They don’t make them like they used to

[CoastRange57]

I'm driving a Ranger now. Its actually going strong still, no issues with it.

I have owned 3 Rangers over the 14 years. Great mid size truck. The last one I had was totaled when I got rear ended. Pissed me off, it had 180 and I planned on driving it another 180. I take care of my rigs, so that was not out of expectation. I might get another one as a daily driver.

 

[Boboclown]

Rangers are pretty good! I like mine better than the Chevy, which is newer. Only reason I drive the Chevy every now and then is cause then I'll never drive it.

 

[Ura-Ki]

I have 2 F350 diesel crew cabs, and two Expedition diesels, all are the 7.3 DFI and 4X4. Other then egr issues and and a few other small things, all have been super reliable and all have almost 200k on the clocks. I also use mine a lot harder then every one else, and in 4wd many thousands of miles, narry a hiccup! I also have 2 1992 Dodge diesel 4x4 5 speed extra can flat beds, and they have 300k plus, also zero problems! I went to look at newer Ford's and Dodge trucks, and was not impressed, other then the new Cummins is very quiet, there have been a ton of problems with all of them, so I'm sticking with the trucks I have!

 

[Boboclown]

Not impressed? I have a new Chevy. Stopping power on that? Stay 20 car lengths from the car in front.

Oh and you can't turn the air off. A/C a little cold? Want to turn it off? Good news! Once in the off setting, its still blowing too much air.

Does it run? Sure. Would I trust it in the long run? Eh....

 

[RicInOR]

The Ford Courier pick-up.... was a rebadged Mazda... the valve covers even had "MAZDA" cast on top on them... LOL. They sucked.

Back in the day I was studying business and QA - these were an example. Same materials, same drawings, same specs. Mazda adjusted their process to optimize the design. If you have a 1/4 tolerance, and only use 1/16 then you can move that within the overall design. The Ford guys were thrilled by being out of tolerance only a little bit. If they had 1/4 maybe they were at 5/16.

Ford owned (owns? ) a lion share of Mazda.

 

[Argonaut]

I grew up in my dad's auto shop. They worked on everything (he also owned several small truck companies at the same time) he hated a Ford and was quite capeable of showing you why in real time. In the (not so) old times. You couldn't align the front end without bending the suspension beams, every one (else) had roller bearings while Ford used ball bearings, the brakes are tiny, they treat there customers like crap (anyone remember the 390 mm rims?) there longevity was terrible and they were the cheapest (cost wise) thing on the market. My dad died 2 years ago, my brother owns the shop now. So, my brother went out and bought a late model F250 super duty to pull his fancy new gooseneck flatbed equipment trailer. It has all the bells and whistles. He took it to California to pick up a load of building material and a small forklift for his new house. The trailer is a 24,000 GVW dual tandem with a 30 foot lower deck. Once loaded in the Bay Area, it was evident that this supposed "truck" wasn't up to the task. He came up the coast thinking he would avoid the big grades...(there are plenty there too) and could go slow. Before he got to Oregon, the transmission went to a permanent state of overheat, he was down to 5MPH on grades and couldn't stop it. Now, my brother is a master mechanic that employs 14 mechanics in the shop. The truck was totally pampered and serviced since he owned it. He limped into Portland and unloaded 1/2 of the trailer to make it home to Spokane. I saw my brother last weekend and teased him about waiting for Dad to die to buy a Ford and Kelly (my brother) said it isn't long for this world. I have an 07 GMC one ton 4X4 dually flatbed with an Allison and Duramax LBZ. It has 260,000 miles now. Has never missed a beat or had any thing more than normal maintenance. We took it to Spokane a couple of weeks ago with probably 3000 lbs on the bed. It got 16 MPG, went up the Lewiston grade at 55 mph in high gear and the cruise control on. Most of the time we drove 75-80 mph. We frequently tow my 14,000 lb boat and equipment trailers without issue. So, Kelly is looking at a crew cab 1 1/2 International with the new IHC 530 and an Allison. Ford trucks have put food on our families table for over 60 years. We hope you guys keep buying them.

