Hummer H2

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

 

AKA: America’s Gas Guzzling, Underpowered Zombie Car

In 1998, at the height of the politically correct 90’s, AMC sold the naming rights of the Hummer to GM. The resulting designs, plopped right on top of proven GM frames and powertrains would result in some of the most iconic displays of American Exceptionalism in the 2000’s right up until the expensive oil and economic crash of 2008. These fat, slow, thirsty and surprisingly impractical vehicles went the way of the dodo as the economy imploded and american exceptionalism took a good long look in the mirror.

That last line that I just said about them being fat slow stupid and surprisingly impractical is kind of strange, and here’s why. The truck that this is based off of, a Chevrolet Tahoe, is actually a pretty good truck. It’s basically a big, 4 wheel drive, station wagon. Chevy didn’t overthink, or over sell this car one bit. People with big families or who needed to pull a lot of stuff bought them up by the boatload. They are really, really solid trucks. Also, the previous car on the nameplate, the H1 Hummer is a solid vehicle. It was good enough to replace the Jeep as the go to vehicle for the American Infantry for 2 ½ wars. Its powerful diesel engine and actuating frame made it the perfect platform for all sorts of different configurations.

The Irish Camel on St. Patrick’s Day

So where does this one go wrong? The Hummer that I drove for this road test was a 2003 base Hummer, with the third row jump seat. When this car came out, the national average price for a gallon of gas was $1.56. It was on the rise, slowly. When the last payment was made on this car in 2007, it was just under $3. Keep in mind, this is a NY truck, so the local price of gas was probably well over $4.

When I say this car is thirsty, it’s basically an Irish camel on St. Patrick’s Day. When driving it around Rochester, I averaged a whopping 11 mpg. That’s f***ing terrible. And for that 11 mpg, I only get 6 seats and 6700 pounds of towing. That’s not great. For 11 mpg, I could have a Dodge Ram Power Wagon that could jumpstart a dead planet…AND STILL GET BETTER MILEAGE!

The reason this thing is so thirsty isn’t the engine, the 6 liter GM V8 is solid. The problem is the massive weight of the whole thing and the absolutely flabbergasting 4 speed automatic transmission. In America, in the 1990s and 2000’s, the normal configuration was 8 cylinders, 4 gears. In Germany, the equation is 4 cylinders, 8 gears. Engineering, it’s a thing! But back to the weight issue this car has, the f***ing thing weighs 6400 pounds! The box on wheels sported gun slit windows that left blind spots that you could hide a battleship in. Seriously, if you were in Greece NY and accidentally got cut off by bald bloke in a black H2, I am truly sorry. I seriously couldn’t see you. This bring up another interesting point. According to an article in Consumer Reports by Jim Traver, Hummer drivers received 5 times as many tickets than any other drivers. No s**t, they can’t see other drivers. I’m surprised they pull over when cops light them up.

Ok, rant over, for now. The other infuriating thing about this truck is the way that it was marketed. It was sold to two very distinct groups: aging baby boomer bros who needed a codpiece that could take them on great adventures, and soccer moms who wanted their kids to be safe from all of the dangers of suburbia. If you can hear the loathing in my voice, that’s not a coincidence. These are soft targets and subtlety and good design are foregone conclusions. If you wanted to take this mammoth truck off roading, good luck finding a trail wide enough. Secondly, good luck finding a winch that could pull this fat kid over a stump, rock, or out of a pond. Thirdly, it’s still too goddamned heavy to even consider going through mud, sand, or a stream of any kind.

Instead, I drove it around suburbia, with the owner as my guide. He commented about the great ride of the truck, as the body rolled like a whale when I took a corner at more than 4 mph. The ride is truly dreadful. There was definitely something wrong in the steering rack/front end as well, as the truck wanted to veer to the right very gradually, even at low speeds. Then came the final nail in the coffin for this truck: the price. The owner wanted 18k. USD, not Yen. The truck had done 145k miles. Not only no, but hell no. When it was new, the H2’s MSRP was a shade under 50k. The Tahoe, mid 30’s.

A Box on Wheels With Blind Spots Galore

The H2 Hummer is a relic of a bygone era. With abysmal gas mileage, peepholes for windows, less towing capacity than my dog, and seating for only ⅔ of the Brady Bunch: the term relic is the only one that fits. However, when you see one, look back and smile. Smile because it will remind you of an era when it was okay to put a war on the credit card; when we still had Steve Jobs and Johnny Cash; and you could still super size it. Gas was cheap, and America was great. That’s the thing, America is still great, but gas isn’t cheap: so we have gone a more European route, making our people movers smarter, with more style, capability, and better design and engineering. So when you see one of these relics, be happy, but don’t get too close: they can’t see you, and they probably don’t want to.

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