OT Buyin' a Ford PU

If you want better mileage, go with a Chevy or GMC. I've had both Ford  & GM and am sticking with GM and haven't had any problems at all, and I pull large trailers.  Ofcourse if you want to get to your destinations faster buy a Toyota....LOL

I had a '97 and a '00 F150 with the 4.6.  Gas mileage was a bit of a disappointment and power was not impressive.  Friends of mine with the 5.4 got about the same mileage and had lots more power.  Also I heard at that time anyway that the 4.6L had an even lighter duty trans than the 5.4....not sure if that is true.  Biggest problem I had with the trucks was hauling any weight at all really put the back end low.  My '00 had the trailer towing package and that didn't help.  Brakes weren't all that great either.

Owned a ford once.  That was enough of that.  Owned three chevys since.  Other than brake problems, pretty good trucks.  Bil

I work for a local water plant we have both Ford and GM. I like the ford seats but they ride like a log wagon GMs ride better and burn less gas a lot less. It is interesting to watch but I have noticed when people leave in the morning the Fords are always choose last even though they are newer. Most would rather have A GM but we get the lowest bidder. Both have there own problems but the poor mileage on the Fords is the main complaint.

Freewheelin I learned along time ago, go bigger than what you think you'll ever need. I'd get at least a 3/4 ton with bigger motor and brakes. These trucks are built alot heavier and it will pay off in the long run. There may be a difference in price but to me it is wotrth it.

The one thing I really don't like about the new F150's, the bed depth. Yeah, it looks cool but it sucks to get something out of it because of how high they are.  And if you ever want to tow a gooseneck trailer, you love it when the trailer smashes the high sides.  

My dad has a 97 2wd with a 4.6 and an automatic on the farm, it rides good, has decent power for a half ton, and it is as tough as nails. The truck has 220,000 miles and all we put in it is brakes, alternatorand serpintine belt, oh and a seat. it gets about 17 mpg empty.  It as firestone ride rite air bags on the back and it has been used like a 3/4 ton as long as we have had it. i strongly sugest putting  a set of air bags under it, its easy, fairly cheap, and makes pulling trailer much safer.  My dad likes driving it better than his super duty.

My wife has an 06 Ford F150 extended cab short box 2 wheel drive with 3.55? gear ratio and the 4.6 liter engine.  It is her work truck that she gets to drive home, fairly stripped down, power nothing.  I think all it has is cruise and air conditioning.  She drives alot of miles with it and has 131000 miles on it so far.  All I can remember going wrong on it so far is front ball joints and I believe it was an intake manifold gasket which went bad and was leaking coolant into the engine.  Other then that just brakes, oil changes and tires.  She does mostly highway miles driving with it from rock quarry to rock quarry and then drives around the quarry bumping and bouncing around getting stone samples(hence why it needed ball joints already).   Her work has a fleet service that keeps track of her mileage and I think the last time she checked she got the best mileage in her fleet with an average of 16.5 for the life of the vehicle.  We don't do any towing with it at all as it didn't come with a trailer hitch so it has been mostly hauling around us on the weekends and stone samples during the week with anywhere from nothing to 7-800 lbs. of stone samples in the back.  It's been a very good truck I think.  Her company buys nothing but Ford trucks.  They run around like what she does for the first 3-4 years, then she hands it down to one of her other employees to collect stone samples, then once it gets up in the 200K plus range, they put them in the quarries just to drive around until they die.  I bought a 94 from there once with the iron duke straight six.  Silent bidding, I got it for 200 bucks.  Drove it as our farm truck and to do sidejobs with for about two years, and then sold it for 1000 to a neighbor down the road.  He drives past every Saturday to go to the dump and honks and waves as it's still going strong.  As far as I'm concerned, Ford knows how to build a truck.   

Brian Jasper co. Ia wrote: Other than that, there are 2 kinds of Ford trucks. The first have had ball joints put in them, and the rest that need ball joints put in them. Pretty much can plan on replacing them between 50K to 75K.

Edited by Denis in MI - 01 Feb 2010 at 8:04pm

Freewheelin wrote: I'm looking at buying a new F150 and I'd appreciate input from current owners.  Most of my miles are highway.  All I pull is a 16.5' aluminum boat and my allis tractors to shows on a car hauler. Biggest is a D17.  I'm looking at a 2010 XLT, reg. cab, 8' box, 2WD.  I'm thinking of getting the 4.6 3-valve engine w/6-speed auto and 3:31 gears.  Book says towing capacity is 8,000 lbs.   Any feedback on mileage, reliability, likes & disllike, and, of course, plain old opinions :) would be appreciated.  Thanks..

Spend a little extra and go with a Cummins (DODGE) I have went through 4 of them and cant wear them out. 1 st one had 26x,xxx miles and hauled whatever I could get on gooseneck. Its still going only major work was a clutch when it had 205,000 miles. Just my two cents.

Brian, whats wrong with the 6.4?

Must be something wrong with them if Ford is dumping Powerjoke I mean Stroke.

I had an 05 F150 supercrew new, 5.4 auto, 3.55 gear, I think it had a 7800 lb towing capacity. It was a great truck, the only thing I would have changed was the gears to 3.73. I towed tractors, 4 sleds to the hunting camp, down the the snowmobile trail. I even surprised a lot of guys at the pulls. I put a K&N filter in it, and should have put an aftermarket muffler on it. I put 265x70x17 mud tires on it when we first got it, and that hurt the mileage a bit. On a long hiway trip, 1000 + miles in the snow and rain, with the mud tires it got 19.5 MPG. It would average 18. Now that is imperial gallons. When the lease was up we turned it back in and leased a Honda Ridgeline for my wife, so I could get a 1 ton. Still wish I had it back. I would not go with the 3.31 gears if you are going to haul anything. Just my experience and .02.

I have two 6.4's that need high pressure fuel pumps as we speak. I think they might have fixed the head gasket problems, egr cooler problems, and turbo problems, but the high pressure pumps tend to shred themselves and ruin all of the injectors. Radiators leak too. The good news is it took 3hrs to raise the cab on the first one I did. I'm down to an hour to raise a cab now. One of the owners was complaining that it was taking so long to get his truck fixed. Ford is the main problem there as they require prior approval on all of the large diesel problems and have tied up both trucks I have for 10 days so far without giving an answer. My response was, "How many Duramax's do you see in here?" When they do come in, 99.9% are oil and filter changes. Clogged filters on them just make them run poor. Clogged filters on Fords usually take injectors and pumps out.