Hey guys,
I just bought an 04 supercrew lariet 2wd to hopefully tow my Jeep. Can anyone tell me something i dont know about it. I like it but just want some general problems people have. Can it tow a 16 ft trailer and 2000 Jeep. I dont have pictures right now but it is pretty nice. We were going to get an 05 Hemi powerd dodge but the interior of the Ford was just so much nicer so I had to change my mind. The Ford looks nice but on this forum there seems to be a lot of complaints. It only has 19k miles not it and still looks 100% brand new. An older guy owed it so it was well taken care of. Ok, questions besides the ones above

1. what is my transmission and is there any problems?

2. Does it have the feature were the stereo show the band and song?

3. Is the Triton V8 3 valve anygood?

4. What gears are in the axle?

5. Where is the best place to get things like seat covers, floor mats?

6. Does it have a tranny cooler for towing and where is the tow/haul button? Does it need one?


Thank you in advance. I see a lot of people are very helpful when I was doing searches for all these questions.

 

Hi and welcome to the forum.
Sounds like you have the 5.4l you shouldn't have any problems towing your jeep around.
You shouldn't have any trans problems other than it shifting a little sluggish. Get a programmer to make it shift better and your right foot will love it.
You need to post the info off of you dor jamb. It has the info coded in it that your asking.
For the radio question it should have that info in the owners manual. It probably depends on what radio you have. My radio in my 02 did (single cd)but the one in my 05 doesn't (6 disk).
If it has a factory tow package it should have a trans cooler. It would be a small radiator in front of your large radiator and A/C condenser.

 

1. Ford calls this gearbox the 4R75W, it's an updated version of the 4R70W, which descended from the AOD/AOD-E. Barring major internal failures which can happen to anything, it's a good transmission. Ford says it's filled for life; I say service every 30K miles, especially if you're using your truck to tow.

2. I don't think RDS was made available 'till '05 or '06 in the F150. My '04 doesn't have it.

3. The 5.4 3V is a little sluggish off the line, especially compared to Dodge's Hemi, the GM Vortec engines and the Nissan Titan, but it holds it's own. The '04 engines overall are probably the most reliable, since they don't have to deal with the injector fiasco that some '05s and '06s experience. Cam phasers can be a problem however. I've got 43K miles on my '04 5.4 3V, the only repairs I've had to do was to replace the passenger's side cam phaser. I also replaced the spark plugs in mine at a pretty early mileage, 27Kish; the design of the plug can cause it to be difficult to remove, especially on higher mileage engines, and in a worst case scenario, the spark plug can actually break, leaving part of it in the cylinder head. There's a special removal procedure to minimize the chances of this happening, and if it does happen, Ford has a removal tool to dig the remains out without removing the cylinder head.

4. You should have either 3.55s or 3.73s in the axle - these are the only gear ratios Ford offered in a Lariat. There's a section on the door tag in the driver's door decal that says "AXLE," which should be a two digit code, like H9, B7, 27, etc. The axle ratio can be decoded from that code. Alternatively, you could shimmy under the truck and look at the tag on the axle cover. It'll say something like "3L73 975," indicating a 9.75" limited slip axle with a 3.73 gear.

5. This, I'm not sure. It depends what you want. I haven't accessorized my truck too much. I have OEM Ford carpet floormats, and some thick clear plastic mats I bought from Walmart. I have a Ford low-profile bug shield I bought from the dealer.

6. If your truck has the factory tow package, it'll have an external transmission cooler mounted in front of the condenser under the hood behind the grill. Ford didn't equip these trucks with a "Tow/Haul" feature, they reserved that for the Superduty with it's Torqshift transmission. All we have is an overdrive on/off button, which you should use when towing if your transmission is constantly hunting between gears.

 

Nice post Quintin... very good to have a professional technician like yourself amongst us...

 

"Professional," that part's up for debate, RP, but I try.

 

Unprofessional, not for profit, Technician.

That better?

 

Much.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. For some stupid reason I had a brain fart last night. I forgot my friend that I go Jeepin with owns a ford dealership

I just called him and gave him the vin, he gave me all information on it last night too. I do have the limited slip and higher gears so towing will be ok. I have having a custom trailer made that is lighter for the f150. Thank guys. I look forward to hanging on the board. I will post some pictures soon

 

Ok, I contacted ford and they said I have 3.73 gears with a limited slip dif. they said it had a class 4 tow system which I did not know. Thanks for you guys help. Thanks John

 

awesome, now post some pics!