What's funny about hybrids is the highway mileage. Nearly the same as the all-gas powered counterparts... funny, really.

If you read carefully, any ads about hybrids play up CITY mileage. NOT highway mileage.

 

I hear you Ken.... but the real question is.... will you hold my beer after I say, "here hold this, I wanna try something!" (at 80 mph on a gravel road)

DATS a real friend! (grin)

No the Platinum F250 did not crash cuz of a stupid red neck moment... at least not a beer induced one anyway

 

SDTruckMan, missed your post entirely

I got a few things to say, most of which you can probably ignore ...

My '97 Cougar weighs 4000 lbs and has a 4.6L - in stop and go, it gets 11MPG. If that. Compare that to any expected stop-ang-go mileage with the V10 or 5.4L whether it be SD or F150. My V10 in stop-and-go can get as low as 5MPG if I lay on it all the time. If I take it REAL EASY, I can get up to 10MPG when empty, "around town". My SD is around 6500 lbs.

Objectively, I think you should seriously consider the 1/2 ton.

Subjectively, get the SD already and stop driving us nuts!

PS: One thing about the oil situation...

Back in the mid 80's, demand dropped so far for gas that the price plummeted. Sat that way until the first Gulf War, then skyrocketed again. Stayed that way until the late 90's, when demand has dropped off enough to bottom out the price again.

Guess which side of the pendulum we are on?

Things have been building up for a while now, with prices so high, and more being actively done to conserve fuel, demand will drop to a point where the price will come down and we'll be back into the '86/'98 gas glut.

Oh well... I'll save my SD until then and laugh at all the guys who bought 'yotas.

 

SDtruckMan

Yes, the over sized tire will screw up you math and the on board computer because both ways are based on the error on mileage driven per gallon consumed

You are in the same boat (pun intended) that we all are... I gave up with the Katrina disaster trying to second guess where this is all going...fortunatly even though my energy costs (all of them including water) have doubled from 18 months ago my wife and I are in an income zone now where we can absorb the pain and find other areas to roll back our cash out flow.

Sounds to me like your truck needs are biased more toward "need" as opposed to "want"... that said you need to accept the higher costs and about the only way you can impact the fuel issue and costs are to keep standard sized tires, keep them inflated properly, and lay off the BSEG inducing rabbit starts as much as practicle...but remember we still need to have some fun and stress relief in our lives... a properly sized and powered SuperDuty with it's good reliability and extraordinary power to fuel use ratio can actually be a good thing.

I no longer use the truck for quick into town for something at Lowe's or Sears any more. Yes when the load won't fit in the Escort's trunk I have to use the SuperDuty, but for a simple box of sheet rock screws or a saw blade the 80 mile round trip in the F350 is not very wise.

Now that our kids are adults and not being hauled all over town, we don't really need the crew cab configuration any longer... BUT, we decided to stay with it simply because a crew cab long bed truck is much more nimble, and has a great weight ratio for better handling in 80% of normal empty weight driving...

We all have hard choices in next few years and the bad thing is that WE won't be making most of them... a brain dead manufacture and equally brain dead group of representative will be... not a good combination for us consumers and America's work force...

Another thought... last year we had a Sweden fellow in here with charging system questions. He had converted to Propane. Good kits out there these days... as gas and E85 gets into the 3 to 4 dollar range these alternative fuel devices will gain a cost benefit ratio that makes the conversion pay for it self...

 

Good luck with your new F150. Just seems...IMHO...that the F150 will fill the need better than the SD V10. Do not get me wrong...I love the V10, but for your needs...the F150 is the way to go. Also...keep in mind the F150 with 3.55s will get better mileage than with 3.73s (if any towing needed...then go with the 3.73s). You should see the 18+ mpg if you drive with an easy foot.

Yes. The calculations will be off.


Yes...more miles for sure. You can assume the odometer is off by the difference in tire size. My recommendation is go to the Manufacturer website and find those tires. Then look at the specification chart for "revolution per mile". Then do the difference between the two.

Good luck!

biz

_______________________________
2003 F250 SD SC 142" XLT FX4 V10 Auto 4x4 3.73s

 

Thanks for all the input..this has been of some help to me. Although im still undecided I think it will come down to what they will offer to sell the truck to me for vs the F150

For those of you who are interested..
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/savemoney.shtml
Plugged in 2.95 for the gas
11cty 14 hwy for the 250 and 13 and 17 for the 150
90% city 10% hwy driving
15,000 miles a year
Saves you 613.00 a year and 3064.00 over 5 yrs
613.00 into 365 is only 1.67 a day, but it sure does add up in the end doesnt it.
Now the only other thing to factor in would be the diff your saving in the cost of the truck.

This maybe is the deciding statement for me, right here. This you see is my problem.. I need the 3/4 ton mostly because of my plow, But I also need a truck as im constantly running up town and picking stuff up, maybe hauling light duty stuff, short trips running here and there during the day. I dont need a 3/4 ton truck to do that. I could Keep my plow truck insure it 4 months out of the year, end up paying approx 1500 to do so for 5 years.
Besides nobodys gonna wanna buy it anyway the way fuel prices are.

I drive to work a 3/4 ton truck because I need it to plow with in the winter months, when Im not plowing, im still using it as a everyday driver. light duty stuff (like fredvon4), rakes, shovels, weedwackers, salt for the softner, go up town and pick up a part for this or that.. You get the idea.. Come to think of it I cant really think of anything really heavy thats been in the bed of that truck.

As far as towing, the heaviest ive towed with it, is my tandem axle landscape trailer With 2 skids of landscape blocks for a friend, or a ford 35hp diesel tractor.

However I assume that most people dont have their 250's Loaded to the gill everyday either, and they use them for everyday driving to.

Then again I dont want to by something just for today, I want it to fill any future needs that i may have. So can a F150 tow a sizable boat or camper down the road?

Thanks

 

The 150 is a very capable truck, but like SLE said, the more you work it, you'll likely need to spend more $$ on maintenance.
I've owned both. I sold my 2004 F150 with the 5.4 and bought a 2003 F250 with the 6.8L.
My 150 got 16 mpg all around driving. My 250 is getting around 13 mpg.
The 150 towed okay, but the 250 tows better. I don't feel like I'm getting pushed and pulled around towing with the 250. That's towing a 7000 lb travel
trailer.

Let's say you drive 12000 miles a year.
At 13 mpg, you'll be buying 923 gallons of gas.
At 16 mpg, you'll be buying 750 gallons of gas.
The difference is 173 gallons. At $3.00 a gallon, you'll spend $519 more per year to drive the SuperDuty vs. the F150. That's about $43 a month.

For me, it's worth the extra expense to drive my F250 with the V10... But I don't use my truck for work. It's just for play... and for the days it snows and I'm too lazy to put chains on my commuter car

 

I have to quote on this. China was not importing oil at that time, the world was only using 50MBPD, now we are using 84MBPD, and OPEC as well as everone else can't pump more. Since oil is being pumped pretty much full tilt, what exactily will cause prices to drop?

 

Demand will slow as it has in the past. Look at this site, plenty of people either switching down to an F150 or buying a Geo Metro.

Once demand slows, and it WILL with the high prices, price-per-barrell will drop, and so will gasoline.

Look in the past, especially around '86 and '98/99. That's the period when we had the lowest gas prices. Why? Demand dropped.

Of course, this doesn't take into account any manipulation, Bush's beating the war drums over Iran, etc. But it's already happened in the past.

Let's all learn from history instead of making the same mistakes - "The sky is falling..." is a common refrain.