New Truck

After looking at the prices of trucks I didn’t think I’d be buying a new one. Instead I thought I’d probably just keep the old gas sucking ‘02 Dodge with the 8.0 liter V10. I did go out pricing new trucks anyway.

Surprise, surprise, a Dodge dealer quoted me a good price and a fair trade-in on a Crew Cab longbed 4X4 diesel. It still cost more than I wanted to pay for a truck but I began to think that maybe I could buy a new one.

Then I went to the Ford dealer and man, were they ever wanting to sell trucks. What a deal they offered me. We qualified for $5250.00 in rebates and incentives from Ford Motor Company. On top of that, the dealer was willing to give me a thousand dollars OVER full retail value based on Kelly Blue Book for my ’02 Dodge. I guess Ford is wanting to get the 2010’s off the lots to make room for the new 2011’s that will soon be coming out. Regardless, we’re now the proud owners of a new Ford F-250 XL shortbed, 4X4 Crew Cab with the 6.4 diesel. The deal that was offered was waaaaaay too good to pass up. I am accepting donations to pay the sales tax on the truck.

Our new truck.

Thats a nice looking truck, good for you!

If they are still putting the DVD in the glove box about diesel maintenance, pop it in your computer and watch. It's pretty good information for a diesel newbie. I thought it was certainly worth watching. This was my first diesel, though it's three years old now.

Just watch out for those $100 oil changes. Or, if you do it yourself, make sure you buy the Ford oil filter, I've heard horror stories of after market filters not working properly and the truck having to be towed to the dealer to get it out.

Other than that, enjoy, I love my 6.4 and you will too the first time you pull a 6% grade and find that you can accelerate.

Congrats on the new truck Richard. Fine looking machine!

My 07 Duramax was my first diesel. You can't really understand how much more torque/power a diesel has until you own and use one.

If your like me, you'll be amazed and will never go back to Gas.

Very nice looking truck.

Great looking truck, now you have to go pull something.

She's a beauty Richard! What color's the interior?

TC

Thanks everyone for all the compliments on the truck.

TC, the interior is what Ford calls Medium Stone. I think that's a code term for grey. We have the 40/20/40 cloth front seat.

I didn't realize new vehicles had become enhanced with "Big Brother Is Watching You" technology. My new truck is equiped with an "event data module" that can be used to investigate a crash or near crash event. It records:
How various systems in the vehicle were operating.
Whether or not the driver and passenger seat belts were buckled.
How far the driver was depressing the accelerator and/or the brake pedal.
How fast the vehicle was traveling.
Where the driver was positioning the steering wheel.
And, using GPS technology, the latitdude and longitude of the vehicle at the last location.
Sheesh, I'd better watch my "P's" and "Q's" when driving this truck. I'll bet insurance companies love this little module.

Richard Nice looking Truck. You will be happy with that truck

mattebury wrote:.

Just watch out for those $100 oil changes. Or, if you do it yourself, make sure you buy the Ford oil filter, I've heard horror stories of after market filters not working properly and the truck having to be towed to the dealer to get it out.

I had used a N__A Oil filter last oil change. It leaked all on top of the engine. It made one H__l of a mess. I will not do that again

Looks good, you will have many happy trips with that one!!!

Richard Great looking truck, we have the 6.4 also. Enjoy !!!!!!

That should pull your cat real nice. I really like the diesel over gas. Much better all around.

mattebury wrote:If they are still putting the DVD in the glove box about diesel maintenance, pop it in your computer and watch. It's pretty good information for a diesel newbie. I thought it was certainly worth watching. This was my first diesel, though it's three years old now.

Just watch out for those $100 oil changes. Or, if you do it yourself, make sure you buy the Ford oil filter, I've heard horror stories of after market filters not working properly and the truck having to be towed to the dealer to get it out.

Other than that, enjoy, I love my 6.4 and you will too the first time you pull a 6% grade and find that you can accelerate.

Yep, they still put the DVD in the glovebox. You're right about some good information for a diesel rookie like myself. Thanks for the heads up.

I'm not normally envious but.....

Nice looking truck. Be sure you use it often - diesels don't like to sit idle for long periods of time.

Remember to change your signature.

Scruffy and Tater wrote:Nice looking truck. Be sure you use it often - diesels don't like to sit idle for long periods of time.

Remember to change your signature.

I didn't know that about diesels, I'll have to remember to use the truck over the winter. When the Wildcat (Mobile Mansion II) is in storage for the winter I don't use our truck much. I love the new truck, I wish I could have afforded a higher trim level but I still think it looks good.

I'm glad you reminded me about the my signature, at my age I forget things easily. Sometimes I'll walk to another room in the house for one reason or another and when I get there I don't remember what I wanted to get.

Richard,

Some of us use diesel additive in our trucks, especially in the winter to help keep the fuel from gelling. Some of us don't. That said, I use Power Service that can be bought at Walmart. There is a white container and a gray one. One is for winter use, the other summer. Its suppose to keep the fuel fresh and give you a little higher more cetane(octane).

My tanks (1 - 29 Gal, 1 - 45 gal)stay full for months with Power Service in them. And my truck might be ran once a month.

