I'm kicking around the idea of selling my Grand Cherokee and picking up an older F-150 for my secondary vehicle. I see a lot of them on Craigslist locally, but I don't know much about F-150s. It looks like the V6 has enough towing capacity to tow my Mustang if I wanted to, but I'm not positive.

I'm looking for feedback, from those of you who've owned F-150s, on what I should be looking for, what I should look out for or stay away from, how long the motors/transmissions/T-cases tend to last, etc. Ie: if I see a V6, extended cab, 4x4 with 150K on it, is it a timebomb (generally speaking; obviously every vehicle has its own history as a factor), or do they usually last 250K if taken care of? Is there a towing package that adds an oil cooler or other mods I should look for, and what's the best way to determine if the truck has it besides the owner saying so, etc.

I've had 8 Jeeps; I know them inside and out, but again, am new to F-150s (and Ford in general, the Mustang being my first besides a few Windstars my wife had years ago), so want to get up to speed on them before I buy.

Thanks!

 

That era F150 are pretty decent and reliable. You will start to see a bunch now showing rust on the bottoms of the doors and on the rockers. If you are looking for something that will tow your car on an open trailer, I'd opt for a V8 version. The 4.2L V6 is just a larger version of the 3.8L that was used in Mustangs for those years. I'm betting they were susceptible to the same head gasket issues the 3.8's had, so just for that reason alone, I'd stay away from them. For that kind of truck, whether you get the 4.2,4.6, or 5.4... they will all get about the same fuel mileage (crappy). I'd lean toward a 5.4 truck, but a 4.6 will work just as well for towing. They are really a "dime-a-dozen" for those trucks as Ford made nearly 1,000,000 of those a year back then. Keep your eye out as decent ones show up on CL all the time.

 

Cool, thanks!

 

My family has had an 03 f150 for about 7 years now. We haven't had any engines failures.
We don't treat it like baby, we hardly clean the thing ha!

We sold an older jeep Cherokee to make room for it and it has served us as a daily driver ever since. When we got the truck it had a little less than 50k on it and now has 200k! Since we moved to Minnesota it has begin to rust but only on the exhaust and the step up rail but we don't mind it.

Sorry this the only picture even have of it ill post one later today after taking a picture

 

New photo

 

You can't go wrong with Triton V8s.

 

Thanks for the feedback!