Clifford the Big Red Truck, an F150 Story

[Jake]

The Tech package gave me blind spot monitoring (works with a trailer up to 30', too!), 360° cameras

i never understood the value of this until i drove Pete's FX4 through NYC (I-95) and was white knuckled having no rear visibility with a bed cap plus just the truck being that size, and that was without a trailer.  with you being in DC and hitting the highways so much with an enclosed trailer i hope that feature is worth its weight in gold for you.

seriously love that color, and the sport package is the way to go with the body color grill.  

did you test drive an ecoboost or just not interested in the first place?  with as much city driving and towing as you do, the mileage probably shakes out the same as the V8 in spite of the 10 speed.  in terms of efficiency i don't think the V6 really starts to pay you back unless you're doing a lot of unloaded cruising with highway tires and/or high axle ratios.  the performance is great but you can't beat the music that coyote plays, and its no slouch in its own right.

looks like its going to be an awesome steed for you, and in the end you managed to experience a 510hp range rover and both you and your wallet lived to tell about it.

The visibility on the 2015+ trucks is better than the 2011-2014, I think there is a bit less rake in the stock suspension, combined with a tweaked cab shape/window shape. But this one is better than my 2011, which may as well have had no back window. 

I test drove a 3.5 EB last week and the little sneezy turbo noises are fun. It makes more torque lower down (470 ft-lb vs my 400) but realistically, they drive similar enough and I got a better deal on the 5.0. The early (2011) EB's had some issues but they have at least proven reliable from 2012 onward. In any case, most of my road trip driving is with the trailer, and both engines suck equally there. I'm not at high altitude where the N/A would lose a bunch of power, either.

They had a few trucks with 3.31 rear ends, which is the highest you can get. All of those were a hard pass. Fuel economy is never a huge concern with a truck, just a "nice to have." This one with only 200-something miles on it is already doing much better than the Range Rover did.

Good point about the Range Rover, too - it was a super fun six months. But sometimes the crazy-wild girl/boyfriends aren't the best idea long-term, and someone who can still have a bit of fun but is more sensible day-to-day is the better option.