What are your thoughts on this...

*vatrpr* · 11-23-2004, 09:10 PM

http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/truth/

Interesting information. Makes some of the parts on the "competition" look rather wimpy...especially the frontal areas of the Titan/Chevy. Hmmmm...I can see why the Ford weighs 400-500 pds more than the Titan now.

**CaliforniaTitan** · 11-23-2004, 10:04 PM

LOL well I find quite a few things interesting in those videos....

Box Frame - They compared all but the Titans....hmmmmmmm

Frontal area - Yes Ford has a 'welded box' type front on it - Old school style. The new style and actually safer is what the others are using where the front collapses within itself on faster impacts and the engine drops instead of trying to come through the firewall and you. By the way, did ya notice he didn't close a Ford F-150 hood? Go try it...the big piece of plastic on the front rattling back and forth will get your attention.

Suspension - Agree coil overs are better for handling but more expensive to replace as well. Also, I don't think there are any trucks they discussed without rack and pinion steering?

Tailgate - While the '04 tailgate on the Titan is pretty heavy....You should notice he still had to put a lil effort when working it. The '05 Titan assist can literally be done with one finger.

Just food for thought...

Chris

pciley · 11-23-2004, 10:11 PM

Nice demo. Seems single-sided. Something is missing. Is this a testimony on JUST the frames? We can't talk reliability? power? The Titan's frame is fully boxed, I doubt its as large of tubing as the Ford, BUT I think it IS through-welded like that rear cross member under the Ford's bed that he highlights.

The first Titan productions I saw on close-look TV footage really stressed the frame design. I'm sure they built it to compete with the F-150.

Do you think that guy likes Fords? hmm...

abmobil · 11-23-2004, 10:15 PM

One thing that was irrelevant was the oil filter size. A bigger filter dosent always mean better, some smaller filters have more media than larger ones due to the way they compact it. The nissan has the tinyest filter of the bunch but its motor will probably be the most reliable tied with the toyota. The toyota or the titan that i know of have never been known to have overheating problems but ford made a big deal about how much better theyre air flow was to the radiator.

**CaliforniaTitan** · 11-23-2004, 10:16 PM

Well since it was posted on a Ford website....hmmmmm LOL

Chris

BilltheCat · 11-23-2004, 10:32 PM

The Half-truth about trucks.

vw1972bugs · 11-23-2004, 10:43 PM

We can magazine and website race all day long but it doent really matter IMHO.

Lets see who is still kicking hard after oh say 200k-300k miles. I'm not sure if I'll still have the same truck or not but I can tell this is the true test.

My old 1996 4x4 Toyota Tacoma was at about 200k and it was still kick'n butt and take'n numbers all day long when I sold it. I know now that she was a tough truck, but I was very unsure when I first bought it. All I can say is...what a truck.

ciron28 · 11-23-2004, 11:23 PM

That Rick Titus is getting a paycheck from Ford. What does he know anyway. Before I watched the "Truth about trucks" I'd never heard of this guy. What a jack***.

The_Man · 11-24-2004, 06:04 AM

As was mentioned earlier, this is a combination of partial truths and misleading information. While bigger is often better in terms of strength and endurance, it is not always the case and it has limits and only to the degree that it can be physically proven. The bed bolt comparison is a godo example. If another truck manufacturer used 8 inch bolts which were 1 inch wide, would the bed actually be held in place better or would Ford's smaller bolts be sufficient? I would say the latter.

Al in all I don't doubt that Ford makes a well built truck. But I was looking for innovation and smarter engineering when I chose the Titan (and traded in a Silverado). If Nissan can get the same engine oil cleaning performance out of a smaller filter, then that tells me that Nissan did a better job engineering their product, instead of just building it with huge parts.

CyBwRBill · 11-24-2004, 06:11 AM

the Ford dealership had this playing on a video wall in the showroom. The minute the snake oil ....'er.....sales guy heard I was leaning Titan, he took me to watch this video. When it was over, I asked him "what the hell are you (Ford) all so afraid of"? As if this video was THE BIBLE on trucks. I told him it made them look paranoid and scared and went the next day and bought the Titan.

True Story!

QWIKWHIP · 11-24-2004, 07:56 AM

I like how there was not a thing said about the motor and tranny.

rarjar · 11-24-2004, 08:48 AM

Typical "spin-doctor" paid by Ford, hyping an inferior product (in my mind), and choosing only those things that may be an advantage of the Ford F-150 over the competition. Like others here, I noticed they avoided comparisons of overall quality, reliability, power etc. My thoughts.

SupraTitan · 11-24-2004, 09:04 AM

Thats funny, ford of all people calling out the others.

Maybe they should mention all the issues with the previous f-250 and thier tendency for the tie rod to just snap whenever, I guess you need all that metal up front if this is what to expect with a Ford. Picking on the puny oil filter is to easy, the problem is that the tolerances of the Nissan engine are pretty close to perfect and therefore wear is substantially lower than that of the ford V8, all you need to do is compare UOA"s for that fact to become apparent, don't need a huge 1960's looking oil filter. Kinda like saying that a large computer from the 70's is better than a new macintosh cause its bigger, yah ok. Ford has absolutely zero orginality. Look at the new Rustang, looks like an old rustang, the new Ford '"500", heck chrysler has the 300, lets one up with the 500 lol. They just seem to half *** thier way through building automobiles.

rww22 · 11-24-2004, 09:23 AM

Any reasonably intelligent person knows that if you are going to do a comparison, you can't just pick and choose what you are comparing and with whom you are comparing it. This is obviously a biased comparison that was produced for Ford's benefit. I find it amusing that Ford probably expects this 8 minute video to change someone's mind about full-size trucks. Pathetic. Now I have just wasted 8 minutes that I could have been using to drool over the freaking awesome TITAN in my garage.

HavockWK · 11-24-2004, 09:28 AM

I laughed at the way he grunted from the strain when he picked up the "lighter" weight front suspension components of the F-150. They should have edited that part out of the audio track.

All I can say is that this is a bunch of bullpoopy. He never offered level comparisons of technical info between the designs of each. Bigger isn't always better, and midirected truth is always deceptive.