A Heated Steering Wheel Would Be Nice. I've just about completed my first winter (Feb 2001) owning the Quad Cab and it served me well, as it should, being that it was 7 months young. Living in the country where we tend to get more cold, more snow and especially more wind.... getting into the Quad and taking off has always been a chinch. Generally in 20 to 30 degree weather, it takes about 3 minutes of driving before a comforting amount of heat starts to exit the vents. In about 5 minutes your sitting pretty.........in 10 minutes your ready to dial down the fan, thermostat and the window. But damn..... it can take up to 15 or 20 minutes before your hands stop numbing up with cold from holding the steering wheel. Did somebody say......."hey stupid, hear of things called gloves"? Sure I could go out 20 minutes earlier and start the truck up...but somehow or another that....just don't fit my schedule. Let me see now... put on the boots, put on the coat, start truck, track snow and mud back into the house, wait 15 minutes...almost forgot... clean up mud and snow melt. Should I also mention... a plain waste of time, gas and engine life. When it's cold outside and I jump into my truck ... none of my sitting body parts are ever cold.....I don't know if the seat or if the seating material is insulated but I am comfortable just wearing jeans and a fleece lined shirt when I'm driving... way before the heat even begins to come out. When I jump into my truck, I'm ready to work: I dial the radio station, adjust the volume, grab the sunglasses, take a drink of coffee, dial up my customer to let them know I'm on route, light up a smoke, crack the window and all while I'm on my way...driving. I got news for you..... doing ... all the above with gloves on is...for me ...........unusual. All the while I'm switching from left hand to right hand in a effort to keep one hand on the steering wheel and the other between use............. under my but. So Chrysler.. what's the chances of you offering a heated steering wheel as an option for us owners that don't exactly live in the sunbelt? All you'd have to do is imbed a heating element (like in the windshield) have it auto off after hitting a certain time or 70 degrees. Just 2 More........... Inches. As a contractor I rely on my trucks to do business. I use my Ford econoline van for the dirty work like hauling large bulky items; primarily sheet rock, plywood, 2x4's and trash. I save my quad for driving to the job once I've become situated. Generally, I just haul tools as needed once the job is in progress. Occasionally I some times run short on......let's say drywall. Your probably thinking, you can still get drywall in the Quad. Not if you need to get 20 plus sheets of 1/2 drywall, and a few sheet of plywood (4x8). Remember I have a lid on my Quad. Also you have to lift stuff higher to get on top of the wheel wells. A lot of times I'm the one that's caught off loading this stuff by myself. Having sheet good loaded right on the floor would make things a lot easier on my body. If you measure between the inside wheel wells you'll see that's it in the neighborhood of about 46 inches. That's about 2 inches shy of 48 inches, which happens to be the width of most sheet goods. If you take a look at the clearance on your quad between the inside tire and the wheel well, you'll notice that their is sufficient clearance to have allowed the wheel wells to have at least a 48-1/2 distance between them inside the box.
Adding 1-1/4" to both sides doesn't seem that much of a deal originally. Worst case scenario might have been to widen the foot print...hey......wouldn't that given the truck even better handling? I guess the chances of us seeing this improvement is slim to none. I figure they already got the engineering down and the machines set up. It would of been nice, anyway. Two Chips Are Better Than One! Hey.... I 've been doing some research on chips for the performance section of this site. Ken a Quad owner had written in and said that Mopar (are they related to Chrysler?) had come out with a new chip that would increase performance on our 4.7 Quads by 18 % to 20% horse power. He also mentioned that the higher octane fuel would be needed. I don't know if this is one for Chrysler of the After market performance guys, but wouldn't it be neat if someone made an module that the driver could switch between one for daily fuel economy driving and one strictly for performance. Gee I could use the eco chip for weekly driving and save the performance one for weekends when I'd want a bit of excitement to "smoke" some smart ass of the line....don't want it for all out racing....better saved for the track. Imagine the control switch is in your dash.... it has an led display telling you what octane gas you should be using and a 2 or more position switch....would be nice. Or how about a connection to your notebook computer so you could scroll for a list of choices: economy, towing, low end performance, high end performance...... just to name a few. Not to mention access to diagnostics. As Far As Chrysler's Concerned One more thing, fellow owners....don't even begin think this is going to be a direct line to Chrysler. They may or may not.......even know this site exists. They may care or may not care what the owners that visit this site want after they've already purchased their merchandise. But I care and thought it be fun and interesting to share in ideas and thoughts concerning our Quads...maybe you do to! |
