New truck.

[Silver Penguin]

With sadness, I parted with my little convertible this week. Andy traded his RoadStar Warrior. In place of those, we bought the truck pictured below. Now, for desert trips we no longer need to pull a trailer with the bikes. The truck will also take our big dual sports too. Way down the road, we may even pull a toy hauler with it.

The beast is a Ford F350 diesel with off-road package and towing package. It's a 6 liter V8 with turbo. 8' bed and crew cab (gotta have room for those big dogs). The term 'beast' is really applicable when it comes to parking but on the road it is sweet. Just the gentlest touch on the gas will whip your head back. Nice stereo too. Pretty basic on the inside. Clean (apart from the nauseating air freshener) and very low mileage for an 04.

Andy said that we could stop at the HD dealership on the way home, now that we're suitably equipped to own one!

 

[gregory]

Congrats!

I had an '02 F350 Dually. Great truck that will serve you well!

Now, if you can just squeeze into that space at the mall.....................

 

[kaitsdad]

Congrats!
I had an '02 F350 Dually. Great truck that will serve you well!

Now, if you can just squeeze into that space at the mall.....................

Actually, there's no squeezing. Simply park on top of it.

Nice truck, Jill !!

Say, my son needs to move later this year......

 

[FJRay]

My neighbor just bought an 08 with ALL the bells and whistles. Nice truck but it sure makes my 1955 F100 look little and it was a full size truck in the day. Once you get the toy hauler you can hual enough crap to keep all you new friends happy. :yahoo:

 

[madmike2]

Niiiiice!

Parking? It's no problem for the ranchers around here. They're up and into town early enough they park pretty much where they want....now it's everyone else's problem.

Uh...hint from my "old days". Park where you can "drive out". I learned that quickly when driving the dually for our race team. And parking far enough out isn't a bad thing, I need the exercise.

 

[johnny80s]

Congratulations! That is a beast.

 

[S76]

Congrats on the truck. I have an 02 diesel but with a standard cab (shorter more manuverable) for plowing. Mine was an ex construction truck that hauled a very heavy fifth wheel, and it is an ex theft recovery truck. Still going strong at 150K and the diesel starts no problem at 0 degrees without plugging it in. Your probably not concerned with that though.

 

[FJRONAMISSION]

Good looking truck right there!!......

but then..... I like big trucks.....

 

[FJR-Don]

Nice truck.... not to pee on your new truck but keep a eye on that 6.0 Diesel that was Ford's first full year with it and they had some problems.

 

[Silver Penguin]

Nice truck.... not to pee on your new truck but keep a eye on that 6.0 Diesel that was Ford's first full year with it and they had some problems.

What kind of problems? Since we're planning to treat the truck roughly, we bought an extended warranty so hopefully that should take care of it.

 

[FJR-Don]

Like I said I'm not peeing on your truck but there have been problems with the 6.0 engine.... I have owned 3 ford 7.3 Diesel's and they were great trucks, I have never owned one with a 6.0 but I know people that did have problems with them. Just do a search on 2004 Ford 6.0 problems. I hope you never have any problems with yours....

 

[08FJR4ME]

I sold my F250 last year and traded it in for a F350. I had over 100K miles on the F250 and it was time to get rid of it.

I just turned 2,600 miles on it. Sits in the yard mostly. My main vehicle is the feej. I put over 12,000 on it last year.



If I don't do something with my driveway pretty soon I may have to put knobby's on the Feej.

 

[gregory]

IIRC

There were some injector problems.

 

[Bokerfork]

Damn close to my dream truck.

Ever since I was a young lad I've dreamed of an eggshell white F250 extra cab with whatever engine is available to get me out of everyone's way.

A buddy at work always says... "You can have a nice truck, or you can have a white truck."

Give me a plain Jane white F250 anyday.

Congrats Jill. Enjoy the F@#$ out of it.

Mark

 

[Silver Penguin]

Damn close to my dream truck.
Ever since I was a young lad I've dreamed of an eggshell white F250 extra cab with whatever engine is available to get me out of everyone's way.

A buddy at work always says... "You can have a nice truck, or you can have a white truck."

Give me a plain Jane white F250 anyday.

Congrats Jill. Enjoy the F@#$ out of it.

Mark

That's just what we've got Mark. It's the plainest of plain with no frills (and hence less doodads to go wrong). Not looking to create an image here, just to haul the bikes to the desert and back, have room for all the camping gear and the dogs, and not get stuck in the rough stuff. We prefer to camp away from the crowd, but it's definitely the road less traveled to get there.

 

[Allnight]

I have 2004 F350 diesel dually (Lariat, long-bed, crew-cab, FX4, DRW). The 2004 was the second year with that engine, and while the '03 did have some problems, they had a lot of them cleared up by the time they started building the '04's. Also, check the build-date. If it was built after 10/2003, it has most of the improvements in it. There was one recall that they fixed on the factory lines in july or august of '04 for the wiring harness to one of the ECUs. The wires ran over the valve cover on, I believe, the driver's side. The fix is to put plastic "stand-offs" to hold the wires up in the air and not let them sit on the valve cover. What was happening, is that vibrations over time were causing some of the valve cover nuts to wear their way through the wire insulation, and short out some of the wires. Usual symptom is the engine sputtering like a gas carborator that has fuel flow problems, or else the engine just plain quitting. Usually, very hard to restart; I think the starter would bounce the engine around enough to make the wire stop shorting out on the valve cover nut.

As you can tell, I'm very familiar with this problem I worked with two techs to find the problem, and we came to the conclusion about a week before Ford released the service update with it. The temporary fix was to slide a plastic sheath around the whole wire set...one of the cord-collector types of things that are similar to a tube that has a slit the entire length of it. That worked for me, but I still had them install the stand-offs after that came out in the fall of '04.

Anyway, I got a lot of help and info from TheDieselStop and suggest that if you have any concerns, you check it out. Nearly as nice a bunch of people as on here, at least when I spent a lot of time there, during most of 2004

About your mileage...do you know what rear-end ratio it has? If I have things figured out correctly for these beasts, if you have a 3.73 differential, then you get 18-19 MPG, and if you have the 4.10 (like all dually's have), you'll get 14. I get 14 on my dually with just about anything in it, until I put my 5k truck camper in the back, and then I get 10. When I had the camper on the back and was pulling a 3k# trailer, I still got 9.5.

Mike

 

[Silver Penguin]

Thanks for all the info, and the link Mike. I have passed it along to he who worships his new truck. He's outside tinkering with it right now. As you know, when a man buys a new truck there are an awful lot of things that need tinkering with. These things often need the hood up, other men and cold beer if they are going to be done properly.

 

[Allnight]

The front hitch was the hardest part...the factory lights couldn't stay with the hitch, so I went with some PIAA...decided I really don't like them...wish I had something that put out a lot of light, these are more just fill-in for up close stuff.

Also, I went with a spray-in liner. My earlier truck had a plastic insert...the spray ins are much more stable.

What other kind of stuff is he looking at? Farkling a truck is just...well...easier to get my wife to approve of

 

[DELETE-PLEASE]

Excellent! My wife and I just bought a new truck recently too! (we just got the license plates in yesterday and mounted them with the necessary diamond plate brackets today). Enjoy! We're loving the giant truck life. We have a shortbed and I commend you for dealin with the longbed in daily life driving/parking!