What all does Ford offer in its Lariat?

VR3

Yee haw.

disneyjoe7

Ted, are you watching my Toyota 0.4run-ner

October is good the heat isn't to bad... A plus since to AC quit moons ago.

MacLeod

exalted512 wrote:

if youre old, and a woman!

Or can bench press 400 pounds.

As for which trucks are truly best, I think that these days they all make a very high quality truck and as long as you take care of them, theyll last you plenty long.

There are all kinds of stories you can tell about trucks. A buddy of mine has a 95 Ram with 286,000 miles on it with all original gear (except water pump, alternator and so on). A place I used to work at in Texas had a fleet of early 90's Dodge Rams and all of em had well over 200,000 virtually trouble free miles on them.

The van I drive at work is a Chevy 1 ton with a 350 that routinely carries around 3000-5000 pounds of kegs up mountains and in stop and go downtown traffic. This thing has been abused so much over its 120,000 miles that the floor is starting to cave in yet it rides like a new one.

Ford I kinda have a hard time coming up with stories. I worked for Airborne Express once upon a time which used all Ford vans and they were the biggest POS's Ive ever seen. They were in and out of the shop all the time. My brother in law bought a Super Duty and before a month was up it was in the shop getting the transmission replaced. Plus, it seems like Fords are always having major recalls of some sort with the most recent being transmissions.

So I dont think Fords are junk but I dont really trust them but I do think Dodge, Chevy and Toyota are all very well made and will last a long time. Ive had 2 Dodge Rams now and both have been 100% trouble free. So I basically base my choice on which looks best and that would be the Dodge Ram hands down. Ive thought they were the best looking vehicles on the road ever since they came out back in 94.

MacLeod

They do always seem to come out on top on the JD Powers Initial Quality survey.

But that survey only covers the first 90 days of ownership.

nadams

And to think... Ford is considering dropping the Rangers due to unimpressive sales numbers.

MacLeod

Now that would be a shame!

I always like the Rangers and I even had one back in the late 80's.

I think if they would make em just a little bigger and freshen them up some that would help.

disneyjoe7

MacLeod wrote:

They do always seem to come out on top on the JD Powers Initial Quality survey.

But that survey only covers the first 90 days of ownership.

You could me wondering about that statement, so I checked Consumer Reports and found no domestic truck recommended No not even Chevy or Dodge NOTHING....

VR3

You know whats funny about this entire thread?

The F150 has been the best selling truck for like... 30 years or something.

disneyjoe7

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

You know whats funny about this entire thread?

The F150 has been the best selling truck for like... 30 years or something.

Cheapest cost of them all, sorry always win but shouldn't :rolleyes:

VR3

Im not saying its a good thing.

I said its a funny thing.

*rolls eyes right back at ya.*

MacLeod

disneyjoe7 wrote:

You could me wondering about that statement, so I checked Consumer Reports and found no domestic truck recommended No not even Chevy or Dodge NOTHING....

Youre right. There isnt a lot of info out there about this survey although its probably the biggest in the automobile world.

Here is one link I found. Its for the 2005 survey tho.


http://www.pfblog.com/archives/2369_jd_power_2005_vehicle_initial_quality_survey.shtml

disneyjoe7

I just don't know I never really put a lot of weight to JD Initial Quality Surveys. Just look at what is still on the roads today it's all the JD IQS I need

Toxis

the funniest thing about this entire site is that bose.... you get the point.

nadams

MacLeod wrote:

Now that would be a shame!

I always like the Rangers and I even had one back in the late 80's.

I think if they would make em just a little bigger and freshen them up some that would help.

They need to bring the 4 door ranger's to the states. They have them in Mexico, but won't bring them to the states because they sell the explorer sport trac here. Who wants an Explorer for a truck???

4 doors... v-8 option... it'd sell a lot better

Jstas

Wow.

The F-150 is the best selling vehicle of all time. They even outsold the VW Beetle. What's more impressive is that 95% of those sales were in North America alone.

Ford also out-produces it's competitors by a fairly wide margin.

