While fans have been asking for a diesel F-150 for years, you have to wonder if it will be a hit when it goes on sale. This post on the HP thinks it will be... What do you think?

 

Yes it will.

 

It will have its buyers, just hope they make enough to keep with demand.

 

I'm sure it will do well at first - for all the wrong reasons. A lot of people will buy it because it's something new and some will buy it just because it's a diesel.
Then reality will set in. It's heavy. What will that do to max towing capacity? Lots of torque for towing but not lots of horsepower to play stoplight racer.
In 2005 I bought an F350 6.0 PSD. Fuel mileage wasn't that great but hey, diesel was $.30 a gallon less than unleaded regular. Cool. Then Congress caught on. You can always pass up that trip to grandma's house to save gas and gas engines were getting more efficient hence less tax revenue. But you CAN'T cut back on truck trips and cross country trucking so let's dump a bunch of taxes onto diesel fuel. By the time I traded that 350 in 9 years later diesel was $.20 a gallon MORE than unleaded premium. Even if that new engine is a lot more efficient it will probably take a decade or more to pay back.
I just don't see the logic. If you need the capabilities of an F150, buy one with the 2.7 or 3.5 EB. If you need the towing ability of a diesel buy an F250 or F350.

 

Define "success". More than an EcoDiesel? Enough to continue production > 5 years?

 

It will if it is an across the board option. If you are forced into high cost packages to get it, then no.

 

In a word. No.

 

Ford hasn't had a swing and a miss with a truck engine since the 3 valve 5.4 (The 6.0/6.4s are Navistar engines). There is too much at stake to put a cobbled up power plant into production and hope for the best.

The current 6.7 and 3.0 Lion share the same engineering and development team. Both have excellent reliability.

 

Although I am excited to see an F150 finally have a diesel, I think:

1)It's too late, should have debuted after the diesel fuel price jump in 2008
2)When the Diesel F150 debuts diesel fuel is going to be a lot more at the pump.

My 99 7.3 was neat, nothing to be excited about. Absolutely loved my 2005 and 2006 6.0 diesels.

Josh

 

I hope it's a success, but we don't have near enough information at the moment to make a good guess. Option cost, power output, and perceived reliability will matter hugely.

 

The only way this diesel will be a success...IMHO...is if the MPG's are 30 or higher. That also goes with what the Premium Charge will be from FORD. If FORD charges $3000 (or less) over the Ecoboost, then it might make sense for a lot of folks.

1. MPG's (most important)
2. Premium Cost
3. Reliability out of the box


biz

 

FCA was successful with their 1500 Ram Ecodiesel...until the EPA shut them down. While it is still on the Ram website for 2017, you can't actually get it.

If Ford doesn't get crossways with the EPA, then I do expect it will be success. There are lots of guys willing to pay an extra $3k for a diesel 1/2-ton truck. The selling point of the Ram was great MPG and decent torque.

Ford saw what Ram did and will/should know how to improve on it.

 

At the moment you can't, but that's going to change. At the end of January there was a press release saying they were "very close" to having their '17 MY calibration certified by the EPA. I imagine the trucks are sitting somewhere waiting on the wheels of bureaucracy to turn so they can be updated and sold.

 

Having driven the ecodiesel, I sure as snot hope that isn't Fords benchmark. other than the similar novelty of diesel, there shouldn't be a comparison. I've been a detractor of the Ford diesel in F150 though for awhile. I don't see it's point. Very utilitarian folks like me are fine with the base motor. Folks who want to tow a whole bunch would be better with 3.5 EB. The 2.7 is probably closest to the ED from Ram, and for the difference in cost, you would never get me interested in the diesel compared to the EB. The 5.0 sounds good. Something has to give IMO. Having 5 motors available doesn't make sense, and the diesel makes the least sense to me out of the bag. I honestly don't think the market will pick up enough to keep the corporate chopping block from axing it unless it really helps Fords fuel economy figures. (though F150 is one of Fords best, Fiesta is worst, when using EPA footprint standards, so why invest a whole bunch in what's already at the top of the game?)

Edit, or it will be the end of the V8

 

I don't see the diesel being that successful.
If Ford dealers don't try to break it off in the first customers that want one, they'll move all they can sell early on. After that I don't think there are that many people that want to spend a few thousand dollars more for an engine that will require more expensive maintenance, more expensive fuel, slightly harder to get fuel, fuel that stinks and and and........