Cost to Fun Ratio, Is It Worth It?

MagicMtnDan said:

True that. But mods have very little, if anything, to do with the memories everyone's made as a Raptor owner.

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Dunno I've had some good times during installs and Fab work. I enjoy it. I think it all depends on the person. I enjoy it but others would rather pay someone to do it...

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Some do it with friends

NickPic83 said:

Dunno I've had some good times during installs and Fab work. I enjoy it. I think it all depends on the person. I enjoy it but others would rather pay someone to do it...

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X2.

The friendships I've made and things I've learned through fab and installs were some of the most rewarding parts of building my previous truck.

You got to be bat shit crazy over something. For me right now it is this, before this it was big game hunting. Before that it was fly fishing. I can still use this 14K modded truck to get me to my other hobbies. It is hard to explain it to someone that isn't an enthusiast.

I got caught up in modding my Toyota (total mods are ~50% of the vehicles MSRP) prior to really using it and all I did was make the truck worse to drive 90% of the time. The truck has been used offroad quite a bit so technically the mods have been functional but I likely could have done 90% of the offroading with the truck still stock. So, basically I'm left with a vehicle that has lost a ton of money in depreciation (to the point it's not worth it to sell) and that isn't much fun to drive so is left on the driveway collecting dust.

With the Raptor, I am taking a much different approach. I am really using the truck to learn what needs to be changed in order to enjoy it more, for most of the time. So far that has been an exhaust, some lights, a bike rack, and a roof top tent - none of these really compromises the day-to-day driving of the truck but makes getting out and using the truck a little more enjoyable.

Between parts & labor I'm dangerously close to putting in what I paid for the truck new. That includes many things other than suspension though. For someone that's dreamed about owning a TT for many years now, how I can put a value on the knowledge I've gained, the experience from using it, and the smiles this (foot in the door of desert racing) truck has given me? I can't.

But now I am at the crossroads of where I either put in another huge sum of $$ to take my truck to the next level or put that money into something else. I've decided it's probably better to just buy a used purpose-built race truck that I can use for fun as well as try a couple of races and go from there.

So I'm happy with my truck and the money spent has been worth it to me. If I had to do it all over again however, I wouldn't spend quite as much as I have.

C,
great discussion points for sure....now ask the question.

#because race car???

You can get a good, if not great desert race car/truck/buggie for 20-30K easy.

or spend 40-60K and you have a competitive desert racer.

Do you spend the money on your truck or do you invest i a prerun/race car?

Raptizzle said:

Having been stock to highly modified on my 2010 and now back to a stock 2014, I find myself asking this question: Was the highly modified 2010 that much more fun to drive in relation to the coin it cost to get it there? Brace yourselves because my answer is shockingly no!

When I look back, it would be safe to say the highly modded truck could go 20mph faster through the rough. But at what cost? $20-$25K ball park. So $1,000 per 1mph. Seems steep.

With a few desert trips under my belt in the mid perch 2014, I've been reminded how fun these trucks are out of the box. That's not to say 3.0s and a bumpkit are out of the picture or a worthwhile upgrade but I guess what I'm getting at, are the full kill items worth it at the end of the day. It's never gonna be a legit whoop eating "race" truck unless your budget is north of $50K so at what point does the Cost to Fun Ratio make sense?

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INI said:

C,
great discussion points for sure....now ask the question.

#because race car???

You can get a good, if not great desert race car/truck/buggie for 20-30K easy.

or spend 40-60K and you have a competitive desert racer.

Do you spend the money on your truck or do you invest i a prerun/race car?

Click to expand...

Very good point and if I lived where I could hit the desert for a weekend my mods to the Raptor would probably not be as important to me. However living in fly over country the Raptor has to get my family of 4 from home to some place to play and then home again. Since we usually drive 8 hours each way minimum to anywhere we can play having a vehicle with road manners is important too.

I'm feeling lazy so I wont go into great detail, but I have spent well into 20k on my truck, a lot of that on suspension. Most of it is novel, and all of it is fun and makes the raptor work better off-road. But there is a stopping point IMO where it no longer makes sense to mod the raptor instead of a dedicated off-road machine. The things that actually truly make it worth it to me are the experiences. One, I like working on things and the truck is just and extension of that, and two, my raptor community, I have a great one locally and I'm not sure I'd have as good of one in another vehicle.

I don't even want to know what I've spent since joining FRF