Given that, some very basic statistical analysis would show the following:

These numbers are not real, you will not find them in any publication, they are only being used as an example to illustrate a point.

If all truck manufacturers had a 5% error rate (for example), and production numbers were like this:

Ford 1,000,000
Chevy 750,000
GMC 500,000
Dodge 650,000
Toyota 150,000
Nissan 100,000

Then the number of bad vehicles per company would be like this:
Ford 50,000
Chevy 37,500
GMC 25,000
Dodge 32,500
Toyota 7,500
Nissan 5,000

So, even if they all have the same relative error rate which is a figure that can show overall quality control standards are competative, because of the production numbers, the individual will have a different view. The individual has a different view because, if Ford's next closest competitor in the crown of most bad vehicles is Chevy and they are 12,500 vehicles behind, your chances of hitting a bad Ford vs. a bad Chevy are 25% more likely just because of the sheer number produced by Ford vs. Chevy. The Ford error rate is 10 times that of Nissan but, Nissan production is only 10% of Ford's total production. Your odds of hitting a bad Ford are much better than hitting a bad Toyota. Then again, your odds of hitting a bad Chevy would be pretty close to hitting a bad Dodge and your odds of hitting a bad American truck would be much, much better than hitting a bad Japanese truck. Does that mean they are all junk? Hell no, it just means that there are more of them out there. Does it reduce your chance of getting a bad truck from any of them? No, the chances, in this example, are exactly the same. The same would go for cars.

In the real world though, there are many, many more variables but one major fact is that the American companies out-produce thier foreign counterparts by as little as 3 to 1 in some cases and as much as 10 to 1 in other cases. You chances of finding a bad American car vs. a bad Japanese car are better because, given the population as a whole and the production qoutas, the American cars are just more numerous. Basically, the Americans put more cars out there and even if the error rate is .01%, .01% of 1,000,000 is still 10 times greater than .01% of 100,000 and that means you are statistically more likely to hit a bad American car than a bad foreign car because the American cars just out-number the foreign cars.

Overall quality of a brand of vehicles let alone a line of pickup trucks can't be determined by population based statictics alone. You need to account for population size, run those numbers for each brand and then divide the number of errors by the overall production numbers and then compare the percentages. If you do that, you might actually find that the Americans really aren't that bad at building cars or trucks for that matter.

Anecdotal evidence, hearsay and conjecture are no way to determine the quality of a vehicle. Also, fleet ownership is no where near a large enough sample size to guage the overall quality of the population as a whole. Even the venerable Internet does not contain a large enough population sample to truely reflect the population as a whole.

Bad mouthing one vehicle over another based on the extremely limited view of personal experience may give you a warm fuzzy but it is no different nor better than Sid's view of not wanting to be grouped into the seemingly poor overall demographic of Chevy/GMC ownership.



The surveys are bunk in my opinion. I agree with the statement to look at what is still on the road and go one better. Go to a junkyard and look at what trucks are there and why. You rarely see Ford or Dodge trucks in there that weren't wrecked. I see alot of Chevies but they are mostly Vans and old C/K Blazers that got the crap kicked out of them anyway. You don't see alot of trucks period but I do tend to see many of the older Japanese mini-trucks in the yards.


Consumer Reports has long been debunked as an authority on anything. As if the rigged Chevy pickup trucks being wired with explosives to blow up didn't turn you off to them, I would think that the efforts they went through to make SUV's roll over easier to support thier out-landish claims would have. Consumer Reports never carries any weight in any purchasing decision I make anymore.



Lastly, about the Rangers. They don't sell because...well, look at the price. The trucks are impossible to kill in any trim level. Believe me, I've had 3 under my supervison in my time and I TRIED to kill them and they took all the abuse and begged for more. Every other Ranger owner I have ever spoken to has had similar experience. I rarely hear anything disparaging about them aside from subjective stuff like looks, blind brand allegiance/bigotry and other silly stuff. Granted, I probably don't have enough opinions from enough people to guage properly but the evidence I have seen is overwhelmingly in favor of a Ranger's cost being completely worth it. However, a moderatly equipped Ranger fast approaches the cost of a base model F-150 and a loaded Ranger is squarely in the middle of F-150 territory. People aren't buying Rangers because they can get more capacity, power, space and options in an F-150 for the same price. That's Ford's mistake and they are going to have to deal with it.

