Roman and Tommy, the father and son team of the YouTube channel The Fast Lane Truck, have an interesting story to tell. It begins with them trading their long-term Ford F-150 Lightning for a GMC Hummer EV. It’s a completely electric truck that is supposed to be state-of-the-art, but it’s not without its flaws. It went into complete fail mode in the middle of the road, and that does not make for good commercial material.
Roman was driving. Tommy came along later after getting the call that the brand-new $115,000 GMC Hummer EV was broken down in the middle of the road. They had only made the trade a day before when Roman was taking it for a spin and getting footage. Then the truck alerted him that it needed to go to the dealer for servicing.
It already needed servicing within one day of leaving the lot?
GMC Hummer EV about to get towed
Luckily for Roman, a police officer pulled up behind him and put on his lights to signal other drivers who were on the busy highway. Tommy showed up to see what he could do to help the situation, but the towing company driver who soon arrived had no idea what he was getting into when he parked in front of the Hummer. He definitely didn’t expect to be on camera, talking to one of the celebrities of a YouTube channel.
Leroy the tow-truck driver got out of his vehicle and started straight to work, but Roman had to let him know what was in store. First of all, the Hummer is 9,000 lbs. That’s not light at all and some cables on a winch wouldn’t think of pulling that onto the back of a flatbed. That wasn’t the only thing. Because Roman couldn’t get the truck out of park, that would make this endeavor an even greater challenge.
That’s a no-go on the tow
With Leroy hanging around, Tommy and Roman went through the owner’s manual to try different things. They learned how to open the hood, which isn’t as easy as it seems. Once under the hood, they disconnected the battery which was their way of rebooting. That seemed to offer them some help.
The best part was the steps they had to go through to get the system to unlock. It was like a video game they had to play with a bizarre set of instructions:
- Press brake for 20 seconds
- Open then close driver window
- Open then close passenger window
- Open then close left rear window
- Open then close right rear window
- Open then close passenger window again
- Press brake for 20 seconds
The dash computer alerted them that the system was unlocked, and they were able to put it in drive. Leroy, standing around with his hands in his pockets, was left with nothing to do, but he probably gave them a bill anyway for his time. It’s only reasonable since his time had been wasted.
Tommy then drove the Hummer straight to the dealer. Of course, it’s things like this that are going to make the technology in cars better in the future. It’s just an inconvenience that these are the issues new owners are experiencing now.