Avalanche, Chevy style!

[Grant Lamontagne]

I love the Chevy Avalanche- it is a cool pickup version of one of my all time favorite trucks, the Suburban.  The Avalanche features a small bed, but with a few minutes of effort can be converted to a full sized truck bed.  It also features storage in the fender wells, and looks pretty cool while doing all of that.



I was tempted to buy one of these instead of ordering a Jeep, but in the end decided that something that big was probably more than I needed, and now that I live in Ottawa I am glad I didn't as there is barely enough room to get my Jeep between the buildings and into the parking lot!   

But hey, this isn't a thread about the truck, this is a thread about a cheap multitool I got that recently at a flea market that just happens to have the Chevrolet bowtie on it and AVALANCHE spelled out in big white letters.



See?  I told you so.



It's a typical butterfly opening, plier based multitool with a plastic cover over the handles.  The plastic cover doesn't seem to do anything but serve as a place to put the Chevrolet Avalanche logo, and even worse, they seem to be quite loose.  As you can see from the following photos, the plastic covers slide at least 1/8" around on the sheet metal frame.





Inside this tool features typical cheapo multitool fare- a knife blade, awl, small rounded off screwdriver, medium rounded off screwdriver/bottle opener combo, can opener, fish scaler, another small rounded off flathead and a barely passable Phillips driver.





I wouldn't want to count on this to get me back on the road in th event of mechanical trouble, but I suppose it would be better than nothing.  Almost.  This is not usually an indicator of quality:



This multitool does come with a sheath, although it isn't much better than the tool itself- it's basically a thin nylon/leatherette sort of thing, similar to the cheap ones Leatherman used to issue with the Kick/Fuse/Blast models, only much, much worse.



It's so flimsy I have to wonder if teh paint splotch on it is structural.   

All in all this is not the kind of tool I would normally pick up.  I'd have a quick look at it to make sure it isn't anything of interest, then toss it back in the pile, but as this one says AVALANCHE on it, and since the previous owner included it with the butane stove that I bought, I wasn't going to say no.

Def

[zoidberg]

Multitool and butane stove, check.

[italophil]

Nice truck and interesting tool! GM had nicer multitools too. There is a Hummer branded version of the original Leatherman Wave that come in an optional on-board first aid / tool kit. I have one somewhere in storage.

[Grant Lamontagne]

If anyone here has a Chevy Avalanche, let me know and I'll pop this one in the mail for you.

If you are nice enough to post a pic of your truck I'll go one better and put your address on the envelope!   

Def

[cody6268]

What surprises me is the number of Ford advertising SAKs I've seen. GM has had a few nice promos done, primarily the old Zippo ad knives, but for the most part, the Chevy promos I've seen are this inexpensive MT.   I think I've seen one with "Like a Rock" on it.  I had one like this I found at a farm supply store for a buck, albeit it was basically an LM Mini plus scissors. It was crap, and you could pop those covers off easy.

[Aloha]

I had an 04 Z66.  Great truck till my block gave me issues.  Guess there was some known machining issues. 

[jaya_man]

There are Jeep MTs too...




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[italophil]

Nice truck and interesting tool! GM had nicer multitools too. There is a Hummer branded version of the original Leatherman Wave that come in an optional on-board first aid / tool kit. I have one somewhere in storage.

Found it again!