 

[CoastRange57]

So, my brother went out and bought a late model F250 super duty to pull his fancy new gooseneck flatbed equipment trailer. It has all the bells and whistles. He took it to California to pick up a load of building material and a small forklift for his new house. The trailer is a 24,000 GVW dual tandem with a 30 foot lower deck. Once loaded in the Bay Area, it was evident that this supposed "truck" wasn't up to the task. He came up the coast thinking he would avoid the big grades...(there are plenty there too) and could go slow. Before he got to Oregon, the transmission went to a permanent state of overheat, he was down to 5MPH on grades and couldn't stop it. I have an 07 GMC one ton 4X4 dually flatbed with an Allison and Duramax LBZ. It has 260,000 miles now. Has never missed a beat or had any thing more than normal maintenance. We took it to Spokane a couple of weeks ago with probably 3000 lbs on the bed. It got 16 MPG, went up the Lewiston grade at 55 mph in high gear and the cruise control on. Most of the time we drove 75-80 mph. We frequently tow my 14,000 lb boat and equipment trailers without issue. So, Kelly is looking at a crew cab 1 1/2 International with the new IHC 530 and an Allison. Ford trucks have put food on our families table for over 60 years. We hope you guys keep buying them.

So he towed a 24K GVW tandem axle with a 30 foot deck with load of lumber and a forklift ?? The trailer is 10K itself, so 14k of payload. Talk about out of application use ...that was every bit of 24K or more likely, with a Ford automatic ??

2018 Ford F 250 specs:

Weights and Capacities

• CURB WEIGHT:5,683 lbs.
• GROSS VEHICLE WEIGHT:9,950 lbs.
• MAX CARGO CAPACITY:12 cu.ft.
• PAYLOAD:4,200 lbs.
• TOWING CAPACITY:13,300 lbs

That is with 440 hp and 925 foot pounds.

Nothing like asking a pickup to do more that it was designed to do and then wonder why it sh*t the bed.

I owned several Ford F 250's and 350's in my construction business. The 250's towing 14K GVW were a handful and hard on the trucks. The 350 dually a bit better. Both had 6 speeds because the E4OD is a POS unless you beef it up.

I towed 24 foot trailers with equipment on them, but did not like the handling at 14K, 12K was the safe max in my opinion, so I went to Freighliner FL60's with Cummins and 6 speed transmissions. The combination of the F 250/ 350 single tire was simply not effective, efficient or safe for towing 24 foot trailers at 14K GVW 3 or more days a week.

The FL 60's I bought in CA and brought them up on my 52 foot step deck with my FL120 with a Cummins big cam 400 and 10 speed. How the horsepower is utilized and transmitted to the drive train is everything. The FL 60's performed flawlessly for 5 years with out issue until I sold them.

Now I will give you that in the size package of the 3500 / F 350 units, the GM product is far superior to the Ford product, with the Allison transmission, and anything was better than the Ford 6 liters.

GM 3500:
Base Curb Weight 7482 lbs 7145 lbs
Max Payload 5518 lbs 4230 lbs
Max GVWR 13025 lbs 11400 lbs
Max Conventional Trailering, 3.73 Rear Axle 20000 lbs 14500 lbs

I currently drive a 97 F250 Powerstroke 7.3 , 180K miles with the E4OD, that has been built for towing. I tow a 23 foot travel trailer at about 7K all in. I will not tow anything heavier, nor do I have to. I get 13 mpg towing the trailer and got 16.7 going to Central Oregon two weeks ago. Never drop under 50 mph even on the steepest hills.

It was comparing apples to water melons in saying the F 250 was the problem when the actual problem was the F 250 being used completely out of application and being way overloaded and then not surprisingly failing at its weakest point. I would submit that the GM 3500 may have some issues if you go 10K over the recommended GVW.

Most equipment has some fudge factor ( up to 20%) on ratings and performance, I imagine vehicles are a little closer to the actual ratings.

That is what will keep you truck shop in business is the amount of people that use out of application and haul these huge trailers and weights.

 

[Argonaut]

I don't think he was that heavy but obviously too heavy. We have been over the scale with my 3500 at 24,000 Gross without an issue. We came out of Sacramento over I80 back to Idaho with that load.

 

[CoastRange57]

Quite the wind sail there.

 

[Argonaut]

Quite the wind sail there.

We are industrial kind of people. That is a tank we bought from the Edmonds (Washington) water treatment plant. They experimented (one time) with using alum in some part of there process. They paid 400,000 for the (fiberglass) tank and used it once. We bought it for my brothers new rural house to catch rainwater for 750.00 including loading it on the truck. It isn't light either

 

[billdeserthills]

Pretty amazing things can happen when a mechanical invention implodes on itself and the handlers don't have a fing clue on how to properly move a large machine. This is several million in scrap metal right now.

Somebodys liability insurance/deductible just went up