An aluminum tow vehicle for an aluminum Camplite.

[walt3]

It was probably a profit driven thing for Ford. Needed the profit margin to be higher.

[whoofit]

[p]Truck is at the dealer for a while now. Has a constant vibration when I set the cruise control to 60-63 mph. It is very annoying.

First we were fed the old "flat spot from sitting" myth and after 3k miles no change. Second we had the wheels Road Force balanced to no avail. Third we balanced them again to no avail.  Then I swapped-in the winter tires and rims, no solution.

They will try a new driveshaft today. Then on to bearings...etc. I have a funny feeling this may end up in arbitration. We may be getting a new truck per the lemon law if this persists.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Really relying on this truck now. The Escape is no longer capable of puling our travel trailer after adding 2xGC2 batteries and the Andersen No Sway...[/p]

[daplumbr]

I popped over to the f150forum.com to see if others had the vibration and found threads on it,  including posts from today. Since tires/wheels are not the issue with yours, it looks like the driveshaft, transfer case rear mount, or rear differential may be possible sources of the vibration in the new F-150. Of course it could other things too, forum information is not infallible! I hope Ford finds and fixes it ASAP, but they apparently have not issued a TSB on it yet, so the dealership might have to work at it. 

[whoofit]

[quote source="/post/16333/thread" timestamp="1446045465" author="@sandroad"]I popped over to the f150forum.com to see if others had the vibration and found threads on it,  including posts from today. Since tires/wheels are not the issue with yours, it looks like the driveshaft, transfer case rear mount, or rear differential may be possible sources of the vibration in the new F-150. Of course it could other things too, forum information is not infallible! I hope Ford finds and fixes it ASAP, but they apparently have not issued a TSB on it yet, so the dealership might have to work at it. [/quote][p]Thanks for taking the time Merlin![/p][p]
[/p][p]Yes it's gonna be multiple trips to the dealer again, I'm sure. What I will not tolerate is them telling me to come get the truck, it's fixed, it's acceptable, only to discover it is still not fixed. I have the Service Writer on my side, in writing now, and I'm not letting go of this. There is no way I'm sinking a penny into this repair. I will not sign off of anything until it is right.[/p][p]
[/p][p]The SW and I spoke about TSB's on this issue and you are right, there are none. It's not often enough I get to be the customer in matters such as this. I'm usually the guy trying to keep customers thoroughly happy. [/p][p]
[/p][p]So far they have been responsive and courteous.
[/p]

[whoofit]

Truck is done and all better. Did not have a chance to find out what they did but the cruise home was smooth as silk. Reason I don't know is they are right across the street from Gillette Stadium and there is a Patriots game there tonight so the dealership closed early at 3:00 and left the truck and keys for me to get.

Pretty painless bar all the traffic.

[daplumbr]

Whew!

[brandonboss]

My Grandpa has a 2016 Ford F150 King Ranch with the 3.5 ecoboost and loves it. He just drove from Reno to Washington towing a car trailer and a truck he just bought and said he barely knew it was back there. There are quite a bit of steep grades along the way and he was passing people in the hills without a problem. Youtube also has a bunch of videos with the Ecoboost towing. Reliability is the only convern for me but in the short term they are awesome trucks. I have heard good things about the 5.0 as well but no personal experience with them. It sounds like next year they may be discontinuing the 5.0 as well. Car and Driver did a comparison between the two towing and unloaded.  http://www.caranddriver.com/comparisons/2016-ford-f-150-lariat-50l-v-8-4wd-vs-2016-ford-f-150-lariat-35l-ecoboost-4wd-comparison-test-2016-ford-f-150-50l-v-8-4x4-page-2

[alf]

Yes, but aren't you worried that someone will wreck the truck bed by dropping a pile of concrete blocks on your truck from a great height?

[whoofit]

My Grandpa has a 2016 Ford F150 King Ranch with the 3.5 ecoboost and loves it. He just drove from Reno to Washington towing a car trailer and a truck he just bought and said he barely knew it was back there. There are quite a bit of steep grades along the way and he was passing people in the hills without a problem. Youtube also has a bunch of videos with the Ecoboost towing. Reliability is the only convern for me but in the short term they are awesome trucks. I have heard good things about the 5.0 as well but no personal experience with them. It sounds like next year they may be discontinuing the 5.0 as well. Car and Driver did a comparison between the two towing and unloaded.  http://www.caranddriver.com/comparisons/2016-ford-f-150-lariat-50l-v-8-4wd-vs-2016-ford-f-150-lariat-35l-ecoboost-4wd-comparison-test-2016-ford-f-150-50l-v-8-4x4-page-2

Yes, I expect 120 to 140k from this truck. Not sure about the EB's getting there trouble free but they are superior tow vehicles in the near term. 30% of all F150's sold in 2015 were 5.0's. I wonder how that percentage stands in later years?

I am pleased with my F150 but am only towing a tiny little 16DB and also tow it just fine with a much smaller vehicle as well. Either way the 5.0 is the tow capacity leader, per Ford towing guides, in the F150 line-up.

[whoofit]

[quote source="/post/25004/thread" author="@alf" timestamp="1475008842"]Yes, but aren't you worried that someone will wreck the truck bed by dropping a pile of concrete blocks on your truck from a great height?   [/quote]Well they would need to get through the aluminum contractor cap, the Cargo Glide bedslide and the bedliner first but yep I think a front end loader dumping concrete blocks onto it would leave a mark.... (rofl)  Old Man Winter, however, is a different story altogether.

[brandonboss]

I would love an ecoboost but am worried about reliability as well. They tow like a champ and they get all their torque at similar rpms to a diesel. To people who can afford to trade their rigs in every few years thats not an issue but whenever I get my new truck I plan on keeping it for 10+ years (only put a few thousand miles on my truck per year). I won't be buying for a couple more years so we should know more about the reliability by then.

[mitch]

[quote source="/post/25179/thread" timestamp="1475681626" author="@brandonboss"]I would love an ecoboost but am worried about reliability as well. They tow like a champ and they get all their torque at similar rpms to a diesel. To people who can afford to trade their rigs in every few years thats not an issue but whenever I get my new truck I plan on keeping it for 10+ years (only put a few thousand miles on my truck per year). I won't be buying for a couple more years so we should know more about the reliability by then.
[/quote]If you only put a few thousand miles per year on the truck I wouldn't think you have to worry about reliability.  Assuming the issue is wear, that's only going to happen with usage so if you guess that the issue will pop up at 80k miles you can drive for 26 years at 3,000 miles per year.

[brandonboss]

My truck now is getting up their in age and has some issues so I baby it and try not to drive it much. With a new truck I will want to drive it more. Probably 5-8k a year I would guess. I've only put 40k miles on my truck in the last 8 years and most of those were put on it when I first got it.

[mitch]

Got it.

[whoofit]

As I said earlier in this thread I use this truck primarily for work. Short in-town runs in a hilly area, with many starts and stops per day, and that involves towing most days. From my experience this is the worst case scenario for turbos. I have read that Ford has addressed this with oil drain holes at the bushing/bearing area and through aggressive cooling methods.

Considering my past history of needing to replace turbos at 50-60k miles I can only guess that a 20% improvement from Ford would be minimum. Unloaded highway driving you may never have a failure.

Our latest car purchase was going from an EB Escape to a normally aspirated V6 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk that eventually makes around the same HP and torgue. I don't miss the Escape one bit. The Jeep pulled through the hills of PA, West VA and VA far better than the Escape did and stayed cool as a cuke.

The Jeep gets the same fuel mileage as the Escape did towing or not, highway and city too.