Fords are junk

[Dieseldonato]

I'll echo the sentiment that they are all junk when broken. I just recently bought a vehicle with under 200k on the clock and had to do a bunch of work to it. Everything else I own is 20+ years old and clse to or over 300k miles. Not really because I like old vehicles, just what I (wife and i) can afford. My brother in law works for a chevy dealer down in lancaster, and I can tell you from the stories he tells me, there's no way in heck I'd own a chevy from 2016 or newer, especially any pickups. Worst part is he'll tell me about a common issue they have (he pretty much only works on the diesels) and flat out tries to figure out ways to blame the customer for the issue. Other stories involve nearly new vehicles sitting for months waiting on parts. Screw that.

 

[radas]

Tundras are the best. lol
I was just ranting about another stupid problem with the F150 but the reality is the only vehicles that ive owned and able to hold up to actual work are Superduty Fords.

Finally, we agree on something. No 1/2 ton out there that's built to the same level of quality. Besides their old frame rust issues, their trucks outpace the big three in all aspects.

 

[motionclone]

Finally, we agree on something. No 1/2 ton out there that's built to the same level of quality. Besides their old frame rust issues, their trucks outpace the big three in all aspects.

Tundras are just cars with a pickup body to the industries that actually use trucks. Id buy one as a commuter though if they would hold up to light duty work abuse. Wasnt long ago driving by the toy dealership seeing piles of frames..lol

 

[radas]

Tundras are just cars with a pickup body to the industries that actually use trucks. Id buy one as a commuter though if they would hold up to light duty work abuse. Wasnt long ago driving by the toy dealership seeing piles of frames..lol

I beg to differ, they are spec'd much better than their counterparts. Technically, all 1/2 tons don't hold a candle to 3/4 or 1 ton trucks, but Tundras are capable of similar work in a pinch lol

Thankfully the frame issue is long gone

 

[motionclone]

I beg to differ, they are spec'd much better than their counterparts. Technically, all 1/2 tons don't hold a candle to 3/4 or 1 ton trucks, but Tundras are capable of similar work in a pinch lol

Thankfully the frame issue is long gone

Guys with real trucks snicker at those that fell for that kind of sales pitch..lol
Im sure your tundra is great but its no work truck.

 

[Lil Foot]

HOW have you kept a 6.0 power stroke on the road for 220k? You must be rich!

Actually it has been a great, hard working, reliable, & fast truck, that I don't baby at all.
I have not had all the problems I hear about on 6.0s, so maybe I just got one that was assembled by a crew who all got some the night before.
The truck would have been even more amazing from the start, if I could keep it away from Ford dealers.

At 30K miles I took it to the dealer for the 30k service, and left the next morning early, pulling my 32ft 5th wheel. Drove straight thru to south Idaho, only to discover the entire engine compartment, underside of the truck, and underside of the trailer dripping with oil. I knew the owner of the local Ford dealership, so I took it there.
He found when they changed the oil in AZ, they put 15qts in, without draining the old 15qts out. It blew every seal & gasket in the engine. He drained it down to a reasonable level, documented it for Ford corporate, and told me to drive the out of it, because I was getting a new engine anyway.

When I got back to AZ, they first tried to deny overfilling it would hurt anything.
After a long, loud discussion, the service manager tried to physically throw me out of his office.
When he got up off the floor, the owner of the dealership fired him, and said he would make the truck right.
It took 8 tries over about 9 weeks, but they finally sealed it up. Exactly 13 days out of warranty, it began leaking again.
I put up with it for a while, then I finally took it to my independent Ford diesel only mechanic, who pulled, dis-assembled, inspected and resealed the engine. It has not leaked a drop since, about 120+K miles.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Some years after that episode, I had installed a 60gal replacement fuel tank, so I had more range when pulling the fifth wheel across the country.
On a vacation trip, we were in Durango, CO, and the truck was due for an oil change.
This was on a Friday, and we had to be back in Phoenix on Monday, so that I could go back to work, and the wife could start her new job.
I went to the local Ford dealership and scheduled an oil change, telling them my earlier oil change story, so they would understand my nervousness about this visit to the dealer.
They assured me that their techs were all pros, and that sort of thing just could not happen at this dealership.
About 20 minutes later, they asked me to step out to the service bays, where I immediately smelled diesel.
Yep, when they put the truck on the lift, they put one of the flip up supports under the plastic fuel tank, punching a 4"x 5" hole in it, dumping the entire 60gals I had just put in.

