I wanted a sharp looking full size extended cab full size pickup truck with a good ride that could do it all: haul building material for renovations, tote a slide-in cab-over camper, haul motorcycles, pull a boat out of water on a slippery ramp, camp backwoods, and chauffer my ten-year old and her friends. I heard Nissan was coming out with a full size pickup so I delayed my purchase to make a comparison. Here are my results and what made a difference to me in making my purchase decision:

- Looks: This is subjective but IMHO, the F-150 is gorgeous--I can live with it for a long time. The Titan is well…ugly. That huge expanse of fake chrome and the weird front shape do not appeal to me. Also, what’s with that gigantic piece of black plastic on the tailgate? I think the Titan’s looks will wear like a 70s leisure suit.

- Cab interior: The F-150 interior is stunning – the space and interior fit and finish are superb. The seats are very comfortable and there’s excellent vision out. I especially liked the roll down rear side windows for my daughter’s dog to hang out. The Titan’s interior design, while brand new, looks dated in comparison. Its open weave seat fabric looks and feels like it’s from a furniture barn sofa and the seats are too soft to provide good support. The Titan’s massive view-blocking A-pillars were worrisome. I also did not like the significant intrusion of the Titan’s wheel wells into the cab foot space. To get that snub nosed look, Nissan had to move the engine way back into the cab. This caused a claustrophobia inducing lack of space in front of my knees when sitting in the front—and it prevents the passenger from comfortably crossing legs. A short person may not mind but it bothered me.

- Ride: I plan to put many miles on the truck and I want to do it in as much comfort as possible. The F-150 is very quiet, tight, and smooth—in one word, it’s refined. The Titan, while better than trucks of yesteryears, transmits more road harshness into the cab and there’s a lot more wind, road, and exhaust noise—the kind that gets old quick on a long trip.

- Cargo capacity: The biggest Titan box is 6.5 ft. Nissan had plenty of chutzpa to call it a full size pickup truck when it doesn’t offer an 8-ft. box. Considering my intended uses, 6.5 ft. doesn’t cut it. I like the security of a gate closed behind my load. Even my wife’s Town & Country van can haul 4X8 stacks of plywood or sheetrock inside with the doors closed. The F-150 has a full size (8 ft.) box and a super-nice feature, a torsion bar assist in the tailgate allowing easy one-hand operation.

- Payload capacity: This is a key test for a full size truck and affects real world towing capacity. The Titan 4X4 is maxed out at 1,508 lbs. With the F-150, you can get up to 3,000 lb. payload in a 4X2 regular cab, nearly double the Titan’s, and with the Supercab 4X4 and 8 ft. box, you get 2,260 lb. The F-150 payload pkg. gives you a beefier frame, stronger springs, transmission cooler, more radiator capacity, light truck tires, heavy capacity wheels, etc.

- Towing capacity. Nissan claims Titan’s towing capacity is up to 9,500 lb. but that is unrealistic in real life since you have to deduct passenger and cargo load as well as tongue weight from your payload capacity. Say you want to take your 3 buddies water skiing. Deducting 800 lbs for people and 200 lbs for your toolbox and gear leaves you 508 lbs for your tongue weight. Tongue weight should be 10-15 % of your boat and trailer weight. That puts your real life maximum towing capacity at 3,383 to 5,080 lbs. The engine could pull more, but overloaded, the suspension will take a beating, the frame may bend, and handling will not be safe. With the F-150’s payload capacity, you can load up the truck with passengers and gear and still have plenty of payload capacity left to use your maximum towing capacity of up to 9,500 lbs.

- Performance: Both the F-150 and Titan have powerful engines, fairly closely matched, with a “tad” more claimed by Nissan. Power in a truck is welcome; however, I found the Titan’s throttle too jumpy in that it feels either off or on without enough ability to modulate between. This is especially annoying from stops, negating the value of the “tad” more. It’s also readily apparent, perhaps due to its DOHC design, that you need higher revs than the F-150 to squeeze out its top power. I can do without the extra buzziness this causes. The F-150 is smooth, strong, and linear in acceleration with good input modulation via its fly-by-wire control. It has plenty of low-end torque, most of which is available at 1,000 rpm according to Ford. The F-150 engine’s low-rev power is more suited for my application and I liked the smoothness.

