Jalopnik
It's difficult to imagine any of you Jalops needing to haul 20,000 pounds. We also doubt many of you are in the market for a truck whose price tag easily hits $40,000 to take off-roading. But what if you came across a half-dozen utes sitting in the middle of California's Rubicon Trail, each adorned with a sign reading "Take me"? Sure, that's totally plausible. So, when Ford invited us to put its 2008 Super Duty through some of the more rigorous tasks a vehicle will ever face, we struggled to come up with a reason to turn them down. After all, this thing has wheels (sometimes even six of them!) and we like things with wheels, do we not?
Ford has little competition in the Super Duty realm. Lined up against competing trucks from Dodge and Chevrolet, the Ford's internals are undeniably beefier. With substantially larger water pumps, radiators, engine mounts and bolts, there's no doubt the Ford is tougher. While the metal bits make up the Super Duty's bones and guts, Ford also blasts its largest full-size rig with hardcore development testing on Silver Creek, a quarter-mile straight shot on Ford's proving grounds, meant to simulate a lifetime of hitting giant pot holes, rocks and bumps most drivers hit only once every few thousand miles.
The directions for driving across Silver Creek are simple: hold the wheel with a firm, but relaxed grip and keep the speed at a steady 20 mph. The execution is much more difficult. From the first bump, your right foot is thrown into a struggle to find the gas pedal, while not accidentally smashing it to the floor. The steering wheel is prone to doing whatever the hell it wants, so when we reach the end of the course (rather than allowing the bumps to throw the truck off the road) it's tempting to call it a miracle. Reliving the violence of the drive in your head has shock absorbers busting through their mounts and suspension bits snapping in half, yet the Super Duty doesn't even show signs of a rattle after passing down Silver Creek. In fact the course is so intense Ford test drivers are limited in how often they can drive it due to medical concerns. During development, a single truck must survive the drive across Silver Creek more than 600 times before sign-off.
Off-road, the Super Duty performs well. After several hours of rain that have turned the course into peanut butter, the single-axle F-350 has no problem muscling through mud pits and crater-ridden trails. Its length is certainly a burden, making it far less nimble than any real off-roading machine. Still, it did well approaching steep hills and through short dips, never bottoming out.
We also took an F-450 Super Duty equipped with dualies over a hilly road course pulling a trailer 4,000 pounds shy of its 24,000-pound towing capacity. With Tow/Haul mode engaged, the Ford hangs onto revs longer and downshifts earlier when you put on the brakes to help slow things down. With the 6.4-liter diesel making 650 pound-feet of torque at peak, you're getting serious twist no matter where the tach needle points. Despite the Ford's five-speed Torqshift automatic downshifting at such aggressive points while towing 10 tons, we swear we could hear "Smooth Operator" playing somewhere.
It's a blessing we're not on public roads, since nearly all the journalists in attendance have casually dismissed the lane lines while towing that 40-foot trailer. With the longest Super Duty models stretching nearly 22 feet, you have to start thinking about navigating rather than driving. Turns should be planned well in advance and you'll want to run a few geometry calculations through your head before attempting to park between cars. Ford has made some efforts to make navigating the Super Duty a bit less of a burden. The screen for the optional back-up camera appears in the rearview mirror when you shift into reverse. While the screen is much smaller than the traditional screen in the nav system, Ford's camera includes a dotted line pointing where your truck is headed. Additionally, colored brackets along the edge of the screen help you to gauge how far you are from a wall, your trailer hitch, or Fido. Available power-scoping mirrors slide away from the truck for towing and can be folded in against the truck when pulling into a garage using a simple knob.
On F-350 dualies, buyers can now check a box for the "Fat Boy" option (actually, the sheet will read more like "widetrack monobeam front suspension and extended axle"). The longer front axle cuts the turning radius down from a hulking 56 feet to a slightly-less-hulking and class-leading 50 feet. Step into a Fat Boy-equipped F-350 and crank the wheel as far as it'll go. From the cabin, cones marking the outside of the turning circle disappear from sight in line with the center of the truck, convincing you you're about to send them to a second, flatter life. It's a surprise to get out of the truck and see all of the cones still standing. The Fat Boy option also makes the wheel wells taller and deeper, while adding more dimension to the front fender flares, giving an even tougher look to Ford's ultra-tough truck.
The toughness of the Super Duty is apparent in almost every challenge you can throw at it, from off-roading to towing to car-eating potholes. If you need to haul something or just want a vehicle that you can relentlessly abuse, the Super Duty has your number: $45,000 fully loaded.