They assured me it would be fixed that same day, at no charge, as it was 100% their fault.
I was amazed that they had a 60gal SuperTank in stock, and told them so.
They then announced that they didn't, and were putting a used, stock 29gal tank in it.

Well, we had another long, loud discussion about it, and they finally called the owner in from home. After another long discussion, they finally agreed to put the 60gal tank in, and have it overnighted, so they could install it Saturday.
Trouble was that we wasted so much time arguing about it, we missed their shipping window, and would have to wait till Monday. So they had to buy us 2 more days at the campground, then another 2 nights in a motel. And of course a rental car for the duration.
On Monday, the bought a new tank, ($2000+), had it overnighted, ($2000+), and installed it Tuesday morning. (more$$$)
The final argument was when they gave me the truck back with 5gals in the tank. Another short, loud argument, and they filled it.
The truck has not been to a Ford dealership since.
Sorry for the long post, hopefully someone will get a kick out of it.

 

[lynnmor]

My Ford dealer wasn't able to do an oil change properly, here is a brake inspection photo:

 

[fried1765]

Actually it has been a great, hard working, reliable, & fast truck, that I don't baby at all.
I have not had all the problems I hear about on 6.0s, so maybe I just got one that was assembled by a crew who all got some the night before.
The truck would have been even more amazing from the start, if I could keep it away from Ford dealers.

At 30K miles I took it to the dealer for the 30k service, and left the next morning early, pulling my 32ft 5th wheel. Drove straight thru to south Idaho, only to discover the entire engine compartment, underside of the truck, and underside of the trailer dripping with oil. I knew the owner of the local Ford dealership, so I took it there.
He found when they changed the oil in AZ, they put 15qts in, without draining the old 15qts out. It blew every seal & gasket in the engine. He drained it down to a reasonable level, documented it for Ford corporate, and told me to drive the out of it, because I was getting a new engine anyway.

When I got back to AZ, they first tried to deny overfilling it would hurt anything.
After a long, loud discussion, the service manager tried to physically throw me out of his office.
When he got up off the floor, the owner of the dealership fired him, and said he would make the truck right.
It took 8 tries over about 9 weeks, but they finally sealed it up. Exactly 13 days out of warranty, it began leaking again.
I put up with it for a while, then I finally took it to my independent Ford diesel only mechanic, who pulled, dis-assembled, inspected and resealed the engine. It has not leaked a drop since, about 120+K miles.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Some years after that episode, I had installed a 60gal replacement fuel tank, so I had more range when pulling the fifth wheel across the country.
On a vacation trip, we were in Durango, CO, and the truck was due for an oil change.
This was on a Friday, and we had to be back in Phoenix on Monday, so that I could go back to work, and the wife could start her new job.
I went to the local Ford dealership and scheduled an oil change, telling them my earlier oil change story, so they would understand my nervousness about this visit to the dealer.
They assured me that their techs were all pros, and that sort of thing just could not happen at this dealership.
About 20 minutes later, they asked me to step out to the service bays, where I immediately smelled diesel.
Yep, when they put the truck on the lift, they put one of the flip up supports under the plastic fuel tank, punching a 4"x 5" hole in it, dumping the entire 60gals I had just put in.

They assured me it would be fixed that same day, at no charge, as it was 100% their fault.
I was amazed that they had a 60gal SuperTank in stock, and told them so.
They then announced that they didn't, and were putting a used, stock 29gal tank in it.

Well, we had another long, loud discussion about it, and they finally called the owner in from home. After another long discussion, they finally agreed to put the 60gal tank in, and have it overnighted, so they could install it Saturday.
Trouble was that we wasted so much time arguing about it, we missed their shipping window, and would have to wait till Monday. So they had to buy us 2 more days at the campground, then another 2 nights in a motel. And of course a rental car for the duration.
On Monday, the bought a new tank, ($2000+), had it overnighted, ($2000+), and installed it Tuesday morning. (more$$$)
The final argument was when they gave me the truck back with 5gals in the tank. Another short, loud argument, and they filled it.
The truck has not been to a Ford dealership since.
Sorry for the long post, hopefully someone will get a kick out of it.
View attachment 84451

What a horror story!
At nearly 82, I still do my own oil changes!

 

[Fordtech86]

HOW have you kept a 6.0 power stroke on the road for 220k? You must be rich!

I have 237k on mine, but I know a guy only problem with the truck is it’s from the north so the body is fairly rusted.

