Ford V-6 beats v-8's in towing competition

[buck12]

Those who buy trucks because they feel manly may drive them unloaded but not those who buy a truck for a purpose. My truck is NEVER empty and has a trailer hooked to it more often than not.

Trucks have a purpose unloaded. I drove my truck deer hunting this morning, just me, deer rifle, and some extra clothes. This was a justified prupose to drive a truck yet not hauling/pulling a load - a car would not be able to get me near my deer stand (4 x 4 needed).

 

[BethesdaEC]

Don't want to pick a fight Chris, but Ford does unload a ton of trucks on fleets at a huge discount to maintain that best selling truck, this has been widely documented for years. I've never seen whether GMC and Chevy are added together in the comparison. GM is certainly in the majority around my part of the world...Not arguing, just sayin.:thumbsup:

There are two types of fleet sales, the first is daily rentals and second is corporate/government fleet. Daily rentals can be very damaging to a brand and can greatly reduce the resale value. What happens is the daily rental companies buy huge quantities of stripped down cars, thrash them for 1 to 2 years and dump them on the used car market. This devalues the retail used cars, the brand and ultimately impacts the new car value and perception.

Corporate fleets on the other hand may be stripped of creature comforts, but are often spec'ed with uprated drivetrains etc. These vehicles can expect long lives in the fleet and do not feed back into the used car market like the daily rentals. Because fleets do not like change, these products have extraordinarily long life cycles, look at the CVPI (aka the Crown Vic) or the E-Series vans. After the first couple of years, you have covered your development cost and even at the heavily discounted fleet rates, they are still cash cows.

Fleet sales are not always bad, just avoid a heavy dependency on the daily rentals which Ford has been pulling away from.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Don't want to pick a fight Chris, but Ford does unload a ton of trucks on fleets at a huge discount to maintain that best selling truck, this has been widely documented for years. I've never seen whether GMC and Chevy are added together in the comparison. GM is certainly in the majority around my part of the world...Not arguing, just sayin.:thumbsup:

As you know I am a pilot and travel all over and the one thing I have noticed is trucks and tractors are regional.

For example around there Ford and JD are king. I would say each has better than 60% of the market. I go to places like Ruston LA and the Nissan Titan is very popular and the Kioti tractors rule the roost.

You area GM may very will dominate. In the mid west where auto manufacturing and parts manufacturing by third parties GM is hurting. Many got screwed in the bail out. The company my dad works for lost big time and had to declare bankruptcy because of it for example. This makes people angry, including me. So that effects sales.

Chris

 

[Patches]

Don't want to pick a fight Chris, but Ford does unload a ton of trucks on fleets at a huge discount to maintain that best selling truck, this has been widely documented for years. I've never seen whether GMC and Chevy are added together in the comparison. GM is certainly in the majority around my part of the world...Not arguing, just sayin.:thumbsup:

You may be surprised, Ford doesn't want you to know, but the two GM divisions' trucks (identicle except for cosmetics) sales numbers are not added togeather. If they were, GM would be the largest selling pickup in America, and has been for years

 

[dodge man]

I'm also curious what the first gear ratios are in the transmissions. The Ram had the best rear gears for accelerations, but maybe the Ford had the best ratios in the transmission for acceleration? Needless to say, like the diesel hill climb test, Ford knew the outcome of this test before hand. Dodge and Chevy will have to start making up tests that favor them and get a good right up.

My guess is Ford wouldn't have come out with this engine unless they thought it would last. I expect it to do O.k., but time will tell.

 

[slowzuki]

Ford's been pretty conscious of engine reliability since the 6.0 diesel. I don't doubt they have done the testing. There will still be some failures I'm sure but hopefully the have caught all the expensive stuff.

 

[canoetrpr]

Interesting thread. I think Ford is taking a leap and a risk here with a turbo charged V6 for the F150. In theory it sounds great from the MPG point of view. Although, with well taken risk - comes reward.

Other than my 250lb dog box, my truck is driven unloaded all of the time. 10 or 20% better MPG would go a long way particularly if you did still have the power to draw on if necessary.

I tend to be very conservative with new engine technology though. I keep my vehicles a long time 300k km / 200k miles + and prefer to have a proven but slightly outdated engine technology to ensure it will make it there without major hassles.

I would be nervous about the extra complexity and repair cost of the turbos. Then again - when I think about diesels, the fact that they are all turbocharged doesn't bother me as I know way too many diesel truck / car owners that have 500k km on their trucks.

I do wish Ford had gone down the diesel route though as I thought they were planning to. Time will tell what the longevity of the 3.5L V6 will be like.

 

[JasG]

I do wish Ford had gone down the diesel route though as I thought they were planning to. Time will tell what the longevity of the 3.5L V6 will be like.

I think Ford stopped the diesel idea due to the costs of getting a diesel to meet current and future emissions. Also they wanted out of the deal with navistar, who was going to make the 1/2 ton diesel a few years ago.

It is very hard to justify $6000.00+ for a diesel in a 1/2 ton truck, at that point you may as well get a 3/4 or 1 ton.

 

[Willl]

Don't want to pick a fight Chris, but Ford does unload a ton of trucks on fleets at a huge discount to maintain that best selling truck, this has been widely documented for years. I've never seen whether GMC and Chevy are added together in the comparison. GM is certainly in the majority around my part of the world...Not arguing, just sayin.

You may be surprised, Ford doesn't want you to know, but the two GM divisions' trucks (identicle except for cosmetics) sales numbers are not added togeather. If they were, GM would be the largest selling pickup in America, and has been for years

Interesting numbers.
Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com

 

[LD1]

I think Ford stopped the diesel idea due to the costs of getting a diesel to meet current and future emissions. Also they wanted out of the deal with navistar, who was going to make the 1/2 ton diesel a few years ago.

It is very hard to justify $6000.00+ for a diesel in a 1/2 ton truck, at that point you may as well get a 3/4 or 1 ton.

I personally would be highly interested in a 1/2 ton diesel. But it doesn't have to be a horsepower war like the big 1-tons. Rather, let it be a MPG war.

My chevy 5.3 half ton does whatever I need it to. But the 16-17MPG sucks.

When they have the ability to make the big diesels push over 700HP and gobs of torque, why not scale that down a bit to a more modest 350HP or so, smaller displacement, and GREAT MPG. If they can make 700HP diesels in 1-tons push 22 MPG or better, there is no reason at all why a smaller displacement less powerful diesel shouldnt be able to do north of 30mpg, and still tow/haul better that the smaller V8 gassers in a half-ton with close to double the mileage.

And considering it will be a smaller engine, it shouldn't cost 6k more. rather something like 3-4k more and I think they would be able to sell like wildfire just from an economy standpoint. To me, a $35,000 diesel 1/2 ton that gets 30+ MPG would be a better buy than say a $32,000 gasser that gets under 20