This is not out in some rural town. This is in Portland, OR about 2 miles from downtown. Personal vehicles this large are simply incompatible with urban living and pressure their owners to continually break traffic law. Technically that Miata is parked as close to the stop sign as it can legally be, but as the Denali doesn’t fit in many places around here it’s owner is compelled to park across both the stop sign and the crosswalk.
Follow up: To whatever bootlicking idiot called PBOT and asked for enforcement on this block, it didn’t help. It made things worse just like I cautioned such actions do in the discussion below. They didn’t ticket the truck (Which was indeed parking in front of the stop sign this morning) but they did ticket just about every-other car parked on this street for non-street safety related things like parked wrong orientation, literal broken window, expired registration, etc. You probably cost my neighbors a few thousand dollars in combined citations for minor procedural issues, now everybody is miserable and the truck is still parked there. Please, never ever do that again. Your fantasy of calling law enforcement to fix all the problems is not what happens in real life. It doesn’t matter who they are, NEVER CALL THE COPS ON YOUR NEIGHBORS.
I love my 1500, I’m original owner and take meticulous care of her. That said, I’d absolutely love a PHEV Ram 50 or 2nd gen size S-10. Those are perfect for tooling around as a daily. I’ll be keeping Hemrietta until I’m Looney Tunes style sitting on the ground holding a steering wheel over getting a Brodozer.
I used Belltech’s 2/4. Their shocks sucked and produced a very rough ride. I replaced the rear shocks with QA1 single adjustables (drag racing and hobby track racing with her, so I need the adjustable range.)
IHC also makes kits. You may need their rear axle control arm relocation kit with Belltech’s 2/4. I needed it for mine. The Belltech track/panhard bar relocation bracket flexes too much. I had to ditch that and drill new holes in order to eliminate that bracket. She’s solid as a rock now.
I expected better handling, and it’s there, but it didn’t dawn on me that I’d see better acceleration. Those single adjustable shocks let the weight roll back and really dig those tires into the ground. When set to aggressive handling, they are amazing. Night and day corner and responsivness. Up to 60, solid handling. 60 to 75, responsive, smooth, fantastic. 75 to 90 (the fastest I’ve pushed so far until I can get a better track day), driving a race car made of clouds held up by angels.
Winter driving was a significant improvement. I didn’t have much issue before, but I had the usual bit of sliding on acceleration. I didn’t have to feather near as much. I try to use 4wd as little as possible. I didn’t have to touch it this year at all.
I have some significant medical issues as well. Getting in and out easily is a must. Getting in and out of the cab is much easier. Especially in the winter. Getting stuff out of the bed doesn’t require that awkward half tire step, or slight hop and resting painfully on your stomach over the side. I wish I’d have done this years ago.