Ford’s F-Series may be the country’s best seller, but in stock form it’s not the hottest performer. Today’s Nice Price or No Dice F-150 seeks to address that inequity with a Roush Stage 2 supercharger on its 5.4-liter V8. Let’s see if you can get pumped up over its price.
If it hadn’t been for Cinderella’s fairy godmother cleaning her up and switching out her Doc Martens for some sexy glass heels, she would never have received that happy ending she so richly deserved.
Yesterday’s 2003 BMW E46 M3 was much like Cinderella, only instead of a wand, its benefactor was equipped with a wrench. And its glass slipper was, in fact, a Getrag six-speed gearbox. That replaced the factory SMG, a change that based on your comments, made the car something you might just like to live happily ever after with. The $11,900 price tag was a bit less of a fairy tale finish, but with a narrow 55 percent Nice Price win, it wasn’t exactly an aesthetically-disadvantaged stepsister either.
The Cinderella story is an archetype folk tale that’s known across many cultures. One of the earliest in western culture is the Greek oral history Rhodopis; a story about an Egyptian girl who has a king fall in love with her after a bird steals her sandal. Yeah, it’s kind of crazy.
Do you want to know what else is kind of crazy? That the Ford F-Series has been the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. for decades now. That’s just nuts. Now, I don’t mean that as a denigration of the F-Series or Ford’s indomitable production and marketing capabilities. It’s just that it seems as though nothing ever lasts that long, and in almost all the other automotive categories we’ve seen American manufacturers get fed their lunch by foreign interlopers. Toyota and Nissan have each offered pretenders to Ford’s throne, but none has ever been able to find a weak spot in the F-Series’ armor. The domestic competition has likewise failed to catch the Ford phenom. GM and RAM both offer trucks that try and go toe to tow-hook with the F-Series, and none has ever managed to knock the Ford off its sales pedestal.
If the standard F-Series is good enough to fend off the competition so decisively, then a Roush-enhanced edition must be even better, right?
This 2008 Ford F-150 Limited is just such a truck. It features a SuperCrew cab and short-box bed with a hard tonneau all sitting over a 4WD frame. The more interesting feature here is the Roush supercharger that’s been bolted to the truck’s 5.4-liter V8 and which should bump up its bragging rights to 445 horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque.
The supercharger is a Roots type from Eaton, which the ad claims to have been recently “re-tuned.” That’s a bit perplexing a statement. Maybe its ECU was reflashed? Other work that’s noted in the ad is less confusing. That includes a new timing chain — humorously noted as a ‘taming chain’ in the ad — along with some new gaskets, plugs and an oil pump. Those parts apparently came from a Ford dealer, and the seller has the receipts.
The rest of the truck seems to be in pretty nice shape and features even more customizations. Those will serve to ensure the truck stands out despite the model’s ubiquity and this one’s somewhat plain Jane Oxford White paint. The truck rolls on comically sized 26-inch chrome-plated aftermarket wheels but should those not be your cup of hooptie, the truck’s original wheels come along with the sale.
You may want to put those on a blanket or something in the carpeted bed — you don’t want to dirty that up.
The interior is appreciably clean with just some normal bolster wear evident. The YIHO-branded floor mats would be better in a complementing color, but other than that it’s fairly standard mid-aughts Ford in here. You do get some special Roush badging on the dash. One of those handily provides the VIN and the production sequence, noting this to be #294 out of 750 trucks with the Roush mods.
The truck comes with a clean title and 136,000 miles on the clock. It also comes with a $15,000 price tag, so it’s now time for you to give us your opinion on whether that’s a fair deal or not.
What do you say, is $15,000 a good price for this Roush’d F-150? Or, does that price finally knock this Ford off its sales pedestal?
You decide!
Youngstown, Ohio, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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