New Ford F-350 Trucks

Brutus · March 1998

A bigger grill to let those bigger engines breathe, right?

fredwood · March 1998

The truck I looked at was HUGE! 4x4, V10 aluminum rims,fully loaded all for $33,000MSRP with no markup. A fully loaded 4X4 four runner is $36,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only problem with the ford is that I almost got sucked into the grill when the V10 fired up.

Brutus · March 1998

I'll have to remember not to start my truck up behind a Chevy. I wouldn't want to get any garbage in the engine. Just kidding, of course. Chevy makes a good truck. I just couldn't resist.

That sounds pretty close to the truck I ordered, a fully loaded F-350 SuperCab 4x4 V10. The MSRP on mine was $32,795. The cab is the largest of any full size truck. The Supercab has a total volume of 114.5 cubic feet. Compared to the Dodge, the Ford has almost one inch more front seat headroom, 1.7 inches more front hip room, .8 inches more rear leg room and .3 inches more rear shoulder room. The Dodge did have .9 inches more rear seat head room.

KCRam · March 1998

Dimensional increments like that are nice for the ads, but whether or not it's usable is another story. The Dodge seats are much higher off the floor, thus allowing one to extend their feet under the front seats. I can roll a two-liter bottle of soda under the front seat of my Ram and not hit anything.

Fird did a good job with the Super Duty series, and I respect their efforts. There are just a few things that will keep me out of a Ford again until they're addressed:

1 - Why does Ford assume I'm a a moron and can't read a gauge? Having auxiliary gauges is great, but a gauge that just says "NORMAL" is as useless as the idiot light it replaced.

2 - When will they take the hint that the headlights are too high? I parked my 93 F150 side by side with my 96 Ram 3500 when I got it and despite the Dodge being nearly 5 inches taller, the headlights were closer to the ground. I don't have people flashing their lights at me any more.

3 - Please go back to a simple pull-knob for the lights - it's a no-brainer to operate, and that's what all controls should be - no-brainers. If I want to turn on the dome light, I have to *think* about where that thumbwheel is, and which direction to roll it.

4 - Why can't Ford design a back seat with a full-height seatback that's not dead vertical like the new F150? That half-seat in the Super Duty trucks with the glued-to-the-wall upper cushion is basically the same seat they've used since 1980.

I won't get into Ford dealers, since there are no competent ones here in north NJ... another reason I went Dodge. If you have a decent truck like my 90 Ford, or a piece of crap like my 93, you shouldn't have to go to 5 different dealers and two independent shops to get the darn thing serviced or repaired.

Depending on what Dodge does to upgrade the Ram for 1999 and 2000, we'll see what my next baby-semi will be.

Brutus · March 1998

I think the things you mention above prove a point. Dodge and Ford are both making solid enough vehicles that we can make decisions based on things that are really minor when compared to the entire package. If Dodge had a lousy engine, poor tranny, and crappy appearance, you wouldn't buy it just because of the things you mentioned above. But that's not the case, so we have more quality choices. Competition is a good thing.

I've done all of my maintenance at Ford dealerships and have no complaints, except a minor beef with one place. I'm sure it cost a little more for me to go to dealerships, but they have always fixed the problem the first time. As you probably know, I'm a satisfied owner of a 92 F-250HD 4x4. It's going to be tough to part with it. At the same time, I can't wait for the new rig.

jdb · March 1998

kcram,

For the answer to question #1 see question #3...

KCRam · March 1998

I don't think so, jdb. If I have no idea what the range on a gauge is, then I have no way of telling if something requires my attention (or a mechanic's). A gauge conveys information; a control requires my physical action. Would you accept a speedometer that read "0 - city - suburban - highway" instead of the numbers 0-100? Of course not. So why accept a temperature gauge that says NORMAL right up until its redline? On the other hand, I want the door handle to be somewhere my hand expects it without having to look for it. Same for the light switch, window controls (whether manual or power), and HVAC (although the knobs are quite functional, remember how easy it was to slide everything to the left with just a finger?). Look at the dash of a class 8 semi like a Kenworth or Freightliner. It's nothing but gauges and switches. Nothing cute, all functional.

