Ford Trucks?

[spidernut]

I teach a car buying seminar to help people through these decisions. Here are my recommendations:

Check out Consumer Reports Buyer's Guide at your local library. It is the best and most comprehensive consumer survey on vehicle reliability. Look specifically at the repair records. They will give you an idea on what components are potential trouble spots.

Check out http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/complaints/ The National Highway Traffic and Safety Adminstration has this section where you can look at what complaints other consumers have filed with the Federal Government. It also offers a look at technical service bulletins and recalls.

If buying new, use the "Get Quotes" tab at http://www.kbb.com and the "Get a Free Price Quote" at http://www.edmunds.com. Once you have two or three quotes, start calling the dealerships who sent the quotes and see if they'll beat their competition's prices. I have found this to be the best way to get the absolute lowest price. Most dealers will start at factory invoice up to $1,000 over factory invoice on very high demand vehicles. Either way, you can usually get them below factory invoice due to dealer cash and factory holdback (both incentives to the dealerships for units sold).

My family is big into trucks. My father-in-law liked his Ford F150, but he bought the small V8 and towed trailers with it. He kept burning valves in the #8 cylinder. Otherwise, it was flawless. He replaced it with a Dodge RAM with the Cummins diesel. He had some minor problems with fuel system linkage and had no other problems at all. It was a towing workhorse! He replaced it with the new Dodge RAM crewcab, shortbed, 4 wheel drive. It has never been in the shop for repairs. It gets better fuel mileage than the other trucks, rides better, is more comfortable, and has more power. My brother bought the Silverado. It, too, has been flawless. He tows a ski boat with it and has had absolutely no repairs thus far.

Hope that helps.

[MNspiderman]

Well ya need to step up to the plate and go with a ford f450 or higher. quit playing with the boy toys. I have a Ford F590F Super Duty Diesel, I love it, never a problem so far. Go bigger than a typical one ton and the parts are super duty, last a lifetime and are close to indestructible. Thats how I see it. Besides its great to know nobody has a bigger truck than yours.

[rlux4]

Oh great. Just when I had myself convinced that size didn't matter.
Ron

[narfire]

So I don't really need another heavy duty truck or 4X4 since those are already covered. I will really just be using it to drive 120 miles round trip each day the range is open and some lite hauling around the range.

F-150 2WD longbox extra cab. You choose the colour though

ps How do you like your sub? I've had several over the years for work reasons and did find them great trucks but thirsty.

[mdrburchette]

Yeah, how about that 2500 Suburban? I love mine. It's got enough umph to pull my trailers and enough room for the kids not to kill each other on long trips. Which engine is yours sporting?

[katsi]

Wow, that's a lot of info. Kinda puts you right back at ground zero . I would only say that Ford and Chevy have both been making trucks for a long time and I think both companies have got it right. Dodge too has a nice product. Personally, when it comes to trucks, I just refuse to go forign. Although, the tundra is a nice truck - Just seems wrong to purchase a forign truck. All of them have their horror stories. But, they all have more success stories. I'd say go with the best value and what fits your wallet the best. Chances are - no matter which one you choose any of the three choices is going to serve you well.

Good luck.

Here is something to ponder. I personally never had ANY desire to purchase a used or pre owned vehicle. I tend to take really good care of my vehicles and they all seem to run for a long time. Yet, everytime I finish a series of payments, I go right out and purchase another car and never take in a trade (yes, our fleet is really growing - my neighbors always ask me how many cars I have). I don't really know why. I guess one car payment is tollerable. Anyway, this last time I went to car-max. I ended up getting the vehicle my wife and I wanted with EVERY POSSIBLE option and we got it at a REALLY great price. It took about 2 months of searching for the exact deal but, we got it. It's still under factory warranty and it only had 24K on it. The price was so great, I went ahead and purchased the extended bumper to bumper warranty that will take us over 100K and 1 year past the payment period and still came in $2,600.00 under what I expected to pay for this particular vehicle used. The warranty was only $2,250.00 and I figured that that was tollerable due to the fact that it covered ALL the electronics for the extended 6 years or 75K (The car is a 2007 with power everything and the extended does not kick in untill after the factory warranty is up). I figure that the TV system will go in 6 years and the warranty will atlest pay for itself. Anyway, my point is - go ahead and give Car-Max a shot. It's easy and hastle free. I will never again purchas a car off a car lot the old fashoned way. The experience was great and you just search for the deal you want. I did the whole thing over the computer and just went in for the test drive. Gave them my loan info from my bank and went home. About 3 hours later, they delivered our new van to the house all cleaned and gassed up. 3K miles and 4 months later - no problems or hastles.

[Gunsmith]

The Suburban has the 454 ci gas cooled engine. It does run great and tows the 31' boat with no problem but it is a thirsty machine. I don't know if we could ever not have a Suburban in the house.

