using alot of gas. w/o an EPA rating or alot of posted economy, and all the ruckus about hummers and mileage, i was worried i'd get 6 or something. I think the motor in my '05 silverado is similar to this one if not simply the same. Oddly, the motor in the Silverado is noiser, and the pickup gets about 10, about 9 on its first tank. My understanding is that mileage creepts up a bit with engine break-in, so if i can get 11 with some offroading, a little highway, and mostly around town crusing, and maybe that'll creep up to 12 or 13, that's better than i figured i'd get.

-first off-roading experience rocked. i piled the thing full of some friends & drove out to a gent i know's farm & drove through the semi-muddy, semi-snow covered nowhere. Cleared a few rockpiles without too much trouble (anybody not know what those are?) & it generally ruled. I got stuck in a waterhole that was right at door level when i piled out,... I guess the lesson there is that i have some learning to do about the various 4WD modes & when to apply them.


i love this thing!

 

welcome to the club... glad to hear your having so much fun with your H2. Where the pic's ? The old lady story is priceless... I love the looks of the little kids glued to the windows of thier parents cars giving the thumbs up... Kids love the hummer, and I guess in a way to fully enjoy them you gotta be a little bit of a kid yourself.

[IMG]local://upfiles/436/6B95CDC59179476AB2FAE3EDE0594F3E.jpg[/IMG]

 

thanks. i'll post some pics after i get out of the body shop in a few days.

you might be right about needing to be a kid, they are pretty obnoxious in a good kind of way. i chuckle when i open the garage & all

 

I'm not laughing, but that sounds funny being you just got the thing..

 

Yea, what are you doing to your rig? Custom paint? Mods? [sm=bounceybounce.gif]

 

well i dinged it just a bit...

and then i'm getting some American Racing Mojave rims (just 17", not rapper wheels, i don't want to mess with the function of the truck), and some chromed billet for the air vents and the hood grille & basically all the trim on the thing painted white. DVD's inside, soundproof coating under the entire truck + dynamat over the entire interior, and a back-up camera... Most of the exterior stuff will be low-profile, not too show-off-ish. I figure the humm gets enough attention as-is. [sm=icon_ladiesman.gif]

and then i'm giong to drive it for a while before sending it in for maybe some custom dash or leather work. if i had a clue what to do with all that, i'd just get it over with, but i don't, so i'm gonna drive the truck and see if the urge to mess with the inside aesthetic lingers. But... the thing that ultimately made the humm too much for me to resist was how truly killer it is to be in and drive the monster. I like it in there, and if i could make it better, that'd be cool.

 

what kind of leather mods are you planning for the interior, don't you already have leather seats? i thought about a custom leather dash topper, just for the flat part up top, but after seeing what the CA sun did to the leather dash i put in my karmann ghia, decided against it. i use a custom motorcycle saddlebag in the back to keep my first aid kit, tools and tow strap in, but can't think of anything that would look better in leather.

 

I was thinking white butt/back sections of the seat + white piping to go with the white H2. Perhaps have the changes done out of something really, really nice (leather-wise).

I was also thinking about having the dash re-done to at least some degree. While the H2's riding/driving experience is the living end, i do accept that the interior is a bit plasticy, certaily a higher level of general material quality and fit and finish can be had for less. What i don't think can be had at any price is the same general "feel" of the interior. The closest thing to the best of LUX SUV's and really good sports cars that you can find.

So i was thinking about some seat-leather upgrades both for distinction and for improved passenger-experience. Same goes for the dash - just spend some of the $$$ i didn't spend on my 2nd-through 5th choices for vehicle on bringing the overall quality fo the inside up.

I really want that big hunk of metal to be something people enjoy being in, although in stock form (before i turned it on for the mods) it easily met that mark already...

 

ok, i hope i can navigate the file upload. I fear i'm not much of a photographer, so pending purchase of a new digi cam, these are about what i can do. i'll take some more in sunlight one of these days & pony them up.


The truck started as a "Lux" with basically every option, including the air suspension. What's done is basically this:

White stuff: the plastic trim around the wheel wells, front and back bumpers, mirrors & front metal thing (skid plate?) are painted white

replaced chrome grill it came with w/a white one from the factory


chrome: hood grille, side grille rear vent things and door handles are replaced with chromed metal units. chrome letters in the top roof rack bars

factory truck had quite a bit of chrome, so some other items like hood latches are chromed

wheels replaced with American Racing Mojave 17". same size and same tires as factory. My understanding is that bigger rims and different tires are bad for off-roading, so i skipped that.


For additional exterior mods, i'm thinking about one of these grilles, which looks pretty much great. Or perhaps one of these, and re-claim my traded-in factory chrome grille.

I'm also thinking about getting a light rack, retractable/extending steps, and that's about it. Consider that i have absolutely no clue what i'm doing when it comes to making styling decisions, i think it turned out pretty decently.





Inside, for now, the upgrades are a back-up camera (really works well) & twin DVD systems for the rear seats.

I'm considering alot of things for the inside, including replacing the 2nd row with 2 captains chairs (lower right hand corner). I'm also considering replacing the nav/radio, but my understanding is that this can be pretty painful. The factory nav that i got is completely, and i mean completely, useless. it is easily the worst factory nav i've ever used. A friend who works at the local mercedes dealer suggested that i might have gotten a left-over nav system from a previous year. Apparently they had some problems with that phenomenon on some Audi's one year... completely archaic NAV systems came in some of the cars, which was later traced to the units being 2 years out of date. So i was told, and considering that most of the towns near me (including some with 5000 people or more) simply don't register, much less the local roads, i can't say that it seems unreasonable.

From there some dash/plastic modifications, perhaps, and perhaps changing leather into something with piping or colored inserts or whatever the world can do. but... the seats, and the leather (its the ebony stuff) are really, really enjoyable to me, so i'm not all that convinced i should mess with it.



And what i'm looking forward to the most is sound deadening in the big truck. Its already surprising quiet considering that it's 10x less aerodynamic than my garage & an off-roading truck, but i'm going to spend alot of time on taking a shot at making this the quietest H2 on the road. If i come up with something, i'll post whatever was done. If i don't i'll pretend i didn't say this.

 

katzkin makes leather kits for the h2, with the option for many different styles. they have a fun java/flash function here

www.autoleathers.com

that doesn't show hummer seats per se, but it gives the idea. But all that noted, yeah, i have the ebony interior, and its really not too shabby by any kind of stretch, and i'm not sure that wouldn't just be a waste of cash (modding the leather, that is).