 

[lugbolt]

Mine's a 2003. 7.3. F250 CCSB lariat 4x4. I didn't drive it much until March, when I sold my little car, and the "new" (to me) one isn't going to be here until roughly Sept so I'm driving the truck. Daily. 45-50 mi a day and I hate it. It's heavy, slow, noisy, etc. It's a 3/4 ton truck. Not a real truck, real trucks have more wheels than mine.

Anyway this past week I got off the freeway on the way to work and felt an odd vibration. Faint, but it was there. Pulled into work and raised the hood to find that water pump pulley is about to fall off. Pump bearing is bad. Very bad! Babied it home, ordered a new pump assembly and while I had it in my shop I also flushed the coolant since it has some diesel in it. Injector cups are leaking, well maybe just one but nonetheless there is a leak. Been like this since I think April of this year. With my driving it daily I ain't had time to mess with it. With 240,000 miles on it, it's probably time to do the injectors too while they're out, so I ordered cups, injectors, o-rings, and a bunch of other "normal" 7.3 stuff. I have it on hand. The bad thing about diesel is that that stuff alone (excluding the $200 water pump + 8 gallons of coolant) is over $2500. If I pay someone to do it all, I'm looking at close to that in labor charges--it's a pretty big job. Time consuming, that is. I'll do it myself but not until the other car shows up, which is a thorn in my side.

Anyway I got it going and drove it thurs and fri to work. Friday, my coworker got the forklift stuck at work, actually slid down the hill (which is 28 feet). It's not terribly steep but you know it's a hill when you have to walk it, just once. They (other coworker) grabbed his 4 runner and tried to pull it back up the hill. It said heck no! I grabbed my truck, tossed it in 4 low and idled. PUlled the lift right back up to the top of the hill. Never touched the gas, didn't have to. Fork truck is 11,800 lbs (yale). Had my truck still been broken, I'm pretty sure the boss would have to try to use his Tundra, and while it will pull, would it have enough traction? My truck is right at 8,000 lbs with me in it, I'm pretty sure the tundra is about a ton or so less. Plus Tundra's are not full size, they are like 7/8 size not that it matters in pulling strength.

Those tundra's they advertise them pulling a bunch of rolling weight but what is that actual pull strength? Rolling load is a LOT less than a sliding load. For instance I use a 1500 lb winch to pull the race car into the trailer, and it is no problem for it. The car weighs a lot more than 1500 lbs but rolling load, it might be 400-500 lbs as it comes up over the ramp door. On flat smooth ground, a gust of wind will sometimes move it. So you take something like a 747, which is what? 400,000 lbs? Aircraft engineers design the wheels and such so that they roll as easy as possible, helps them take off among other things, so rolling load is probably a LOT less than actual vehicle weight, so when you see someone advertising them pulling one across the tarmac, ask yourself, how much actual pulling load is there? Same for trains, it really doesn't take as much power to pull a mile-long coal train as you would think...remember...those loco's only make maybe 4300 hp (16V710) as I recall..w.hich given how much actual weight is being pulled, that's really not that much power. Accelerating and pulling up hills is where the power is needed and even then the big diesel isn't doing the actual traction power-they are hybrid.

 

[fried1765]

Mine's a 2003. 7.3. F250 CCSB lariat 4x4. I didn't drive it much until March, when I sold my little car, and the "new" (to me) one isn't going to be here until roughly Sept so I'm driving the truck. Daily. 45-50 mi a day and I hate it. It's heavy, slow, noisy, etc. It's a 3/4 ton truck. Not a real truck, real trucks have more wheels than mine.

Anyway this past week I got off the freeway on the way to work and felt an odd vibration. Faint, but it was there. Pulled into work and raised the hood to find that water pump pulley is about to fall off. Pump bearing is bad. Very bad! Babied it home, ordered a new pump assembly and while I had it in my shop I also flushed the coolant since it has some diesel in it. Injector cups are leaking, well maybe just one but nonetheless there is a leak. Been like this since I think April of this year. With my driving it daily I ain't had time to mess with it. With 240,000 miles on it, it's probably time to do the injectors too while they're out, so I ordered cups, injectors, o-rings, and a bunch of other "normal" 7.3 stuff. I have it on hand. The bad thing about diesel is that that stuff alone (excluding the $200 water pump + 8 gallons of coolant) is over $2500. If I pay someone to do it all, I'm looking at close to that in labor charges--it's a pretty big job. Time consuming, that is. I'll do it myself but not until the other car shows up, which is a thorn in my side.

