How to convince my wife to modify my 4Runner?

I tend to be pretty practical and somewhat frugal in my day-to-day life. Rarely do I make $500+ purchases for myself. So when I actually want something, I usually don't get a ton of pushback from the wife.

I would have that rear bumper by now if I could talk myself into spending the cash rather than investing it.
 
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Marriage, divorce, and mistress jokes aside, wives have a point that modified vehicles are shit in every day use compared to stock in matters such as ingress and egress, loading, handling, ride comfort, and NVH. Even if you have a really expensive suspension that rides better than stock, like me, she's probably not going to like the slick sliders ruining her pants or getting her legs dirty or how the off road tires drone on the highway or how she has to climb into and fall out of the damn thing.

If this is a common use family vehicle, then modding it and making it less family friendly is dumb.

Armor mods also don't make a modern vehicle "safer," they are designed for slow impacts and scrapes on the trail, not mitigating damage by crumpling.

You either need a wife who is cool with all this stuff because she's just as into it as you are or, much more likely, have your own truck to mod that she doesn't have to use as a DD almost ever. But try not to make the family truckster into a Rubicon rig.
 
Explain to your wife that this is a hobby that you're passionate about, and just like you support her interests and hobbies (which I hope you do), you'd really like it if she was cool with you putting some expendable income into something that will bring you a lot of enjoyment and happiness. That's about all you can say, and she's either gonna understand or she isn't; if she doesn't understand then either live with it or get a divorce. :banana:
 
I feel personally attacked.

Lol right?

In your defense, a buddy of mine, modded with big lift and wheels, goes wheeling with his wife and gradeschool kids. No sliders or running boards. He just tosses the kids in.

Moral of the story: have some passion; involve your family. Who knows; they might be into it too.
 
I tend to be pretty practical and somewhat frugal in my day-to-day life. Rarely do I make $500+ purchases for myself. So when I actually want something, I usually don't get a ton of pushback from the wife.

I would have that rear bumper by now if I could talk myself into spending the cash rather than investing it.

:iagree:
 
Lol right?

In your defense, a buddy of mine, modded with big lift and wheels, goes wheeling with his wife and gradeschool kids. No sliders or running boards. He just tosses the kids in.

Moral of the story: have some passion; involve your family. Who knows; they might be into it too.

We have taken the 4runner on a few trips with the family and my wife finally realized why I wanted a 4runner and how capable it is.

I try to space out my mods but she has shot down a suspension upgrade for 2 years. I finally pitched it as my xmas/bday gift and that there was a great sale for BF and she said YES!

She knows I am passionate about wheeling and my truck and she supports it as long as I dont spend too much money. Gonna have to wait a bit for a hybrid front bumper and rear tire swing out LOL
 
Explain to your wife that this is a hobby that you're passionate about, and just like you support her interests and hobbies (which I hope you do), you'd really like it if she was cool with you putting some expendable income into something that will bring you a lot of enjoyment and happiness. That's about all you can say, and she's either gonna understand or she isn't; if she doesn't understand then either live with it or get a divorce. :banana:

This can work, as long as you don't have multiple expensive hobbies.... Don't ask how I know
 
Tires/lift are the easy ones. "Dang, honey, these OE tires are a joke. I slip all over in the rain. While we're at it, may as well just get a lift because you're buying tires anyway."

Or, just order what you want and work hard for because you're a grown a** human.
 
Don't know what to tell you, man. I got the stink eye and a sternly irritated "I don't think so" when I casually told my wife that for Christmas I wanted a newer model, low-mileage Tundra that had severe rear end damage so I could take the engine and transmission out if it and put in our 4Runner. I thought she'd be happy I didn't ask to spend more money by purchasing all of those parts new... :laugh:
 
This can work, as long as you don't have multiple expensive hobbies.... Don't ask how I know

I guess I'm in the unique situation of both having expensive hobbies (cars and watches) and being the 'responsible' one in the relationship. My wife is constantly egging me on to do more mods on our cars and I'm typically the one to play the responsibility card. :)
 
We have taken the 4runner on a few trips with the family and my wife finally realized why I wanted a 4runner and how capable it is.

I try to space out my mods but she has shot down a suspension upgrade for 2 years. I finally pitched it as my xmas/bday gift and that there was a great sale for BF and she said YES!

She knows I am passionate about wheeling and my truck and she supports it as long as I dont spend too much money. Gonna have to wait a bit for a hybrid front bumper and rear tire swing out LOL

Congrats, brother!

I haven’t had enough trips under my belt but I try to show her videos of 4runners gracefully traversing the snow or submarining across rivers.

If only I can convince her the rear-tire swing out function trumps the “eye-sore-to-her” aesthetic.
 
I guess I'm in the unique situation of both having expensive hobbies (cars and watches) and being the 'responsible' one in the relationship. My wife is constantly egging me on to do more mods on our cars and I'm typically the one to play the responsibility card. :)

she gets to buy all the lululemon while i wear free promo tshirts that no1 wants.
 
Actually take the 4runner (and the wife, ha) on some trails or light off-roading. Get her involved in a way that she can see the immediate benefits of some mods. Don't go on your own and get stuck, because then the response will be to stick to paved roads. Try to access parts of nature that are worth the effort, and perhaps she'll see the benefits too.

Does it snow where you live? A set of AT tires are "almost" as good as actual snow tires.

The problem with this (and this was the approach that I started with) is that the 4 runner is so capable out of the box that she was actually more opposed to modding. After taking an off-roading class about a year after we bought the vehicle we did agree on skids and sliders to protect it.

We have taken the 4runner on a few trips with the family and my wife finally realized why I wanted a 4runner and how capable it is.

I try to space out my mods but she has shot down a suspension upgrade for 2 years. I finally pitched it as my xmas/bday gift and that there was a great sale for BF and she said YES!

She knows I am passionate about wheeling and my truck and she supports it as long as I dont spend too much money. Gonna have to wait a bit for a hybrid front bumper and rear tire swing out LOL

I agree the capability is part of the issue if you're a "mod for need" type. Almost 6 years and 90+k on the clock and still running the OEM suspension...only addition was air bags for towing our camping trailer. I've been waiting for a suspension fail for a while but it just keeps plugging along. I know once we upgrade it will be an epiphany on "wow, this what we were missing", as we do put on a lot of hard miles, off-road and don't travel light, but haven't "needed" it yet.
 
Wife and I split the bills (now that she makes nearly as much as me).
As long as the bills are paid on time and we have food, buy what you want with the money you earned.
I bought sliders to replace the nerf/steps (sliders should be done soon). Went offroading and scraped a nerf/step. "See honey, that won't happen with sliders".
A few years back I got a great deal on a compound bow, she had bought a (pos) horse trailer. Both cost the same. She started to say something about how much I spent. I pointed out it was as much as she spent. "Happy anniversary, we both got what we wanted". I then went back to work on her horse trailer.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
I guess I'm in the unique situation of both having expensive hobbies (cars and watches) and being the 'responsible' one in the relationship. My wife is constantly egging me on to do more mods on our cars and I'm typically the one to play the responsibility card. :)

*shrug* I'm responsible as well and our bills are always paid, but she constantly reminds me that I have too many hobbies and how much they cost. Either they get it or they don't
 

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