Comments
so, it's tough then.
I can't help but hear Mike Rowe's voice as I read this post.
Too bad the front end on the latest versions look all busy and gimicky. Looks particularly bad on the base models of these trucks with sealed beam headlights. Grey plastic galore!
@PeteJäyhawk™: Big bolts!
The majority of these are going to no doubt be sold as suburban accessories and not be used for their intended purpose.
The majority of these are going to no doubt be sold as work trucks, with a few sold as suburban accessories because some yuppie saw a diesel dragster on TV.
Indeed, these monsters look pretty useful for those that have stuff to haul everywhere-I think it would just be nice if they weren't wrapped in a 10-year old visual package...
The King Ranch Edition is my new baby-daddy.
Far be it for me to take exception....
...but I take exception to the Ford being tougher.
The jury is still out on the 6.4L. Yeah, twin turbos, bathtub rad...yeah, yeah, ok...It's got some torque.
But what about the transmission? EFF, it couldn't hold up to the previous 6.0L when that one wasn't dropping valves...
And what about this brandy new 6.4L? It ain't old enough to show longevity which the 6.0L certainly didn't. I wouldn't trust it. And WTF's this regenerating exhaust system? That'd scare me to death if I wasn't humping and dumping (i.e.,leasing) it.
Case-in-point: The Detroit ambulance fleet comprises a mix of 37 '03s and '06 E-450 vans w/ the 6.0L. Mid-summer, they were down to 16 operational ambulances with a fairly even split for the dead 'lances btwn engine and tranny issues.
And that F-350/450 is the butt-ugliest truck North America ever made.
I'd take a Cummins Dodge if it weren't for the crap they wrap around the drivetrain.
If new, give me the Chevy Duramax.
I'm still holding out for a nice -'98 7.3L F-350 Crew. Or a custom crew cab'd Jeep FSJ w/ a Cummins 6bt, HD axles swapped in...
Sorry, Eric, not raining on your parade...raining on it's words.
Jesus Christ that's a big truck. Or maybe it's because I glanced at the first picture and somehow ended up thinking those orange cones were the highway standard size ones for a brief moment.
...Nice write-up, sounds like it'll be useful for people who need to haul three grand piano's around all day, or steal the Pyramids of Giza one block at a time.
Isn't the macho in-your-face thing getting a little silly?
Say what you will about their cars, Ford does know how to build a big damn bog-honkin truck.
well, it looks like you guys had fun playing in the mud.
I still am not going to buy one.
I like Ford HD trucks, but Dodge is easily the best call for the half ton crowd who actually use trucks as trucks.
@badco-fascism:
Not when your hauling.
All of the remarks about this being just a "status" buy must live in Miami, or somewhere similar. That is the only place I've seen these used just as a "cool car." The rest of the country uses these for their intended purpose.
Also, what else should a truck built to do this look like? I think it looks exactly as it should for what it does.
Well crap, I'd buy one, but I just inked TUNDRA over my Ford tattoo.
Even with Dodges tranny issues (which apparently are pretty much sorted now with 68RFE) i'd still take the Dodge 3500/4500/5500 over this..
If the tranny bugs you.. then get the stirling bullet.. which by default comes with the aisin w/pto.. same as the ram, except the interior is not as plush..
To hell with Dodge, my old company had a fleet of them and the front ends went out on them (bearings, swayrods, etc..) within the first year.
Unless you're day-to-day job includes hauling a D9 Cat across the Amazon, a 10 y.o. half-ton Chevy will do fine. I see way to many of these guys parked at the shopping mall.
24,000 lbs. is how many Double-Wides?
@rlj676: I take it you've never been to Houston.
To hell with the Super Duty, King Ranch, Fat Boy Option crap...
I'd go all out with the F-650 'I'M NOT JOHN HOLMES SO I"M COMPENSATING EDITION'
Ford talks tough, but doesn't back it up with a decent warranty. If you want a durable work truck, look at an Isuzu cab-chassis, which has an unlimited mile warranty for 36 months. Or a Mitsubishi Fuso, with a five year, 175,000 mile warranty. Even Dodge has a 5 year 100,000 mile warranty on the Cummins engine in its cab/chassis. Ford offers 5 years, 60,000 miles. A work truck might go 60,000 miles in its first year alone.
You have to remove the entire cab of these trucks to do any type of major engine work. I'm not sure exactly what kind of work that includes, but we have received bulletins here at work showing these things in the shop with the cab on a hoist and the chassis on the ground. We're having to design special bulkheads so that our electronics can be easily disconnected.
