Rental Truck

**armygreywolf** · 09-16-2014, 01:18 PM

So a few months ago my truck was parked innocently in front of my house when a drunk driver plastered her Toyota all over it and screwed up my rust free bodywork. Well finally insurance settled and the truck is getting fixed. Good thing too because something is wrong with the front suspension. She hit my front tire and bounced off it, across the street and hit my neighbors galant AND hummer. There were nine people involved and I can't even fathom that.

Anyways, I went to get an estimate yesterday and as soon as they got it on the rack to look underneath and found my inner C on the axle with a cracked weld, the ball joint was trashed and my steering gear box is leaking and loose...well she said I can't drive it til it's fixed and they gave me this to use.

I know I've been looking at the ecoboost trucks but this is a 5.0, let me tell you...I like it, it drives smooth, hauls ok and really...I could live with it. The biggest issue is the transmission...it downshifts terribly, lags behind...nothing snappy about it up or down. The engine bogs too much like it's afraid to raise the rpms to get it done. I do feel I am using too much throttle to get it to downshift or hold a gear. Putting it in tow/haul mode actually made it behave how a truck should behave. Holds gear on a grade, shifts faster and so on. The ecoboost trucks I drove were not like this, and they have the same transmission so I think it's just a programming issue (something as a calibration tuner I can fix). Anyways, tomorrow we will find out if it can tow 7500lbs I'm picking up an auction I won.

If I don't like it (since I'll have it for 2-3 weeks) they said they have tundras and silverados as well, or a transit van.

**Scrappah** · 09-16-2014, 04:14 PM

<sigh> Yeah my 94 F-150 has the overdrive enabled by default. You have to manually disengage it with the button on the shifter lever every time you start the truck. As a guy that drove class B trucks with standard transmissions & split rear ends the shift points feel all wrong.

Ford is really serious about boosting the fuel economy on their trucks & cars. They've done a good job too.

My guess would be that the computer that runs the motor & tells the auto tranny when to shift is programmed for fuel economy and not performance. Your truck might be a " one off " or they might all be that way now. I don't know.

I've heard that the computer has a learning curve and that after awhile it will adapt itself to your driving style ? It might have adapted itself to the last person that drove it before you ? If you left the battery cables off for awhile the computer would probably go back into default mode.

I dunno .... i think i'm going to be looking for a standard on my next truck.

**armygreywolf** · 09-16-2014, 04:46 PM

i hard reset the computer this morning. little change but the shift points are sll a little higher. i think its just a very lazy transmission. Also... i broke 215 degrees trans temp which is 40 degrees higher than what my dodge runs normally. hmmmm

**Scrappah** · 09-16-2014, 05:18 PM

Yeah 215 degrees seems kind of high. At what point does the transmission fluid start to cook ?

The simple thing might be to say to yourself that it's just a loaner. It's somebody else's problem. You could cover your bases and give them a call. Let them know that something about the truck doesn't feel right and give them the option of providing something else.

That way if something major does go wrong you're not on the hook for the repair cost.

**armygreywolf** · 09-16-2014, 07:48 PM

Yea...no big deal to me either way. It does get pretty amazing mileage for being a crew cab 4x4 5.0 (19mpg)

**newattitude** · 09-16-2014, 08:29 PM

Sounds like how hubbys Silverado drives - ''I think I can, I think I can.'' I know its a great truck but, my GMC Vortec Sierra V8 is much better for scrapping. I don't know anything about the ecoboost engines but the on ly thing I see a problem with is the short bed scrap wise. I could never scrap with a short bed.

Army, I'm glad nobody was hurt.

**happyscraper** · 09-16-2014, 08:44 PM

I agree with New on this one. A four door truck with a four foot bed is a waste of money to me.

**KzScrapper** · 09-16-2014, 09:00 PM

Most trucks bought these days don't seem to get used for their intended purpose so the beds keep getting smaller and smaller. Basically guys are just getting them to go with their Low T prescription.

**SparrowMetals** · 09-16-2014, 09:03 PM

Sorry to hear about your truck, Wolf. The same thing happened to a buddy of mine recently... Drunk driver peeled out of the parking lot across the street from his house and wiped out his car. Then, the drunk had the nerve to beg my buddy not to call the police, assuring him that he would "take care of it". Yeah, right. Turns out that it wasn't his first offense, so he's probably looking at some jail time.

