My friend is looking into a 2005 F-150, it has a 5.4 triton, with 160,000 miles. It's a clean truck by the looks of it, but I know these 5.4 tritons have certain years you want to avoid. Is the 05 5.4 triton a good engine? Are the automatic transmissions on these good?

 

yes yes and yes.
i had an 04 with 238,000 miles on it,
and there was a guy here a few years ago in chicago i believe it was that had a bunch of airport shuttle buses with 5.4 and auto trans. they all had over 1million miles on them without any major repairs.
the key is proper maintenance

 

They’re much better without the factory bean counting applied to them.

Like noted, solid transmission, but when those cheap chain tensioners blow those plastic seals (a serious downgrade from the metal tensioners the 2V had), that’s when the fun starts.

The plugs won’t be fun to change, either.