My brother just picked up a 04 chevy tahoe and was wondering if there are any places in the bay area that specialize in offroad accessories on chevy trucks/suvs?

He was thinking about upgrading brakes, bigger mud/offroad tires and maybe some suspension goodies...

Any recommendations for specialty places in the east bay area?

 

Personally I'd recommend 4Wheel Parts. The Santa Rosa store went far beyond great customer service for us one time, and we don't even own a 4x4, lol! They have stores in San Jose and Oakland as well.

 

My buddy gets some stuff from 4 Wheel Parts in San Jose...for his Nissan Frontier

Not sure if they work on Chevy's but maybe worth a look?

haha same recommendation as pleiad7

 

Yea...if you want to get your truck jacked all up, do take it to 4WP. I watched one idiot put on aluminum rims with a impact driver. Another time a buddy had them bolt up the WRONG set of headers to his jeep, and strip out 3 of the stud holes in the process, then claim it was already like that.

The list of horror stories is long, do your buddy a favor and do the work yourself. If you can't wrench on it, don't drive it offroad. No joke on that, if you are going to own a 4wd, and use it (not just a mall crawler) then work on it yourself so you know how to fix it when you break **** out on the trail. You have no clue how many noob's I have had to winch out, then help fix their broken **** because they were too ****ing stupid to learn how to work on their own junk.

 

Extreme motorsports in brentwood

 

Or nor cal trucks in livermore, or Anyones offroad in fairfield

 

Nor Cal Trucks does some ligit work. Lots of real wheelers out there.

Lift kits on those trucks are easy peezy. Should try working on TJ's. PITA.

If he's gonna do bigger wheels and tires I'm glad he's looking in to bigger brakes too. Smart. Most people don't. I'd look in to getting a full exhaust and a performance chip too. You will loose some stock juice to the bigger tires.

 

Thing about places like 4WP is pretty much like any other franchise operation- it is a total roll of the dice as to whether the guy behind the counter or with his hands on the wrench has half a clue- one shop might give you great service from real experts while the one 20 miles away despite having the same sign out front is staffed by high school dropouts that don't know an impact driver from a torque wrench.

OB has it right in that knowing the stuff yourself is essential for serious off-roading, you never know when you'll find yourself needing to tie broken suspension pieces together with a come-along or crazy stuff like that, if you don't know how to do the mods and work yourself, you will be in a world of hurt when something snaps 50 miles from anywhere.

 

I watched my cousin use duct tape, a bunch of nails, and 2 bits of cold steel, along with a jumper cable welder (batteries in series), to make a emergency U joint, it worked, got us off the trail.

 

un/fortunately, chevy trucks are 4wpw's bread and butter if you want a massive ilft, wrong offset rims with gigantic tires...

ok... this is my experience with their oakland store about a decade ago...



to the OP, if your brother wants stuff for GO, rather than for SHOW, he can PM me for stuff...

 

He's using his tahoe (04 z71) for trips to tahoe ha, he has friends in chico that are on dirt trails, and he's going to be buying a winery property with my dad in lake county..so its nothing he can't do with the suv in stock form just want to upgrade a few things

just some nicer wheels with bigger tires, a lift if needed to fit said wheels/tires and of course brakes...what can be done anyways? Both of us are new to the chevy truck/suv stuff so I don't know anything haha

Thanks for any help

 

if that's the case, then i would recommend a set of tires that are slighty more agressive than what's currently on.

and i would skip the lift, brakes, etc.

one big problem, or issue with going with bigger tires is that it throws off the gearing of the vehicle.

let's say the tahoe came with 33" tires and wants 35" or bigger. that's gonna affect the overall performance of the truck. plus it will throw the speedo and/or odometer off. granted buying a small black box will correct the electronic speedo, but not the performance.

i would add better brake pads for just better braking.

when you start talking lift, unfortunately with chevy IFS front ends, it's like a minimum $1500 plus hacking a few pieces of the frame so you kinda CANT go back to stock...

you can do a poor man's lift if the front end runs a torsion bar. then throw an add-a-leaf in the rear for a MILD lift.

 

thanks for the advice..so he sent me this link saying he wants it something like this but with different wheels

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/236055...hevrolet-tahoe

says 3" lift and 35" tires, now where to start with this?

 

I could build you something like this

 

haha if i ever want one ill let you know, but thats a bit extreme for my brother and his goals haha