Just saw one yesterday in supermarket parking lot; it sure took up the ENTIRE parking space! But then it put serious harm on the normal duallys parked around it.... Big K, thank you for your information! You are indeed an SME, of the best (objective) kind. Would love to have one, but I live on an island; one the nice thing is an H1 would always get me a prime spot on the lower deck of the ferry boat (tho they hate them because of the width), and it would really pissoff all the Prius-yuppie weekend tourists!
Hummer used to get the gas guzzler reputation but in reality, my families toyota sequoia gets 11......
Yeah there's a few issues that white out mentioned: The h1's is made up of a few different components for body/chassis. The chassis itself is very durable, it's 1/4" thick box section high strength structural steel. Mounted to that is an aluminum body tub with composite/fiberglass [SMC?] hood. The problem comes up with the roofs on the hard top models, they are steel. AM general puts a rubber gasket spacer but this brakes down over time and when you get 2 dissimilar metals together, and that interface is ripe for corrosion. Combine that with really poor paint application at the factory and you really have to check for corrosion problems around the body seams of the wagon where the steel meets the aluminum.. inside and out. To fix it properly you have to cut the seals, remove some of the interior and pull the roof off and re prime/seal and paint everything. The paint is bad, you usually get over spray and orange peal right from the factory, its just sprayed on manually by 2 guys in masks and hoods. Maintenance items are : -ball joints, idler and pitman arms [especially if you do a lot of off road driving] -seal leaks [geared hubs, differential star seal and CTI line fittings] Off road breakable items are the half shafts, takes about 20 minutes to swap one on the trail, most owners carry a spare [$100-200 generally]. So far I've never broken one, but if you are heavy on the skinny pedal you may go through 1-2 a year. The big expensive things are generally: - Engine replacement [#8 block crack] - New style HVAC upgrade for older trucks [$3000 kit] -Transfer case vampire [cooling loop on older models can crack sucking all the ATF out of transmission into the transfer case resulting in some seriously bad mojo]. There's a upgraded loop that fixes that [$150-300] and its easy to ID on the trucks if you crawl under the t-case and look for 2 blue washers on the fluid ingress/exit points. Everything else is not too bad. I think the standard PMC schedule on a hummer in the military is every week, on the civilian trucks its every 3000 miles. If you are not a hands on guy and you go to the dealer with moderate wheeling you can budget about $3000/yr in maintenance and consumables if you pay someone else to do the work Back to the roofs, apparently the reason for the rust/bubbling is high pressure washers, if you spray near the body/roof seal, water will get injected between the 2 surfaces and linger, which will eventually eat away at the steel. I tell folks to keep the pressure washer away from the rubber seal along the rear belt line. If you can deal with the maintenance and the fuel costs, its a fun vehicle. It's not the ultimate 4x4, but it does a lot of things pretty well, and it has very good cargo capacity and the full independent suspension makes it ride a bit smoother, even though the articulation is non existent compared to my jeep.
I forgot about the PMD. ugghhh. Definitely get a relocation kit if you buy an H1. I agree with everything BigK said. Nick
I think if you have the need for speed, and the opportunity (by that I mean public roads in which to use it), then as a speed freak that's why I drive a raptor. The H1 has a serious cool factor, but its not a high speed adrenaline rush. But how cool would it be to sit on the beach on your sat phone in the h1. It's a papporatzi machine!
Jealousy gets you nowhere seriously its not reality despite whatever misconceived notions you might have about the raptor
I'm not jealous of cracked frame rails. lol In reality, the raptor is the coolest current truck out. But it's a modified F150. Where the Hummer is a Hummer. It's basically an exotic from Indiana. When driven properly is a very capable machine (proper btm > any locker), so much that no other stock vehicle can come close to its abilities. Nick
http://www.andysautosport.com/hummer/1992_2006_h1/#PERFORMANCE Pretty good site for performance orientated parts on the H!. Id love to see a tuner like Hamann or Fab Design work there magic on one of these.
Oh Crap, yeah the PMD is a very regular failure point on the 6.5 turbo diesels. I never bumped into that problem so far. It's the solenoid driver for the injection pump, mounted on the pump on the engine valley, you have to pull the injector pump to replace the PMD [size of a pack of cigarettes]. Many folks leave them on the pump and get an extension cord and remote mount a new one. Never heard of Andys, looks like generic parts and nothing h1 specific. Here you go: http://www.predatorinc.com/ They do full frame off restoration work and can actually get an H1 to go fast which is scary. 700hp+ diesel engine swap, upgraded fuel system, transmission, t-case, upgraded brake kit, lift, and make it all seem factory. There's a few guys who buy an H1, get it trucked over there and have that shop redo everything, and when you go there, theres nothing but h1's and humvee's. They have a photo album of various things they have done, from mild to wild: http://www.flickr.com/photos/predatorinc The Cummins is a torque monster, but the Duramax will actually kick you in the seat from a dead stop when you step on it. But back to the nuts and bolts, off road, all that extra power won't buy you that much, but on the highway its nice.
BigK is a serious resource. Regardless of searching for one or not, that was enjoyable to read. Consider that as a service to future buyers? Reminds me of the CS expert on here...
Predator is the place to go for modifying H1's. A quick story of my friend's truck and Predator: some time later . . . . . . and some random shots from the shop Nick