- Safety: I knew that Ford spent gobs of money designing the new F-150 for safety after bad crash tests results on the old F-150. The latest crash tests confirmed the new engineering. The F-150’s twin 5 star rating in the February frontal crash test tells it all. To leave no safety stones unturned though, Ford should add side airbags as an option. The Titan offers these but when I visited their showrooms, most of the Titans were not being equipped with them. Crash testing for Titan is still an unknown.

Conclusion: Based on my needs and comparison, the F-150 won hands down in every area of importance to me. I ordered an XLT Supercab 4X4 with 8 ft. box, payload pkg., and 4.10 limited slip rear-end Dec 31, 2003. This is my first Ford. With less than 200 miles on it last weekend, I picked up a 2,200 lb. load of oak flooring for my new master bedroom—it made the ride even smoother. If I had tried that in a Titan, besides not being able to close the tailgate, it would have bottomed out the suspension and going over some pretty rough roads, possibly bent the frame. If you’re shopping for a great looking full size truck that does it all extremely well, the new F-150 is definitely the one you want.

 

I don't care for the new F150 myself, but I'll agree with all points except the bigger frame. With the 9900lb trailer towing pkg you get a bigger axle, heavier rated springs, extra engine and transmission cooling, 4.10 axle ratio, bigger brakes, and LT D rated tires- the frame is the same, don't kid yourself there.

Also if you actually need the full 9,900lbs of towing ability you better consider a 3/4 ton- I don't care what the manufacturer says, theres no way I'd try pulling 5 tons with any half ton truck -not even a "heavy" 1/2 ton-remember it's still got a semi floater in there, and the ring gear diameter is not as big as a 3/4's either,also like I said- it's still the same stiff 1/2 ton frame.

All the same I'd buy the F150 over any Titan in a heartbeat-no contest- the Titan may have a decent engine(cant believe I even said that) and a 5 speed auto with good gearing-but the rear end can only be described as PUNY.

 

I don't plan on towing more than 6-7,000 lbs. I agree that it's good to stay below rated towing capacities.

On the payload package, I found the frame specifications on this site: https://www.ford-trucks.com/framered.../techspec.html

The specifications show that the frame steel thickness on the payload pkg. is .15 inches vs .12 on the lightest weight F-150, 25% thicker. It lists a section modulus of 6.97 on the payload pkg vs 5.24. Section modulus is a measure of resistance to bending. The frame with the payload pkg. is significantly stronger.

 

Thanks for posting this SparkyDog .

Excellent write-up

In fact this post was so good, when user's need to know what a technical type post looks like,

I'll send them to the thread.

 

nice write up from an unbiased source.

 

Good topic. I'm anchoring it to the top.

 

That was an excellent, well thought out article there man! Any plans to test a chevy or dodge soon?

 

Drove both now myself and have to agree with sparky. The slight unladen performance advantage of the Titan isn't enough to make one choose it over the F-150 when the Ford seems nicer in so many ways.

So Ford where's the longer bed in a Screw?

 

Sparky

Heard about your post in the mod forum and had to come up to see for myself. VERY nicely done. Very well written and unbiased.

Thanks for such an excellent post.

Jim

 

Well sparkydog im glad to see you made your choice and in no way is this UNBIASED hes been on every board bashing every truck. i could dig up some posts off titantalk and freshalloy where hes bashing the ford, how bout that sparky. also the titan kc has a 6'7" bed and the dana axles are a proven design. to all this guy is not a reliable source.

 

Hey what's up sparkydog, glad to see that you bought the new f-150, I too have seen you on the titan forums, praising the new titan, and bashing the f-150, also glad to see all the praise you are getting for the beautifull write up, what you failed to tell them is how you bashed all those ford faithfulls, on our forums. Step up and tell them all the smack you talked about that truck you purchased, and oh yea let me know when you want me to hook up to your rear bumper and drag that truck untill your tires are square, have a great day with your new truck !!!!!

Please Read the guidelines!!! No foul language!

Even if its masked!

 

welp, this is gunna get closed soon...