Cheaper yes, but chequer plate grips the ground when off road
need to use the smooth side and 8mm plate, anything less and you're wasting your time when you hit a nice hard rock!!
Thank you. I will go with thinner aluminum, because wife's Hippo will never go off road. Some gravel (on the ranch), and CA roads that are full of "gators" (that's what local truckers call the recap rubber falling of the truck tire!), rocks, and other garbage. I need some light protection from her running over that stuff, and messing up the props/VCU. Ideally,.....I'd like to enclose the whole underside of the car, all the way back.
She is a GOOD driver, but due to the local driving conditions, it's sometimes impossible to swerve, change the lane, and avoid the obstacle. When you are doing 80+mph, have cars on your right, concrete wall on your left (if you are in the left lane), and hundreds of cars on your rear bumper, you might be faced with a split second decision: going over (whatever is laying in your lane), or slamming on the brakes, and get rearended. In this area, most freeways don't have the left shoulder. If the cop is pulling you over (and you are in the left most lane), you have to work your way through all the lanes to your right (sometimes six of them!), to get to the right shoulder. Even in the rare places that have the left shoulder, it's ILLEGAL for you to pull over on that shoulder if the cop is on your tail!
If the cardboard boxes are on the freeway, it's easy (although they can get wedged by the prop too!), but seeing a matteress, rocking chair, a COUCH (!!), or other furniture, is also pretty common.
Since MOST CA drivers do other things behind the wheel (besides driving), slamming on the brakes is dangerous (the other day I observed a guy shaving behind the wheel at 80+mph!).
And I am cautious for a reason. Two years ago, she was in her Wrangler, had to slam on the brakes (there was a steel safe that fell off the truck in her lane!!), and she was rearended by a pickup truck. Her neck has never been the same since.