Jstas

nadams wrote:

They need to bring the 4 door ranger's to the states. They have them in Mexico, but won't bring them to the states because they sell the explorer sport trac here. Who wants an Explorer for a truck???

4 doors... v-8 option... it'd sell a lot better

Dude, the Explorer SporTrac is 4 doors and has a V-8 option and it gets the chopping block this year because it didn't sell worth crap...mainly because the F-150 SuperCrew base model comes with just as many options as an Explorer SporTrac and has a carpet rather than a vinyl mat for a floor all for very close to the same price. Again, Ford was trying to manage name plates and giving people an options ladder rather than what they really wanted...which was a 4 door Ranger, not an Exploder with the **** end chopped off.

Then again, pretty much all car companies sell cars in America are like that. Go to Europe and pick up a Focus RS. It'll clean the clock of a Mustang. Why don't we get it here? God forbid a compact car should be able to wipe the floor with a repected name plate like the Mustang!

Jstas

BTW, did the original question in this thread ever get answered?

VR3

Ive actually read that response from you before in another time on this forum... and makes alot of sense.

I *really* like the F150, but I really* dont like all that I hear about Tranny problems.

But then again, my current F150 has 164,000 miles - 15, 16 years old and... it runs...darn near flawless.

And no, the question hasnt been answered... I was actually hoping to hear from you in this thread.

MacLeod

Jstas wrote:

Dude, the Explorer SporTrac is 4 doors and has a V-8 option and it gets the chopping block this year because it didn't sell worth crap...mainly because the F-150 SuperCrew base model comes with just as many options as an Explorer SporTrac and has a carpet rather than a vinyl mat for a floor all for very close to the same price. Again, Ford was trying to manage name plates and giving people an options ladder rather than what they really wanted...which was a 4 door Ranger, not an Exploder with the **** end chopped off.

The problem with the Explorer Sport Track is that it costs nearly $30,000! A 4 door Ranger akin to a 4 door Frontier would go for about $18,000. That would put it in a whole new market. The Nissan and Toyota crew cab mini trucks are doing quite well and I think adding a 4 door version to the Ranger would do wonders for it as well.

The reason, IMO, as to why the Sport Trac isnt selling is because people that want a 4 door pickup would rather buy a truck with a real frame and $10,000 less. The people that want to buy a comfy soccer mom SUV would rather have the real Explorer. I just think the Sport Trac filled a niche that didnt exist. Its like the Lincoln Blackwood. People that want trucks want a truck. People that want a comfy SUV want a SUV.

VR3

I must be the only person that loves trucks... but cant stand SUVs.

Something about the way they drive/handle. Yuck.

audiobliss

I like 'em both.

VR3

Does anyone have any info on the 07 F150 other than it is using a Hemi?

HiPerf360

audiobliss wrote:

Yeah, well I can definitely say your assumptions and unsubstantiated opinions are quite annoying, too.

LOL...


Sid, do yourself a favor, go have your mom rent you a truck from the big three for a week each and tell us what YOU think.

The Japanese are trying but still can’t build a real truck, but then again you want a V-6 so I guess you aren’t looking for a real truck anyway.

However as soon as Kubota builds a truck I will be the first in line to get one.

HiPerf360

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

Does anyone have any info on the 07 F150 other than it is using a Hemi?

HEMI's haven’t been built sense 1971.

Dodge is using this as an advertising ploy. All new cars have a closed combustion chamber, just because the spark plug is in the middle of the cylinder does not make it a Hemi (A trade mark of Daimler-Chrysler). If this makes an engine a Hemi then 90% of all imports are Hemi’s and the engines that Ford is using now!!!

VR3

Hiperf...

You really do annoy me. Im not saying it to be cute or something. You really do.

