A car dealer buddy is taking me to a local dealer auction that has a Ford leasing lane where I am hopefully going to come home with a newer (at least to me) F-150 extended cab. Don't I need to buy at least a 2001 to avoid a couple of things I have been reading about in these forums such as rear window leaks, door cracks, piston slap, rust on bottom of doors and tailgate?

 

and I don't have any of those problems. From what I've seen here, I think most of those problems were corrected by the 2000 model year.

Bob

 

My '00 had the door and tailgate rust within a year.

I've seen the door crack on a friends '00.

My '01 had the piston slap, but it seems to have subsided lately. If you buy an '01, make sure that you get one that was built after they switched the seatbelts to the seats.

Crawl under the truck with a flashlight and see if the power steering pump and hose are leaking, both my '00 and '01 had this problem before 20,000 miles.

 

Hi Ds

Hopefully the 01 model would be better. But, theres no guarantee. JMO..but-

Have to remember..that problems posted here are only a very, very, small percentage of all F150s made. However enough has been posted here, tends to make one wonder?

Just do your home work...get value of truck..etc....Lease/rental returns may have some OEM warranty left..which is a plus. Get a print out of truck your interested in buying..that will show if any warr. work has been done on it. Your car dealer buddy could do that for you...dealers have access (ford-online) using VIN #.

Particularly on used...buyer beware! Always been like that.

Good luck...OT