As far as buying a truck the old fashioned way goes I really don't usually do that. I normally went straight to the top of the food chain of the dealership before I went in. Fortunately because I had a business with a fleet of trucks I had pretty good buying power which also crossed over to the personal vehicles. But I haven't had a fleet now for about 10 years and all my old contacts are gone. Can you believe car dealerships have turn over? Anyways since I am buying a one off instead of 5 or 6 at a shot I was just wondering what the numbers where out there before I started abusing some poor newbie at the stealership. Although I will probably just go to the auction and see if I can find what I am looking for there. The main thing was I was wondering if there were any horror stories out there about the Fords before I bit the bullet on one.

Note:
No intended or unintended offensive remarks were made in this post about car dealerships, their employees or products. If such offense was taken it is solely on the part of the offendee to have taken it offensive and the author of this post takes no responsibility for the offendees desire to take this post as offensive. A grain of salt must be taken prior to reading any post by this author. If the reader refuses to take said grain of salt prior to reading posts made by the author the reader takes full responsibility for his or her or whatevers desire to be offended.

[mdrburchette]

My Suburban has the 454 too. Gas mileage isn't the greatest, but better than a 3/4 ton with a 350. Even though I don't use it unless I need to and it sits most of it's life, I wouldn't consider getting rid of it either....which is a good thing, cuz I doubt anyone's in a market for a big block heavy old Chevy.
I don't know much about the F150s except to say there are two places the Ford trucks are built: Detroit builds the F150s and some F250s and Tennessee builds the F250 Super Duty and F350. Makes a big difference if you were going to use the truck for more than basic transportation. Have you considered a smaller scale vehicle like the Chevy Colorado?

[Gunsmith]

No I really don't want to go smaller than the F150 and the Colorado is still a good looking truck but too small and back to Government Motors.

[spiderrey]

We went to car max about a month ago. Girlfriends daughter had her car totalled on the fwy. It needed to be replaced, and it needed to be bigger. Pretty smooth experience and good deal. She picked up a Mazda cx7. She has a child and needed the extra room. As they filled out the paperwork, I was drooling on the turbo Solstice.

[So Cal Mark]

the horror stories with Fords are mostly related to spark plug threads failing. Visit a Ford forum and decide for yourself. Personally I wouldn't buy one, because I've seen the results and the difficulty in repairing them

[pooldoctorstl]

Stay away from the Ford diesels unless it is an older one with a 7.3. I have 3 of them (2003, 2004 and a 2005) all with the 6.0 diesel and we have had the dreaded EGR cooler anti freeze leak on ALL of them, AFTER the 100,000 mile warranty ran out and Ford wouldn't do anything. In fact, the 2005 was at a dealer with 95,000 on it because it was using anti-freeze and they said there was nothing wrong, then back in the same dealer at 102,000 and they said it needed head gaskets and wouldn't fix it under warranty because it was over 100,000 miles. They quoted us $4,000 to fix it and I got an independent shop to do it for $2,500. The Ford zone manager won't talk to us, and the dealer just refers us to Ford. Our attorney is reviewing it right now and we might file suit against Ford because it was in with the problem documented before the 100,000 mile warranty expired.

Ask anyone with a 6.0 Ford diesel how many injectors they have had replaced. If the truck has over 100,000 miles on it, probably at least 3 and they are not cheap.

Don't believe me? Just do a google search on 6.0 diesel problems. I just traided my 2004 Excursion because the 3rd EGR cooler started leaking and I wasn't spending another $1,500 on it. I traded it on a new VW Jetta turbo diesel (great car).

As for the F-150, I have 2 that are 2007s with the 5.4 gas motor and they are great.

DON'T BUY A NEW FORD DIESEL!!!

[mdrburchette]

Mine's an 04 with the dreaded 6.0L diesel. So far, after several visits to various dealerships, Ford replaced the PCM and we haven't had any problems out of it. But, the 6.0 is the worse one they ever made. Too much boost, causing bottom end problems, and the EGR coolant problem locking the engine up have been big setbacks. I just paid $1000 for an 03 to be towed all the way home from Houston because of coolant spewing and this truck had the engine rebuilt for the very same reason $8,000 and 2 years ago. I sold the truck to a mechanic friend who caught the problem before it was too bad, and was able to repair it for $1500. I thought the new 6.4L was better, but nothing will beat the 7.3.

[htchevyii]

I work across the parking lot from a Ford dealership and there is always at least one truck sitting there with the cab off. Apparently that's the easiest way to change those 6.0 head gaskets.

[azygoustoyou]

Too bad you weren't closer. I have a 2006 XLT F-150 5.4 Triton in excellent shape, 4x4 extra cab I think they call it with @48000 miles and no dings I'd sell you. It has lots of extra's including 22's with tires, custom grill, dvd, tow package, and a Retrax retractable hard top.