Hot Rod Heart - 2015 Ford F-150 Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Hot Rod Heart - 2015 Ford F-150 Long-Term Road Test

Choosing between Edmunds.com's two long-term full-size pickups, the 2015 Ford F-150 Lariat SuperCrew EcoBoost and the 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel, can be difficult.

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allthingshonda

The best truck is the one that goes 100,000 miles with low cost maintenance and 0 repairs.

tom_in_mn

Ecoboost is a hot-rod -- which is why you should have got one in your 'stang.

kirkhilles1

allthingshonda said:

The best truck is the one that goes 100,000 miles with low cost maintenance and 0 repairs.

A Ridgeline then. That's what I'd get if I were in the market for a truck.

defyant15

allthingshonda said:

The best truck is the one that goes 100,000 miles with low cost maintenance and 0 repairs.

Agreed. Did we end up finding out what the 'mystery catastrophic failure' on the diesel Dodge RAM was a few months ago? If it was out of warranty and our own $$'s, it might be a no-buy event right there, especially with FCA's questionable history of reliability (just look up reliability ratings, official and customer reports of the Cherokee, Grand Cherokee, Fiat 500 etc). Otherwise, the Dodge seems like a truck meant to be used as a truck in concept, good economy and great torque.

The F150's EB is too new to know anything about long term ownership.

allthingshonda

The F150's EB is too new to know anything about long term ownership.

The original 3.5 EB has been pretty reliable. Introduced in 2011 so they've been on the road for at least 4 years and the first year engines should have over 50,000 miles on them. The only problems I've seen are the intercooler having moisture buildup (numerous TSBs for this one) and some engines developing a stretched timing chain or broken timing chain guides but it's not a wide spread problem. The original EB was the most extensively tested engine Ford had ever built. It's actually an overbuilt engine. The problem with the intercooler building up moisture is because it was designed to handle extreme towing situations with extended use of full throttle and still be able to feed cool air to the turbos. In the everyday world where it loafs along at 70 on the highway carrying just the weight of the driver, the intercooler can cool the air so much it causes condensation to develop in humid conditions. Dip into the throttle and the turbos spool up and suck the water from the condensation into the engine. Ford's solution was to block part of it off from air flow to make it less effective and keep temperatures higher.

This is a video of Ford testing a production engine in a truck after running it the equivalent of 150,000 miles in the lab. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsgmdAjGqag

500rwhp

kirkhilles1 said:

allthingshonda said:

The best truck is the one that goes 100,000 miles with low cost maintenance and 0 repairs.

A Ridgeline then. That's what I'd get if I were in the market for a truck.

Not really a truck. With the pitiful towing capacity, it can't do anything trucks do except carry some "stuff" in the bed. Not too much stuff though. The payload is only about half that available on an F150. 1500# seems like a lot unless you actually do work with a truck.

jfa1177

I've heard the 2.7L is a beast as well. Fast Lane Trucks ran it on the Ike Gauntlet where it performed better than the RAM ecoDiesel in every aspect other than fuel economy (beat it by about 1mpg, IIRC). The RAM was running at redline the entire way up and couldn't crack 55 mph.

nagant

Despite the extreme effort by GM and FCA's marketing trolls across the net, the EB 3.5 has proven to be exactly what Ford said it was; an awesome and strong truck engine. Go to CD and browse the forums there....they are infected with fake accounts and lies about the EB.

nagant

And the GM and Ram paid-bloggers keep waiting anxiously for a breakdown of the Ford so they can pounce........like they waited for news that the 3.5EB would prove to be problematic (keep waiting). Now that the Ram ED needed $11K worth of parts to fix the stalling issue, the Ford will really have to have a major fail to beat that.

pedrocentavo

The personality of pickup trucks has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. A luxuriously equipped truck in the past had power seats, etc. but today they are competitive feature-wise with luxury autos and offer a more sporty performance profile.We sold our '07 6.7 Cummins 3500 dually and replaced it with a Dodge 1500 Laramie Longhorn Ecodiesel. We no longer tow a gooseneck horse trailer but we needed a full size truck that would tow a 5000 lb. trailer comfortably and achieve acceptable mileage as a daily driver. Both the Ford EcoBoost and the Dodge Ecodiesel were tested. The Ecodiesel was quieter and the power was effortless. Towing it achieves over 18 MPG with 5000 lbs. behind it. To date, we are averaging over 24 MPG around town (Atlanta) and over 27 on the highway. Although the Ecodiesel can't match the F150 in acceleration I find that I rarely need that sort of power and it is a wasted asset in my daily drive. The Ram can more than keep up with traffic and it tows with confidence and is very capable. I also have to caution judgments based on the review of two vehicles. My '07 3500 literally had zero problems, only routine maintenance and it frequently towed a 12,500 LB trailer which contradicts the blogs concerning the reliability of the 6.7 Cummins. Besides, if I want to drive something sportier I use my vintage Mustang GT when I can avoid the Atlanta traffic.