A tail of two trucks

[Frank trac]

I bought my 2005 Sport Trac 6 yrs ago it's a nice Sierra Gold color in beautiful condition it looks and runs like brand new and aside of a few minor repairs it's been a Rock. My friend and co-worker George bought the same month a bright red Chevy Silverado 4x4 and I have to admit it was a pretty truck when he first bought it. We always park next to each other and I've watched his Chevy turn to rust over the last 5 plus years and listened to his complaints of this POS and all the things that have failed. He said just today "It is the worst vehicle he has ever owned and he would NEVER buy a Chevy ever again. I looked it over and the rust starts with the front bumper and to the bottom of the doors to the cab corners the side of the bed has rust spots the size of grapefruit. Even the fuel fill door rusted off the truck and had to be replaced. the rocker panels have been filled with foam and Bondo just to get by state inspection. Think about this when you watch those Chevy vs Ford commercials on TV. LIKE A ROCK. LOL a rusty rock.

 

[SoCal2V]

Unfortunately the same story is true for Fords and every other manufacturer. Everybody has a model with a bad year, or sometimes just a bad model altogether.

That said, I have owned/driven nothing but Ford cars and trucks for over 20 years and although I have cut my knuckles on a variety of maintenance and repairs to all of them, none of them ever let me down or left me on the side of the road. No catastrophic engine failures, no transmission failures, etc, just the usual "wearing parts" sort of maintenance or stuff I broke while trying to fix something else.

Had an '88 Escort that I beat on unmercifully for 3 years, no real issues besides a rear main leak that it went to the grave with (sold it in running condition to a wrecking yard); '91 Escort that had 250K by the time I was done with it and not one major repair ever; '88 T-Bird 5.0 for a couple years that never required any work beyond maintenance; '96 Mustang GT for a couple years, same story as the T-Bird; an '03 Ranger and '06 Ranger as company owned vehicles that endured endless abuse - the engine in the '06 gave up at about 270K hard lived miles. Wife had a very unmaintained '03 Freestar when I met her that outlived all expectations - although unlike the others it did meet it's demise when the transmission input shaft broke at 170K; cost of repairs was beyond it's value so we walked away. And the same success story applies to my current vehicles (listed in sig).

I will proudly push my Ford before I drive a Chevy. But if the past is any indication of the future then I guess it doesn't look like I'll be doing much pushing.

 

[koda2000]

I bought my 2005 Sport Trac 6 yrs ago it's a nice Sierra Gold color in beautiful condition it looks and runs like brand new and aside of a few minor repairs it's been a Rock. My friend and co-worker George bought the same month a bright red Chevy Silverado 4x4 and I have to admit it was a pretty truck when he first bought it. We always park next to each other and I've watched his Chevy turn to rust over the last 5 plus years and listened to his complaints of this POS and all the things that have failed. He said just today "It is the worst vehicle he has ever owned and he would NEVER buy a Chevy ever again. I looked it over and the rust starts with the front bumper and to the bottom of the doors to the cab corners the side of the bed has rust spots the size of grapefruit. Even the fuel fill door rusted off the truck and had to be replaced. the rocker panels have been filled with foam and Bondo just to get by state inspection. Think about this when you watch those Chevy vs Ford commercials on TV. LIKE A ROCK. LOL a rusty rock.

My first car was a Ford. I've owned quite a few over the years. None of them ever gave me much trouble. I've also owned a hand full of GM vehicles and 3 Chrysler products. By far the Fords were the best, the Chrysler's were worst and the GM's were just okay, but I didn't keep any of them that long. My daughter bought a POS '01 Explorer XLT about 5 years ago and I drove it for about a month while I fixed a bunch of stuff on it. Despite that truck being a POS, I really liked the size of it and how comfortable was. I've never looked back and everyone in the family now drives a Gen II. Yeah they have their weak points, but overall I find that with regular maintenance they hold up amazingly well mechanically as well as their paint and interiors. Living in the south, I can't speak to any rust issues (lucky me). Today they collectively total over 1.3 million miles and most are driven daily.

 

[Frank trac]

I've owned both Ford and GM cars and trucks and I agree they all have their issues. I bought brand new a 1998 Pontiac Grand prix GTP Super Coup for my wife and it was awesome and I would still own it today except one day I had it at the dealer for an oil change and the tech came in and told me I needed to see something. Well you could have knocked me over with a feather when he showed me under the plastic ground effects the rocker panels had rusted away to nothing. The car looked amazing bright red and so clean and shiny how could this be. Well long story short at that time the replacement panel wasn't being reproduced and no body shop around here wanted anything to do with it so I traded it in to the Chrysler dealer for a used Mazda 6. He told me he had to wholesale the thing out because he couldn't put it on his lot.