I'm currently looking at 4 Door Trucks, V8 is the only option in those.

Im going for a test drive on a few in the next week or so.

HiPerf360

Well Sid at least we have something in common...

VR3

Indeed.

You can be my annoying buddy on the forums.

Ill get the candles, you can be the french maid.

HiPerf360

Only if we cuddle afterwards.

VR3

Haha...

Ill leave that to you and Mike...

Jstas

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

I must be the only person that loves trucks... but cant stand SUVs.

Something about the way they drive/handle. Yuck.

Nope, I agree with you 100% there. SUV's drive like vans and cost twice as much. If I wanted a $35K vehicle like that, I'd get teh base van needed for a conversion package and get that.

As far as the 07 F-150, they don't hve official releases yet but aside from engine options, not much is said to be changing from the '06. The new engine though will be a "real" hemispherical combustion chamber. Currently, the mod-motors have a canted wedge head design which is sometimes reffered to a semi-hemi due to the valve angles. The 427 Cammer engine was also a semi-hemi because of the valve angle and canted wedge design of the combustion chamber. Dodge's current "HEMI" is also canted wedge design. The original Magnum heads on the 318/360 were more of a hemispherical chamber than the current HEMI is.

Now it's hard to pin down the options available on the Lariat. It includes all the standard features of the other models before it except the hotrod FX4 off-road packages and such. But honestly, the Lariat is a "luxury package" with speacial leather seats, big fancy chrome wheels, some unecessary power options and so on and so forth. However, the 4.6L is not an option for the Lariat package. You would need to drop down to the XLT package to get that. However, the 4.6L is not available with any heavy duty towing or payload package. So that will make a difference for you.

The differences between the XLT and Lariat are mainly looks and some interior convieniece features. The XLT still comes with a bunch of power options inside but, it also has many other payload and towing options than the Lariat does. You can add things to the Lariat but they start at right around 30K. The extra options for payload and stuff can push it close to 40K. At that point, if you want a truck decked out in the niceties and still be able to do the truck stuff, go for a King Ranch model. The base model is better equipped than a Lariat and the base model starts right at about 35K which is where a Lariat will put if you get certain options to increase functionality and capability.

If you really want to dig around, go to http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/ and dig around. Ford, like alot of other manufacturers have now, allows you to build and price what you are looking for online with thier online tool. It can be slow at times but it works great and details all the options. Just follow the on-screen directions.

You also don't have to make apologies for valid concerns that you might have about track records and history. I only posted the novel because the squeaky wheels are teh nosiest. If you look at actual F-150 production vs. the number of actual complaints, you'd see the the percentage of complaints is so small comparativly that it is almost negligible. The people who are complaining are the ones who usually don't see the forest for teh trees and take a bad vehicle as a personal insult.



MacLeod, 2007 is the last year for the SporTrac. The 07 SporTrac starts at just over 24K, the Limited version starts at just over 26K. Your 07 Rangers, fully loaded sport, STX, XLT or FX4 Level II trucks can top out at almost 27K fully optioned. You can buy a Ford F150 supercrew can with a 6.5 foot bed, 24V 5.4L V8 and 4 wheel drive for 27K. Why would I buy a Ranger supercab or Exploder SporTrac for that much when I can have an F-150 for that much and get 2-3 times the capability. Bottom line, demographical stereotyping aside, the Ranger and SporTrac are just not as good of a value as the F-150. Beyond that, a 4 door Ranger would be right around 22-27K if the options packages were similar to what the Ranger line already has and if the F-150 differences are any guage. Get rid of teh SporTrac and get the Ranger pickup and prices still aren't any different. Besides, at that level, most people who are buying a 4 door mini-truck are not looking at a full-frame vs. a unibody/sub-frame package. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who are looking for such a thing but the last time I spoke with the fleet manager at Holman Ford in Marlton, he told me that those people realistically comprised about 11% of total Ranger buyers and that number isn't large enough to justify a higher production cost and design cost of stretching a Ranger chassis ad re-testing a whole new vehicle for crash standards. Especially when teh F-150 outsells them both.