Brutus is right - the basic truck is good enough that we can nitpick on the little things that make the truck comfortable. When I get around to replacing my Ram, it will be a pretty fair fight between another Dodge and the F350, but it will be the little things that make the difference.

rite3 · March 1998

The little things have been an area of concern for me as well. I am still looking at both ford and dodge. Ford is in the lead more at this point because I want a crew cab 1ton with a shortbox and dodge does not offer one without duallies. Chevy is going to offer the cc I want next year, but I feel this is just a stop gap measure until they complete the redesign of their over 8500gvwr trucks and I would like to see the new body first. I just cant wait that long. I did go down to the dealer yesterday and they had 6 of the 99's on the lot. One was a cc 1ton lariat srw in saddle tan and it was beutifull. I looked at a supercab and I liked it but when my 4 year old attempted to sit in the rear seat the first thing she did was hit her head on the rear window. I know that sounds like it would be hard to do, but kids tend to take their seats in a way that is usually a half sooch/bounce and although once she settled in her head was lower than the glass, it was getting there that resulted in the dull thump. I could see that in a short few years , or maybe even months, we would have a problem if we were ever to get in an accident. I just dont understand the whole lack of headrests thing. Last year the cc had them and this year nothing. If visibility in backing up is a problem, make them removable. I like the fact that the dodge has the quad cab now and I have heard the cummins is an excelent motor, if I hear anything about them increasing the number of configurations availible before the fall I will definately be interested. It also seems like the dodge folks really want to do buisness. We have a dealer in the northwest in kellogg Idaho who sells new dodges and GM's for 58 dollars over invioce. The ford dealer here gave me a brochure and was polite but wasnt realy to excited about the prospect of not being able to sell me one immediatly for 50% of full msrp. If any one knows about a dealer in the northwest who is selling the 99's cheap please let me know. The dodge dealer is at www.davesmith.com

Mont · March 1998

Just tried out a 99' F-350 supercab dually powerstroke with 4:10's. Used it for 300 miles to pull a 7x24' stock trailer with 12k inside plus trailer wt of 7700 #. It only had about 2000 miles on it and pulled fairly good but did'nt feel as strong as I expected. I've had two Ford diesels, 84' 6.9 4 spd manual and 93' 7.3 auto then switched to 97' Dodge Cummins 3500 5 spd, all have had 4:10's. I was going to trade 93' for F-350 but after trying one will go with another Dodge. We pull an 8x28' stock trailer with 14-15k inside with that, almost 50k without a problem, but the truth starts showing about 150k. I got it for the Cummins, starts good in ND, pulls good, but the rest of the PU is'nt bad.

Brutus · April 1998

Has anyone got their new Ford's yet? Has anyone gotten build or delivery dates? It's been 10 days since I ordered mine and I haven't heard a thing. Just kidding. I was told 12 weeks and I just want to see if it is taking longer.

Brutus · April 1998

The new SuperDuty trucks are geared to a wide range of users. The commercial application is obviously one. Ford will make F-250 through F-550 trucks. The F-450 and F-550 will be almost exclusively for commercial use. However, the F-250 and F-350 will also be widely used by people who do any fairly heavy towing on a regular basis, such as towing horse trailers or large recreational campers like fifth wheel trailers.

In Alaska, I know that the truck of choice (regardless of brand) was a 3/4 4x4 for regular recreational use. The 4x4 was necessitated by the winter driving, the boat launching and the dirt road driving to get back to some of the camping, fishing and hunting sites. The 3/4 ton was the preferred size because a good deal of these trucks either have slide-in campers on top and recreational vehicles in tow or they are pulling campers.

The MSRP prices you mentioned in your first post must have been for fully loaded 1 ton 4x4 diesels. The MSRP on my fully loaded 1 ton SuperCab Lariat 4x4 V-10 was around $32,700. The same truck with the diesel would have been a little over $36,000. A 3/4 ton gas engine non-Lariat SuperDuty will have a MSRP under $30,000. It's still not chump change, but the price difference between the Ford SuperDuty trucks and the Ford lightduty trucks with the same options isn't significant. I was pleasantly surpised.

armadillo · April 1998

Actually, the $37,000 price was for a fully loaded F250 with the 5.4L Triton V8. The $46,000 sticker was on a fully loaded F350/extended cab long bed with the 5.4L Triton V8. I truly believe, however, that one could do better using Edmunds' listings, etc. I attribute these outrageously high stickers more to the dealership, rather than as a typical representation of what these trucks can actually be bought for.

New Ford F-350 Trucks

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