I'm waiting for the 'Fat Man' edition. To be followed by an F-150 trim package, 'Little Boy.'
Until you drive one of these on the street, you cannot possibly comment on their necessity for suburban yuppies or other non-work applications. When you hurl down the highway, traffic spreads like Brittany's legs, yeilding becomes a distant memmory, and traffic lights/stop signs/medians are mere suggestion. Prii drivers don't look at you with scorn, they flee in terror (ok, actually they slow in terror). Blinged out Sclade drivers look at you with envy. Not to mention, surrounding yourself with 8,000 pounds of steel relieves you of any need to drive carefully or wear a seatbelt! Who doesn't need one?
I'm perfectly happy with my 'yota. Sure, El Gordo could cart it away and have tons of capacity left over, but even with my semi-rural lifestyle, heating with wood and running parts for the tractors, I can't justify this much truck. It's just too much.
Can you imagine what a bitch of a job it must be to fill this truckbed full of firewood? You'd be throwing the wood over your head!
This latest face lift has downs syndrome.
Fully loaded at 45 ten-Bens isn't bad though.
@Zapp_Brannigan: X2 They should be banned from selling these things within a 20 mile radius of any major metropolitan area.
I'd like to see what Silver Creek does to a regular car. I really want to see a 1991 Ford Taurus run the length, see what percentage of the original car makes it to the end. That would make my day.
Was this article written by Motor Trend or just copied directly from the Ford press release?
@Zapp_Brannigan: Nor Dallas.
You don't see Super Duties used for much other than posing around here. In construction, you see plenty of F150s (especially the last generation), Cummins Dodges, and the occasional GM truck. As for towing: if a firm has something to move that's 20,000+ lbs, they generally don't use a pickup truck.
In any case, I wasn't aware that a chrome plastic grille that's twice the size of last year's was an asset while your (sic) towing.
@elhigh: Just don't put any sort of weight on the failgate.. err tailgate.
[www.toyotatundraforum.com]
What?? That 'yota truck isn't bulletproof?
That unpossible.
LTDScott, rlj676: Are you sure you guys shouldn't be Autoblog if you want to hack on posters vehicles.
Like that one guy always says
'dude my F-series Powns ur Fagundras!' ...or something like that.
Well, anyone who wants to buy a Super Duty, go ahead...... Just a word of caution (from an inside source, since I work in the Truck Biz), if one of the two Turbo's let go (They are set up in a compound fashion, one after the other), you will have to unbolt the cab from the frame, lift the cab several inches, just to undo the Turbos. Good Luck!
@POLAR: LOL, people criticize the truck in question here and tout their own. We're not allowed to point out weaknesses in others?
@LTDScott: Just sayin' brother, whatever flips yer dress up. Criticize away!
I'm going to buy one to haul around my S-10.
@POLAR: Hell I don't even like trucks, I just know what I read, heh.
@LTDScott: He didn't say he had a Tundra. The '80s Toyota pickups are the automotive equivalent of Chuck Norris.
The idea that most of these won't end up parked at suburban industrial parks and shopping malls is untrue. A tiny percentage of these will be used for real heavy work.
Even those people who buy these for 'real work" are often full of it. I spent my summers growing up on a 5000 acre potato farm in Idaho where trucks got used hard like trucks were meant to be used. My cousin who owned the farm drove an old early eighties stripped down standard cab Chevy half ton, and it worked damn fine. The idea that you need this much truck is silly. The contractor excuse is a total canard. When I drive past a construction site, I usually see a bunch of beat up Toyota Tacomas, and one big fancy truck belonging to the boss, who drives it unladen from work site to work site.
This thing is American paranoia in vehicular form.
WoW. This will be just perfect to haul the Caddy-Camper!
I don't see these getting used for serious towing very often. Maybe every once in awhile with some farmer towing a truly enormous horse trailer or something, but that's a pretty small fraction of the big trucks that you see on the road. I'm with Spence in that most of the people who buy this use it as a penis extender.
only one question...
does it still shoot flames out the tailpipe?
@Spence: I haven't seen any statistics to prove or disprove any "canards" or "straw men".
I see trucks like these towing race trailers all the time. I also see yuppies driving AMG SL55's to and from Starbucks. Maybe those should be restricted to track use only?
@Spence: thank our tax code for putting a 6,000+ lb truck in the driveway of every small business owner.
It's a nice truck in search of a powertrain. Thankfully that Navistar abortion under the hood will be replaced eventually by a Ford designed engine.