We bought our truck new when it was a year old. We actually looked at it when it was really new, we weren't interested because it had a lot of stuff on it we didn't like (red fiberglass running boards, barbed wire stripes, etc.). Apparently other people didn't care for that stuff either, because it just sat there - going for a test drive now and then. When we were ready to buy a 5th wheel, we started looking seriously at trucks. We wound up back at dealer near our home, and they had the truck in the showroom. They were ready to talk about a deal. They'd remove whatever stuff was added and replace it with what we wanted. The fiberglass running boards were replaced with nice sturdy nerf bars. Some stuff we kept - the bug shield and little awnings over the side windows. The barbed wire was removed.

We used the truck for a while, and then it started acting up, with a warning light indicating trouble. It turned out that something called a "turbo something" had rust inside. On some vanes. The vanes were stuck because of the rust. It would have been a very expensive repair, but fortunately didn't cost us anything. The mechanic said that the truck needs to be driven every 3-4 days (not just started), to keep condensation in the turbo from rusting. Since getting it fixed, Scruffy makes sure to drive it a couple times a week. We haven't had any problems since.

I hope I got this right, Scruffy explained it all to me, but that technical stuff goes in one ear and out the other usually.

Tater

Richard,

I think your the first one on our forum to own one of the new Ford 6.4L diesels. I think all of us would be interested to hear your experience with the new engine and drivetrain as it breaks in. Love to hear about its performance.

Keep on truckin' brother .....

No, there are a several of us. Me for instance, I've had my 6.4 since February 2007. Plus F150k has one too

Scruffy and Tater wrote: It turned out that something called a "turbo something" had rust inside. On some vanes. The vanes were stuck because of the rust.

Tater

Tater, you are correct, its called LOT ROT, what happens is the dealerships go out and start the diesels up to let them run for a little while to charge the batteries. But, since it takes a diesel a long time to warm up, the condensation hits the turbo vanes and they start to corrode. I think there was a TSB put out by Ford that said that the dealerships should not be starting them up like that, just let them sit.

Mine stays in the garage for weeks, of not months at a time with no problem. But when I take it out, I always make sure its warmed up before putting it back. Also, if you run it hard, let it idle for a few minutes before shutting it down. This lets the oil get back to the turbo so its lubricated for the next start-up.

Richard Mondavi wrote:
Then I went to the Ford dealer and man, were they ever wanting to sell trucks. What a deal they offered me. We qualified for $5250.00 in rebates and incentives from Ford Motor Company. On top of that, the dealer was willing to give me a thousand dollars OVER full retail value based on Kelly Blue Book for my ’02 Dodge. I guess Ford is wanting to get the 2010’s off the lots to make room for the new 2011’s that will soon be coming out. Regardless, we’re now the proud owners of a new Ford F-250 XL shortbed, 4X4 Crew Cab with the 6.4 diesel. The deal that was offered was waaaaaay too good to pass up. I am accepting donations to pay the sales tax on the truck.

Funny thing, I just read the same story over on rv.net by a person named OAKMAN. What a coincidence!!!!!

Yep, I'm really happy with the way I was treated at the Ford dealer. He sells a lot of trucks. He currently has 98 F150's on his lot and 63 F250's.

First of all, welcome to the FORD family. They are great pickups. My experience is the same as Tom's. I only drive our truck about once every three or four weeks, and have not had any problems. As Tom stated, I think the trick to keeping the engine happy is that when you start up your truck, drive it until the engine is at normal operating temperature. Short trips that do not let the engine get to operating temperature cause most of the problems. We bought our truck new in 2006 and have only 20K miles on it, and only use it to pull the WC, so sometimes it sits for months. Some people say to "drive it like you stole it" but as long as you pull something like your WC to make the engine work, your engine should be happy.
Your truck looks great, and should give you many years of good service.

One of the Local Vol Fire departments has a Power Stroke. It is a Brush truck. So during the year it sits for several weeks because of the non forest fire season. They have replaced a turbo two or three times cause of corroded vanes. Ford told them to drive it several miles a week not just start and idle it.

Alright! We had the new Reese 16K slider hitch installed today. As soon as it warms up a bit and the snow melts we'll take the truck to the storage lot where the Wildcat is and test it out.

I love our 6.4 PSD, the truck only comes out in nice and warm days, so it looks like it will sit for a while. The f150 we had before the 350 our kids called it the Garage Queen, because it spent most of its life in the garage. Know that we have the Super Duty it has been named the King. "Garage King" was born to pull our Wildcat, so it has to rest till we can break the Cat out of the snow bank.

Richard,
I don't remember which hitch you had before, but on this 16K, all you have to do is flip the lock lever up, and back-in. The locking arm will slide out and slam shut in the locked position.

Also, practice with the slide before you need it. On mine, I noticed that if I put the slide arm in the UNLOCK position, it wont slide, I have to move the arm all the way to LOCKED MANUVERING to get it to slide back.
I thought it was stuck or something, so played with it in the garage, and noticed that I couldn't move it in unlocked, but as soon as I put the arm all the way to the front of the truck it slide across with no effort.

We have more snow forecast for tomorrow and then again Saturday night into Sunday. I sure want to practice with the slider before we head to Bay St. Louis, MS on the 26th. It's not the end of the world though if I don't get some practice in. My Dodge was a shortbed and I didn't have a slider hitch. I'm quite practiced at manuvering without a slide hitch. The new Ford does have a longer wheel base though.
I'll keep your advice in mind about the slide arm. Thanks for the info.