I wouldn't be so quick to disqualify a 6.0L Power Stroke these days. I guess if you happened to find that one that escaped being fixed under recall, you have a point. My dealer/mechanic friend wasn't too fond of them initially, but all he does is drive the heck out of his '04 and now an '05 F250. At least his '05 is an automatic. They are so much better than his 7.3L trucks in every way! Both 6.0L trucks were stamped by Ford as having remanned engines.

Like you, having been through a hurricane evacuation and punching the clutch for three inches at a time for most of a day and overheating the Ranger to where the AC became a heater, no rowing gears anymore.

My habit with my old Ranger and now two F150s was SuperCab (and now SuperCrew) with base engine and the last year of the body style. It's worked so far. That means I can pluck off a nice 2014 model in about five years. It'll be a one-owner rig, too, at this rate. That 3.7L doesn't seem too shabby. I did drop by AC Collins and saw a Tux Black 2012 Screw 3.7L, but none of the goods like my '08 has. No factory tow, for starters. Bed liner? Nope. Those new trucks don't even have wheel well liners? Whaaa?

The '08 was supposed to be for out-of-state work. Now I just exercise both trucks when I am not staring at grad school slides online.

At first, I was all like....



Then I was all like...



(Which is oddly much like my reaction when that couple of kids told me that they bumped one of their bikes into the SCrew tailgate and scratched it. Oh well.)



I'd be really jelly, if I was the jealous type. If you're the one fella that has that unique reg cab (maybe you posted elsewhere when I read that about your truck), I believe it. I thought of getting a reg cab, but they are mostly XL long beds. Didn't need another XL.

 

I consider myself a long term owner. I originally special ordered my brand new '04 Lariat Xcab 4x4 in Sept of '03 and picked it up shortly after in October.
It was one of the first new body style 04's on the road at the time.

It gave me flawless 155,000 miles until last year when someone pulled out in front of me and it was totalled. "God rest its soul"
So, I used the insurance money and bought my replacement '05 Lariat xcab 4x4. It is identical to my '04 except in color.

Both these trucks have been good to me.

 

Purchased brand new on May 29, 2005 and enjoyed every bit of the last eight years of ownership. She finally hit the 100k mark last month without ever experiencing one problem. ZERO.

Over the past 25 years, I've owned over 60 vehicles. Without question, the best one I've owned. Only second to my 95 Cobra

 

Couldn't have said it better myself

 

That's the old girl. Almost completely stock, I added airbags because of the wood hauling and other duties. It has about 150k on it now. My vehicles have lowish mileage because I used to ride my bike to work rather than drive.

 

i bought my truck used with 28K on the clock about 3 years ago, now approaching 60K and no problems whatsoever, going to do a homemade rear mount soon... i dont plan on getting rid of this truck for a while... maybe when my kid turns 18 but he's still in mamas belly!

 

She's a beauty! I love those body styles so much.

 

Great pic of 'er loaded up. I love honest old trucks that do what they were intended to do.

 

7 years and 129,000 miles with ours and still going strong...other than both catalytic converters going at 90k, i've had to do nothing but routine maintenance.

All stock except for an edge tuner I installed last fall. Has recently taken our family on several adventures, including a 10-day expedition to utah in July in which we got 20 mpg on 3 legs and averaged 17.5 over the whole 2500 miles, which included a fair bit of trail driving over passes in colorado.

Just did a trip to Big Bend over the weekend, and drove Black Gap road. Has been most reliable vehicle I've owned.

 

I can barely get above 14 with every mile on flat Texas highway don't know how you do it!

 

yeah, my brother in law has a lariat almost identical to our xlt, but he has a leveling kit and bigger tires, lives in houston and describes similar experience as you...i'm not sure why we get what we do, but i'll take it

we've been tracking mpg since new, and the first few years on in a book, but i started tracking it with the Road Trip app that syncs with our phones and it is pretty nice

 

What mods are on your truck? I get 14.5 in town, on the highway it is typically about 18, loaded or not doesn't seem to matter. What DOES make a difference is towing. Then it seems like the number goes negative!

The biggest things that I have done to help with MPG is the gotts / K&N and the tuner.

 

My F250 is a '94 that I bought in 2000. I bought a 1975 F250 brand new and kept it a looonnng time. It is 1 mile down the road at a friends house. I just bought my '09 Lariat and plan to keep it a long time also.
The F250 is a Beast I use for hunting, cutting wood, hauling fuel, ect. The Lariat is my highway rig.

 

my dad still has his '75 F250 that he bought used in '76. he drove it daily for about 25 years...390 big block

 

275/60/20 tires (BFG Rugged Terrains that are a very mild all terrain, if that) on 20x8.5 wheels, 2" level and 2" block, SCT with 87eco tune from 5star, Gotts mod, long tube headers and catback. I'm also 2wd, so I weigh a lot less. I've never seen higher than 13.9 on a whole tank of gas (I do full fill ups every time) and that was on a 93 octane tune.

When I bought it, it was 100% bone stock other than 305/40 on 22's and I think I may have squeaked 13 mpg once or twice. Doesn't matter what I do or how I drive, or even if 80% of the miles on a tank are pure highway, the mileage is crap. I tend to drive my truck pretty hard, but really not that bad and it's not like I can do anything aggressive cruising on the freeway at a constant speed.

I guess every truck is just different! But if I was THAT concerned with mileage, I wouldn't have bought a truck and I wouldn't be able to enjoy every mile