They can claim whatever power they want, but it dynos significantly lower than the 6.7 Cummins and 6.6 Dmax. In Oct 07 Diesel World Mag put them all on the rollers and it was 45rwhp and 45rwtq down on the other two. The twin turbos also do little to quell the "death lag" that the old 6.0L suffered from. And to top it off, they get at least 25% worse fuel economy than the Dodge and GM.
While Dodge's trucks aren't the most luxurious, they are the most reliable (according to JD Power) and have the best powertrain. GM's perform just as well as the Dodge but with a shorter service life and have a lot nicer interior. There's two better choices than the Superduty.
When did Ford hire Optimus Prime for the styling studio?
Towing, thats where I see this happening.. Race trailers, camping, whatnot. And the school run, natch.
Two words: tax writeoff.
You know, for the"small businessman" GVWR > 6k = one magnetic sign & an accountant away from a free ride..less so than years past, but God bless America.
[www.selfemployedweb.com]
I'd be more inclined to believe the Silver Creek hype Ford is shoveling if the F250 and 350 SuperDuty's didn't go through tie rods, drag link joints, sway bar end links, and ball joints like popcorn.
Not that GM and Dodge are any better, but I haven't heard of any torture track claims from them yet.
I run my '00 F250 on roads that make Silver Creek look like 6 lane divded highway. All I've done is replace shocks. Still have original ball joints and tie-rod ends.
I get quite a bit of use out of my F250. I cart fuel to the field during planting and harvest as well as thousand pound plus loads of seed and dry chemical.
I'm not keen on the 6.4L Diesel though, the 7.3L in my truck was the last engine Navistar had that was principally designed by International Harvester. If Ford could get CAT to come down from their high horse and sell them an engine, they'd really have something.
John Deere's actually been wanting to sell engines to one of the Big Three for quite some time. Ford could always go with them as a last resort.
If only Ford hadn't made the '08 Superduties look like the retarded offspring of the '99-'05 trucks. What else pisses me off about them is the grille is attached to the hood so when you pop it the grille goes up. I hate that as I'm always hitting my head on that stuff.
@PeteJäyhawk™: Mike Rowe would have gone through the mud pit with the windows down.
My dad has an 2005 F-250 Lariat Extended Cab Superduty diesel (quite a mouthfull...is it in the right order?). He tows all the time! He carries their 5th wheel travel trailer to the mountains and also his John Deere to tractor shows. It definitely get the job done with ease!
@rlj676: A lot of people in Miami have these things called "boats". Now granted, most boats can be towed by a 1/2 ton truck just fine, but anything north of 27 feet or so and you need a 3/4 ton. And if you think there aren't enough of those around to justify the number of 3/4 tons you see around here, hang out at one of the boat ramps on the weekends. Now, if you see a 3/4 ton truck with no trailer hitch, or those ridiculous 26" wheels, lifted so high the entire boat could slide under the truck in a crash, then yes, you're likely staring at a poser.
(I don't own a truck. My boat hangs on davits. When I need to tow it I borrow a 4wd 1/2 ton 'burban.)
@MrEvil:
Yours may be fine, but as a service contract inspector I know from experience that if I'm looking at a Super Duty all four ball joints will be part of that claim. End links are also almost guaranteed to be on the claim, with tie rods not far behind. They tend to cluster in the 60K mile range, with some over-achievers in the 40K range.
On a positive note, it has been quite a while since I've had to go verify a trans failure on a Super Duty.
I'm just surprised it ran for the entire test.
The ads for Ford's trucks claim "actual demonstration" but they seem to omit what is exactly being demonstrated - in their case,
A) "stopping" a Hercules plane on a tarmac with its new vented-disc brakes (with no way of knowing if the plane itself is helping to brake),
and
B) Cornering in and out of a slalom with tall metal poles leaving NO room for error, then doing it in reverse(!)(with no way of knowing if it's just the video reversing and not the truck)
In other words, they fail to present an actual demonstration beyond reasonable doubt, so the ads suffer as a result; compounded with their obvious attempt to bite back at the Tundra ads.
Ford's ads are still better than Nissan, who just use blatant, gratuitous CGI that has no place in the real world whatsoever to "demonstrate" their truck's toughness with giggling robotic arms...as blah as it is wrong-looking.
Name a manufacturer and somebody will have a negative comment. None of them are perfect! I love my F250 Super-Duty 2008! Yeah, I park it at the Malls. Mainly on Sunday after a long week of towing my Skid Steer around nearly everyday! Ooops, I fogot about pulling my 4 horses in a 3 Horse Slant Load w/dressing ro