I've driven identical models of trucks with the same engine/transmission combo, and I swear, some of them just don't feel the same. I'm not sure why that is, but I definitely recognize what you're talking about. Personally, I like the 6-speed manual in my Ram 2500. I average 16-17 MPG mixed driving and close to 21 MPG highway with the Cummins diesel/6-speed combo.

**armygreywolf** · 09-16-2014, 10:20 PM

Well...the transmission tuning is designed around the ecoboost with the 5.0 as an afterthought. They are the same tables, I already had a look tonight out of curiousity. Obviously I'm not gonna screw around too much with a rental but it is something for me to think about on a customer vehicle later on. Collapsing the torque required for downshift or gear holding is probably a good idea. Ford transmissions do not work like GM or Dodge transmissions, yes they are hydraulically controlled BUT they do not require pressure modulation for shift firmness, timing and so on, that is done by a PWM solenoid that controls the upshift/kickdown, clutch and overrun and so on. This is a huge departure from conventional automatic transmissions and as I found out, the fluid they use is designed to run hotter...

Also I was asked if it's a learning transmission...the answer is no, it's not. It is designed specifically with economy and smoothness in mind. If you tow ANYTHING or are HAULING near GVWR you need to be in tow/haul mode, the transmission is not programmed to operate at load normally. You can get an idea of its maximum capability by hitting tow/haul button and mashing the throttle it is very very fast shifting and hard...so yea, its programming and can be fixed pretty easily, in fact youtube videos show before and after tunes that do just this. The STX/FX4 and fleet trucks are tuned differently, as you can imagine, more for work than daily life.

Anyways, like I was saying...it's a good truck, it delivers good mileage, the engine is great..transmission would be if it was tuned. The ride is plunky...is that a word? It's soft on the border of TOO soft with a load in the bed. IF you were considering a F150 for work duty, skip the 5.0, get the ecoboost, it's better tuned. And IF you get any of them, 4x4 and the tow package because that has the heavier duty rear springs. So that's my analysis.

**DevinThaScrapper** · 09-17-2014, 11:41 AM

I agree, trucks are smaller and smaller beds everyday whence you get into the ones with the bars that come back and have a 3 foot bed, might as well not call it a truck. As for that truck looks like a 6 foot bed. Looks like you could pull that 7500 easily

**armygreywolf** · 09-18-2014, 12:59 AM

Well, the tow was terrible...the truck may be rated for 7500lbs but even when I commanded it to run in 4th at 55mph it still lacked the oomph. The truck was and is currently disappointing. This truck is best treated as a car, the rear end ratio is clearly too tall for duty like this. Mileage was equally terrible...9.9mpg. My dodge does that with a loaded gooseneck.

The bed is deeper than competitors actually, I must applaud that, An easy 4-5 inches deeper than my dodge and that makes up for being more than a foot shorter. (I have the 6.5ft bed which is actually 80" to wall to closed tailgate on my dodge. If you dig around my photobucket you can see a picture of the dodge hard at work.

My be all end all take on a Ford F150 from 2011 to current? Skip the 5.0 UNLESS your getting the 3.92 rear end (which only can be had in an FX4/STX) Skip the Crew Cab for straight scrapping BUT get it if your a one man band e scrapper...material you need to sort and keep out of the weather...nice to have a 3 foot clear space to keep it. Always take the 4x4, you want that because the rear end can then be had with limited slip AND you can get the heavy duty cooling package with your trailer tow group. ECOBOOST IS GOOD. It's a good engine, but the plugs should be changed if it has more than 50k miles when you buy it. The extended cab and crew cab are the only trucks you can get with the ecoboost, the regular cab can be had with the 3.7 or the 5.0 or the 6.2...none of which are financially viable for towing.

Conclusion from that? E scrappers will delight in an ecoboost F150 so long as they have an appropriate trailer. It will be presentable to the customer as being professional and keep fuel use low enough to make profit margins high enough to justify a newer truck. The crew cab is probably the way to go since its vital to the escrapper to maximize on components with potential re usability. The general purpose scrapper wants a 5.0 or 3.7 regular cab 8 foot bed truck. You cannot get the ecoboost like that but a 6.5 foot bed can be had in extended cab which then lets you get the ecoboost. If you own the truck for the next seven years you can bet the price of gas will double in that time...and your current truck probably doesn't get 20mpg with a loaded bed and run on regular unleaded.