Anyway I got it going and drove it thurs and fri to work. Friday, my coworker got the forklift stuck at work, actually slid down the hill (which is 28 feet). It's not terribly steep but you know it's a hill when you have to walk it, just once. They (other coworker) grabbed his 4 runner and tried to pull it back up the hill. It said heck no! I grabbed my truck, tossed it in 4 low and idled. PUlled the lift right back up to the top of the hill. Never touched the gas, didn't have to. Fork truck is 11,800 lbs (yale). Had my truck still been broken, I'm pretty sure the boss would have to try to use his Tundra, and while it will pull, would it have enough traction? My truck is right at 8,000 lbs with me in it, I'm pretty sure the tundra is about a ton or so less. Plus Tundra's are not full size, they are like 7/8 size not that it matters in pulling strength.

Those tundra's they advertise them pulling a bunch of rolling weight but what is that actual pull strength? Rolling load is a LOT less than a sliding load. For instance I use a 1500 lb winch to pull the race car into the trailer, and it is no problem for it. The car weighs a lot more than 1500 lbs but rolling load, it might be 400-500 lbs as it comes up over the ramp door. On flat smooth ground, a gust of wind will sometimes move it. So you take something like a 747, which is what? 400,000 lbs? Aircraft engineers design the wheels and such so that they roll as easy as possible, helps them take off among other things, so rolling load is probably a LOT less than actual vehicle weight, so when you see someone advertising them pulling one across the tarmac, ask yourself, how much actual pulling load is there? Same for trains, it really doesn't take as much power to pull a mile-long coal train as you would think...remember...those loco's only make maybe 4300 hp (16V710) as I recall..w.hich given how much actual weight is being pulled, that's really not that much power. Accelerating and pulling up hills is where the power is needed and even then the big diesel isn't doing the actual traction power-they are hybrid.

747....."400,000 lbs"??
Not quite!
I have thousands of 747-400 hours.
Max gross takeoff weight is 870,000 lbs!

 

[Dieseldonato]

Mine's a 2003. 7.3. F250 CCSB lariat 4x4. I didn't drive it much until March, when I sold my little car, and the "new" (to me) one isn't going to be here until roughly Sept so I'm driving the truck. Daily. 45-50 mi a day and I hate it. It's heavy, slow, noisy, etc. It's a 3/4 ton truck. Not a real truck, real trucks have more wheels than mine.

Anyway this past week I got off the freeway on the way to work and felt an odd vibration. Faint, but it was there. Pulled into work and raised the hood to find that water pump pulley is about to fall off. Pump bearing is bad. Very bad! Babied it home, ordered a new pump assembly and while I had it in my shop I also flushed the coolant since it has some diesel in it. Injector cups are leaking, well maybe just one but nonetheless there is a leak. Been like this since I think April of this year. With my driving it daily I ain't had time to mess with it. With 240,000 miles on it, it's probably time to do the injectors too while they're out, so I ordered cups, injectors, o-rings, and a bunch of other "normal" 7.3 stuff. I have it on hand. The bad thing about diesel is that that stuff alone (excluding the $200 water pump + 8 gallons of coolant) is over $2500. If I pay someone to do it all, I'm looking at close to that in labor charges--it's a pretty big job. Time consuming, that is. I'll do it myself but not until the other car shows up, which is a thorn in my side.

Anyway I got it going and drove it thurs and fri to work. Friday, my coworker got the forklift stuck at work, actually slid down the hill (which is 28 feet). It's not terribly steep but you know it's a hill when you have to walk it, just once. They (other coworker) grabbed his 4 runner and tried to pull it back up the hill. It said heck no! I grabbed my truck, tossed it in 4 low and idled. PUlled the lift right back up to the top of the hill. Never touched the gas, didn't have to. Fork truck is 11,800 lbs (yale). Had my truck still been broken, I'm pretty sure the boss would have to try to use his Tundra, and while it will pull, would it have enough traction? My truck is right at 8,000 lbs with me in it, I'm pretty sure the tundra is about a ton or so less. Plus Tundra's are not full size, they are like 7/8 size not that it matters in pulling strength.

