Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ford truck regret

Chevy 5.3 Vortec engine is bulletproof in the 3 I own. Combined they have 800,000 miles and still run strong. My friends have gone Ford but switched to Chevy within 3 years. One friend went through 3 or 4 transmissions in 50,000 miles on his F350 but luckily it was covered under warranty. Apparently a warped fly wheel or something. You’d think a certified technician at the dealer would’ve figured it out sooner considering how many times it was in the shop.

My 4wd ranger got totaled
Weren't no replacing that unicorn
Got a 97 f150 until things resolve themselves.
The 4.6 l with alum heads and recessed plugs is a poorly designed engine
Perfect channels for waters to flow just under the fuel rails and along the heads and block
So all the water can flow into the plug holes ,fill em up and cause plugs to missfire.
Learned that at the car wash the second day......
# 4 and #8 ,plugs are really special getting at those SOB s also...

I will get another ranger or a Toyota down the line.

A engine that ain't water proofed ain't cool.......

My 72 runs great.
Idrove a new 150, a ram, and the Silverado.
I went with the Nissan.

I once watched a group of 'certified technicians' at a new VW dealership huffing, puffing and dripping sweat trying to force scoot a compact car into a work bay they apparently believed was froze up. They had the whole rear end jacked completely up off the ground on a floor jack with casters. One of the car salesmen walked up beside me, chuckled, shook his head, watched the show for a minute or two, then hollers out to them, 'I bet it'd probably be a lot easier to push if you took it out of gear'. The 'certified technicians' responded with 'the rear wheels are jacked up off the floor so it doesn't matter if it's in gear or not', laughed among themselves and told him to stick to selling cars.--- Salesman replied 'okay, if you say so, but that model happens to be front wheel drive'. They all look at each other sheepishly, one checked to see if it was in gear, it was, took it out of gear, and it darn near rolled off on it's own

Had a 'certified technician' at a new car dealership once come over and ask me if I knew how to remove the air filter cover on my new LTD station wagon after seeing me standing nearby watching him fumble around for 15-20 minutes trying to figure out how to remove it.

Another time, same car, different dealership, they cross threaded the threads in the block where the pipe nipple goes that the oil filter screws on to.

I have a 2004 Ford Sportrac 4.0 V6 original engine.
312, 000 miles. I expect it to die any day but it keeps going.
We don't take it on trips just to putter around town from time to time.

I’m not a Ford fan, I just grew up with either a dodge or gm in the driveway. They have a following, obviously. Every auto manufacturer has hit a home run with a particular model, as with duds. New vehicles kind of scare me, there is not much a driveway hack can do except change oil and put air in the tires, without spending a whole bunch on testing equipment. Guess I’m old school.

I bought extra coil packs for my Ford pickup and just kept them in the cab. Truck would need a new one roughly every 4 months

My F150 was the most frustrating vehicle I've owned in the last 20 years

Dad thought he was ready to walk away from GM after 60+ years because of the bailout. We did an informal survey in our local shops. Simply asked what they worked the most on. Most guys didn't even think it was a serious question.

Ah heck, they all have good and bad ones.

Although I can say that I got a friend who is mechanic. He says if it wasn't for fords he would be out of business. He claims that ford's engines, the overhead cam (5.4) are critical on oil levels.

I loved my Titan, but it was nothing but problems for me and thirsty. Dodge/ram owners tell me that you get lot of truck for the money

My 2017 F-150 s the best driving and best running truck I've ever owned. Had a recall, but that's the norm these days.

Well?

I believe this truck was an f150 with the smaller ecoboost engine. He said that cylinders 3 and 5 were popping coil packs or cracking spark plugs, sometimes both. I believe two different shops/dealerships worked on it. Realizing that they all have lemons, he would have considered another ford had the company worked with him a little more. He's a young man, I'd say they lost a customer for life but then ford probably doesn't care either.

I owned several Silverados in the past 20 years and then got a lemon in 2007. Tranny went out at 8500 miles and the thing never got anywhere near decent mileage. In frustration I switched to F150 in 2010 and have owned 2 since. No problems at all and am getting ready to trade now. The whole F150 line is equipped with auto start stop which is a deal breaker for me. I will be looking at Chevy or GMC and would rather get my fuel savings via their 8 cylinder down to 4 when power isn't needed rather than to have it shut off at red lights. Talked with the Ford dealership and there is a fix which requires pulling the dash apart placing a jumper on the temporary override switch but they won't do it. Their loss.

If you think that is just Ford you're fooling yourself. I had a similar discussion with a senior (25 years) Chrysler/Jeep engineer and he said the "time to failure" built into components was very low and if you got more than designed then you were just lucky or not using the part to it's design limit often enough to make it fail. At the time I had just bailed out of a 2003 Jeep Cherokee that was truly a POS, to the point that Chrysler cut me a check reimbursing me for all the shop time (after a long detailed letter to their president). The last straw was all four shocks at 48K. This engineer said that was low as they were designed to have a life of 50K. .

Dealer service is the money maker for the dealership. It's make or break for them.

Yeah, I regret the hell outta my Ford.

Fixing to go get in it...and go deer hunting... and I bet it starts and takes me where I wanna go. Which is more than I can say for the Dodge I traded in on it.

BTW, I was planning on stopping and looking at chainsaws on the way home...

What brand should I buy?

Stihl

Bought my last Ford in 2004, a F150. Closing the deal and the sales wanker sez, " You going to trade up in a few years?" Told him it was likely to be disposed of when it died or I did the same. Broke his heart. We're both still rolling. They had to order it from Ford 'cause I had no desire for electric windows or other BS. A/C, AM/FM, end of story. About ready for an oil change and the forth set of tires. My only complaint was the factory tires sucked and the dealer's service dept. was retarded. Found a local redneck garage better than AJ Foyt's pit crew and life is good.

All you have to do to override the auto stop feature is remember to push the little button to turn it off. All manufacturers have had some lemons. I have owned good Chevy, Ford and Toyota pickups. Had a Nisan Maxima once that cost us a kings ransom to keep running. my 2003 Tundra got pretty bad gas mileage. My 1994 Chevy 3/4 ton had transmission problems. My brother in law bought a new GMC PU, can't remember the year model but almost had a nervous breakdown trying to get them to fix various issues. He had it to several dealers and finally they gave him a new one. The passenger side climate control went out on it and it blew hot air year round. He was a big Chevy, GMC fan but had lots of trouble with them.

You have to face the fact that all autos are mechanical items and the newer ones are packed full of computer crap and have lots of compliance features to comply with government mandates. The odds are that sooner or later you are going to have a problem.

I've owned every full size pickup made except the Nissan Titan. I am back to a Chevy Silverado, but I can tell you I miss the power of my old Hemi 5.7 my son now drives. The wife has been thinking about getting her a new truck, and wants the Dodge Ram 1500. I've had good and bad in all of them, but my favorite has probably been the Dodge Ram 1500. The smoothest riding though, the Toyota Tundra hands down.

When I was just a wee gear jammer, an old hairy palmerd, cigar chewing by-god-Truck Driver told me,
"Son, every company a truck driver has worked for sucks, except the one he works for now. The current
one will suck, as soon as he moves on".


Wisdom that applies across the board.

My dad has bought a new pickup every few years since 1990.
Started with Ford, went to Dodge, then to Chevy.
The biggest reason for where he purchased was price.
My preference for those trucks was Chevy, Dodge, Ford.

But, it's a preference thing, they were all good trucks.


The biggest difference, the Fords felt lightweight to me.
They just didnt feel like a heavy solid truck.