Here’s some more buying advice.

If this is your first new car purchase be aware that the finance guy will try to sell you all kinds of special waxes, tire warranties and extended warrantees. Don’t feel shy to say NO THANK YOU. The “business manager, finance guy” can get pushy.

If you are considering an Extended warranty only consider the Ford Brand ESP.

You do do not have to buy it when you buy the truck. You can buy it any time within the first 12 months and 12,000 miles at the same price.

Check out https://www.floodfordesp.com/ for discounted prices for Genuine Ford ESP plans. Print out the prices from that site and bring it with you. If you want an ESP most dealers will match Flood Fords prices if you have quote with you. If not walk away. Flood Ford will sell it with 0% interest or you can put it on a credit card.

 

Mine arrived at the dealer with a cracked windshield. That delayed my delivery by 3 days. When I took delivery there was a small dent in the absolute front of the drivers side fender. Barely visible. They repaired it the next available day their paintless dent guy was on site. There is a scratch on the right wheel well inside the box that looks like someone shoved something in. And the same thing put a small dent in the wheel well. I was kind of pissed about it. But what are you going to do. Ill be scratching it myself. I would just prefer to do the first one myself. The paintless dent guy was afraid to tap out the dent because its creased and he said it may crack the aluminum when he pushes it out. The Linex will obliterate it for me so what the hell.
I had not read anything about the extended warranty options before walking in. I did haggle to a lower price and did buy it. I did not buy a Ford ESP. This after market ESP has been the same one my local dealer has been selling for quite a few years. I hope I have no problems in the 10 years I bought it for. You should consider it carefully as there are a lot of electronic systems and computer this and that and too much tech all around. I never bought one on anything in the past but I did this time.
All good advice on this Forum. I used it to help me shop and for any issue since. Usually I get better info in less time from here than from a call to the dealer. In fact one issue I had was a passive restraint light. I put it out here and the info was pretty clear to call the dealer and have it checked out. I did. They fixed it in a few days.

Good luck. I think the vast majority of owners are loving their SDs....

By the way. I believe the small dent was there before they painted the fender. because the paint was flawless over it. I have Magnetic and the metal flake nearly made the dent invisible. Until the light was just right. Once you see something like that on your $55,000 truck you cant unsee it!

 

I just thought about another thing. There are electrical plugs on the chassis. Particularly on the rear. Theres a couple of thread on the site about it. Water gets trapped in them and there is no dielectric grease on them. Once I read about it I went under and openned up my plug and water poured out. I had only 200 miles on the truck and one rain. Some guys have experienced all kinds of crazy electrical gremlins and it seems very often to come back to these plugs. I got appropriate low voltage dielectric grease and opened all the chassis connections and greased the hell out of them. And covered the plug in grease. I also rotated them so the female part of the plug opened downward so they can drain. I can only imagine what the effect of a bunch of winter salt water sitting in these small wire connections.

 

Thank you guys. I will post my window sticker etc when I get back, it's really hectic now. I have few quick questions:

Tire pressure - I assume it will be 80 PSI per sticker on the door; what is the safe level to make unloaded ride home more comfortable? 60? 50?

Dealer mentioned that I will get $375 credit towards Fords accessories/maintenance because I am buying diesel; is that something I need to utilize right there, or can I use it when I get back home? I plan to do my own maintenance, so is it best used for accessories? He made it sound like the money comes from Ford, not them.

Fordpass - if I activate at the dealer, do I get that AT&T data plan free trial right away?

I took $1K Ford credit rebate and plan to refi ASAP; do I need to wait a week or so for account setup and then call my CU to refi (since I will need to have actual loan), or is that something I can do today?

Thanks so much! Appreciate your hand holding and patience!

 

The $375 credit may be the 75000 rewards points you get, I've never seen it in a dollar amount. Additional information can be found when you look up ford pass.

The trial WiFi is something that you will start when ready, I still haven't.

The refi will depend, some places I contacted sounded ready to do it right away, others wouldn't do it until the information was in the DMV system. It took 3-4 weeks for my info to show up in the DMV system.

 

The tire pressure is on a label in driver door jam. They recommend on the 18 inch wheels in my truck with 60psi on front and 80psi on back. I just put it at what they recommend.

 

Mine's 70 front, 75 rear on 18's. Same though, I run what they recommend. I'm too lazy to air up/down between towing/not-towing, and at the recommended pressure, the ride's normally fine. Except for one washboard road near my place that's in serious need of repairs, but I don't think tire pressure's gonna solve that one alone.

 

80 PSI is the max load pressure. In other words the max load the tire can handle will be at that pressure. If your running empty its just too much pressure. The ride will be bouncy and harsh most likely and you could be more likely to lose traction on a wet road. I have never run my personal truck tires at full pressure unless I was going to haul or tow a significant load. I am running 55 PSI in my 20" Michelins and on my GMC I ran 50 PSI on my 16" Duratracs. Due to most of my miles being commuting empty. If I was going to tow the boat I air up. Load of sheetrock... air up. A tile saw and some tile with thinset... No need to air up its only a few hundred pounds.

 

The only thing I didn't get in my STX was power/heated/cooled seats, and power folding mirrors, they're still heated though.

I have the cameras, sync 3, all the fancy stuff. Dealership added Katskin leather throughout, I built my own custom center console. Look in my gallery and you be the judge.

 

Do you have anything showing that $375 for buying a diesel? I have an F-350 on order that is due in to the dealer in about 2 weeks and I have not heard anything about this. I don't want to miss out on anything...you know what I mean? I'll take any kickbacks I can get! I wonder if it's a location thing? I'm in Michigan if that matters....

 

I'm interested to see....could be a perk that dealership gives, I still think it's the 75k FordPass rewards points. They can be used for accessories and maintenance.

 

Just found this....sounds like there are some requirements to getting those 75,000 points. Also didn't exactly say it could be used towards accessories...sounds like more for maintentance items. Time will tell I guess...maybe up to the dealer on how strict they are about what you can use those points for?

https://owner.ford.com/fordpass/ford...wards/faq.html

 

Buy a new deisal, activate Fordpass, get the points.

 

I've done this several times so here is the scoop.

It takes a few, maybe about 3-5 days, for FMC to issue a loan number and the loan to be in their system. After a couple of days call FMC at 1-800-727-7000 and tell them you need a 10 day payoff letter. They will ask for your VIN Number. They can send you a pay off letter with detailed instructions on payoff. Ask them to send the letter to you via email immediately. Give that letter to your credit union and they will handle the rest.

Don't mention that you plan on refinancing to the dealer. They will tell you that you need to keep the loan for 3 months. That's not true. The 3 months is required for the dealer to get their commission.

 

My 18's say 60 front, 65 rear. I thought it was kind of odd (but nice) that the tpms is set that low. My old truck was 75/80 but it had 17"wheels on it.

I ran my old one at 65 all the way around which was the limit for keeping the light off. New truck was set at 60 at all four corners but I aired the rear up to 65 and it rides great.