4-Wheel & Off-Road welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must include an address or a telephone number so the sender can be verified. Once verified, your name may be withheld at your request. Letters published in this magazine reflect the opinions of the writers, and we reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, brevity, or other purposes. Due to the large volume of mail we receive, we regret that we cannot reply to unpublished letters or return photos. Digital photos must measure no less than 1600 x 1200 pixels (or two megapixels) and be saved as a TIFF, an EPS, or a maximum-quality JPEG file.
Write to:
Editor
4-Wheel & Off-Road
6420 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90048-5515
fax 323.782.2704
E-mail to:
4wheeloffroad@primedia.com
Reader: I noticed something odd while thumbing through the Apr. '07 issue; the Cherokee on its nose on the front page is the same picture used on page 28 under the title "Showoff." That's not the shocker though, as what I noticed was that on page 28 the XJ has an eyebrow sticker that says "colorado4x4.org," while on the cover the eyebrow is blacked out. I assume this was done on purpose, as it's not too easy to erase such items. My question is why, and under what conditions do you do this?
I can understand the need to stay neutral and not favor one group over another, or not use brand placement, but the fact that it is present in the magazine but not on the cover throws me off. It's not that I sit and wonder about these sorts of questions, but I was thinking of sending some pictures of my finished straight-axle S-10 ZR2. However, I have eyebrows featuring my shop of choice, and I have several other stickers of organizations/ shops/brands and I was curious if that would affect my chances of getting some magazine space.
Christopher M. Bueno
via 4wor.com
Editor: We have nothing against colorado4x4.org or any other window banner or decal. We simply chose to remove it from the cover for the reasons you specified: being neutral and not using blatant brand placement for our cover images. We have done this in the past and will do so in the future, but aren't nearly so strict on the inside of the magazine. However, we rarely feature or shoot photos of stickered-up rigs or manufacturer's project vehicles. As a rule, many of these rides are scammed together in the hopes of getting in our mag by promising the supplier that if they give them parts, make a deal, and so on, then they'll be a sponsor and get magazine coverage. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we are firmly against that. And what about the sponsor stickers on the Ultimate Adventure we produce? Yes, these manufacturers pay money to be a sponsor of the UA and get to run their stickers and use that material in their advertisements. Nothing is truly free in this world, no matter how you slice it.
Reader: Hi to all morons. What is the deal with running your directional tires backwards? I have seen this done more and more these days. I have read articles in other Primedia magazines about it. I have seen it on TV shows and on the trails. One rag I read referred to Clifton Slay of Poison Spyder Customs as an expert reference saying that he "swears by it." Why would a steel fabrication shop owner be an expert on tires? I would bet my Jeep title that any tire manufacturer has done more research and development than any TV host or shop owner. Come on, people. These manufacturers spend millions of dollars and thousand of hours in R&D developing new tires. When you run a directional tire backwards you are killing the cleaning action built into the tire. All the loose dirt, mud, and water is pushed into the center of the tire where it has nowhere to go. When a tire cannot clean itself it turns into a slick! Heck, you might as well be running drag slicks. This is why the manufacturer places the arrows on the sidewalls. The tire will clean itself as designed if you let it. There are no conspiracies here, folks. Run them the right direction as recommended and people will stop laughing at you.
Jim, Brownwood, TX
Editor: Oh Jim, methinks that people are laughing at you. But take heart, you have a good point and won't lose your Jeep title: The tire manufacturers have spent way more in R&D than any TV host or even that poor little shop owner Clifton Slay. And your description of how a tire works is spot on-in fact, that's one reason your well written letter made these pages. Here's the bottom line: Real-world conditions make for far better testing scenarios than all the R&D money in the world. And Clifton's 4,000-pound buggy on backwards tires in an environment different from those testing procedures just might work better than those big tire test labs. That's why they put NDT tires on many military rigs, so the general can't argue with the private about which way the tires are supposed to be mounted. In this man's army, we think for ourselves.
Reader: I was flipping through your Mar. '07 issue and was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. I live just a mere 30 miles from the hillclimbs up in Monson, Massachusetts. I first heard of them about a year ago and went to see it. The hillclimbs were one of the most exciting things I'd ever seen next to water skips (racing snowmobiles on water). Since then one of my friends has raced the hillclimbs a few times with his '97 TJ that's almost totally stock. Anyway, I was very pleased to see that the east coast has not been totally forgotten. We too have a truckload of fun playing in mud and playing in rock beds with our trucks. I'm in the process of rebuilding someone else's beater. (I'm doing it the right way!) Hopefully by your write-up on the hillclimbs, they will get more publicity.
Evelyn Hooghkirk
Stafford Springs, CT
Editor: We just hired another east-coaster to our staff, so we hope to keep bringing you the best of the east, and south, and west, and north. Heck, all over the place.