Those tundra's they advertise them pulling a bunch of rolling weight but what is that actual pull strength? Rolling load is a LOT less than a sliding load. For instance I use a 1500 lb winch to pull the race car into the trailer, and it is no problem for it. The car weighs a lot more than 1500 lbs but rolling load, it might be 400-500 lbs as it comes up over the ramp door. On flat smooth ground, a gust of wind will sometimes move it. So you take something like a 747, which is what? 400,000 lbs? Aircraft engineers design the wheels and such so that they roll as easy as possible, helps them take off among other things, so rolling load is probably a LOT less than actual vehicle weight, so when you see someone advertising them pulling one across the tarmac, ask yourself, how much actual pulling load is there? Same for trains, it really doesn't take as much power to pull a mile-long coal train as you would think...remember...those loco's only make maybe 4300 hp (16V710) as I recall..w.hich given how much actual weight is being pulled, that's really not that much power. Accelerating and pulling up hills is where the power is needed and even then the big diesel isn't doing the actual traction power-they are hybrid.

You must have a lot of extra weight in your truck to weigh 8k lbs.

 

[Daren Todd]

You must have a lot of extra weight in your truck to weigh 8k lbs.

Our regular cab F250 diesel weighed 7k lbs and change with the 35 gallon external fuel tank in the bed. Those older trucks had quite a bit more steel in them. So I could see 8k lbs with it being a crew cab or extended cab.

 

[Dieseldonato]

My uncle owns a 2001 f250 crew cab short bed. With a winch bumper and a 90 gallon fuel transfer tank in the bed, it still doesn't weigh 8klbs. I use it quite often to tow since it has a higher gcwr then my 96 f250, Which is a super cab long bed which scales 6400lbs. My dad's 2002 f350 crew cab with the job body fully loaded with a Lincoln ranger 250 welder in the back weighed 9200lbs.
So no I don't believe his truck weight 8klbs unless he's hauling an extra 2k lbs of weight around.

 

[Lil Foot]

My '03 F350 4wd srw crew with 60 gal tank, truck box, a crap load of tools & etc behind & under the seat, and 5th wheel hitch, weighs in at 6900 and change.

 

[Botamon]

Weight of my 2004 Dodge Cummins dually, nothing in the bed, about a half tank of fuel:

 

[L35]

Weight of my 2004 Dodge Cummins dually, nothing in the bed, about a half tank of fuel:
View attachment 84570

Put a dot between the 2 and 5 and that’s what your half of a tank of fuel cost.

 

[Fordtech86]

My uncle owns a 2001 f250 crew cab short bed. With a winch bumper and a 90 gallon fuel transfer tank in the bed, it still doesn't weigh 8klbs. I use it quite often to tow since it has a higher gcwr then my 96 f250, Which is a super cab long bed which scales 6400lbs. My dad's 2002 f350 crew cab with the job body fully loaded with a Lincoln ranger 250 welder in the back weighed 9200lbs.
So no I don't believe his truck weight 8klbs unless he's hauling an extra 2k lbs of weight around.

Yeah, stock truck in that era would be around 6-6500 lbs. but I don’t discredit lugbolt in the least for his contributions

 

[Old_Paint]

Pretty sure all of us have a dealer horror story by now. I don't call them dealerships anymore. I call 'em stealerships. Very few of them can work on older vehicles now because they all have to keep up with the latest technology. I dare ya to take one with an OBD-I system to a dealer now. Everything up to 1993 had OBD-I, and I had a '92 F-150 XLT short bed short cab, 5.0 with M5OD transmission. If you want to get the codes from an OBD-I system go buy yourself a high tech paper clip and count the blinks on the CEL. It's that easy to run the diagnostics. The window lickers at the dealership had no clue how to work on my truck when I took it to them back in 2002, and they very nearly killed it in the process. The truck was only 10 years old at that time. They wouldn't admit they didn't know what they were doing, nor that they no longer had the equipment to work on OBD-I (and didn't know it could be done with a paperclip). DO NOT expect honesty nor candor at a dealership. They already think you're an idiot when you bring your vehicle to them for service. Sadly, they're right, but not for the reasons they think that. I knew more about my truck than they did, and had I just fixed it myself, I'd have been about $1500 richer when I did. Problem was, I lived in an apartment at the time, and we weren't allowed to work on cars in the parking lot. That was the ONLY reason I took it to a dealer. After the destruction they left in their wake, I vowed I'd never go back there.

 

[Old_Paint]

747....."400,000 lbs"??
Not quite!
I have thousands of 747-400 hours.
Max gross takeoff weight is 870,000 lbs!

" A Boeing 747-400 will weigh 403,500 pounds (183,024 kg) when empty. "

@lugbolt was pretty darn close with his numbers.