Ford is OK, ...sort of like "cold chicken & warm beer".  I've never actually "owned" a Ford Truck, but I used to drive Ford company trucks on long highway drives for years, and some off-road detours here & there - through a mall parking lot hedge one time, even - truck barely noticed it. They held up pretty well considerin, ...but Chevy Trucks give me the "warm fuzzy" I'm after! ( "like warm chicken & cold beer !") - ....jus my two cents worth of opinion.

I will have to disagree with you on this one. I switched from GM to Ford back in 2000. What a mistake I made. I have several electrical problems with mine, mostly are minor. Door ajar light stays on when the doors are closed, the dome light has a mind of its own, goes on and off when it feels like it, the rear cargo lights have never worked. If I run 87 or 89 octane fuel it sounds like a bunch of marbles are in the engine. The a/c quit working shortly after I bought it, ( Bad leak ), the clutch started giving me problems about a year after I bought it ( Bad slave cylinder), but is still driveable, 4wd is a little noisy. I haven't fiqured out the problem yet, don't know where the noise is coming from. The only good thing I have to say is, the original battery is over 8 years old and still going strong. This is my two cents on Ford vehicles. Oh, I forgot something else the speedometer doesn't always work either.

they shure saw u coming!  

Not to get off the subject, but as far as Ford products - I had a 92 Taurus as a daily driver. Worst car I ever owned! Ac cooler lines rotted out twice - the foam insulation on the radiator lines holds moisture against the bare metal lines and starts rotting them the day after replacement. The A/C compressor went shortly after $1000.00 for a re-built one! ( the entire car wasn't worth that, but I was in a bind and had to fix it - I went 6 months without A/C until I could not stand it any longer) Then the Power steering went t#ts up. I had a big white cloud behind the car and everybody leaning on their horns behind me - It was something outa a '007 movie! The "onboard computer" however said that everything "was fine"!! Then the Power steering went out shortly after. It seemed like every time something went south it was AT LEAST $600.00 to get the parts! - Ford just Sucks, Bites, AND Blows!!! If I had the money I would have dug a big hole and buried that car!, or pushed it off a cliff. Sadly there are no cliffs in Florida.

Dam, you just gave me a thought, there's a quarry about 20 miles from my house where car theives push there stolen vehicles over this cliff, it's about a one hundred foot drop to the bottom and then they sink to about 50 feet below water. I could tell the insurance co. somebody stole it. HaHa, no I could never do something like that, but it was fun thinking about it.  

Great story about your Taurus! lol

Something seemed fishy to me when you said 6 months with no a/c was irritating you... then I noticed you live in Florida. Cool! I've always wanted to live somewhere warm. Me, I'd go nuts not having a the heater working. I use car heat 11-12 months a year; it's often chilly at night even in the summer.

In fact last July I was sitting out on a patio with some friends in shorts and a t-shirt one evening. The first hour was fine, but after 11:00pm it dropped a few degrees and had a constant breeze. I froze my butt off. (grin) I stayed until 12:30pm because I love being around people and talking but man was I cold. When I got to my car the thermometer said it cooled down to 73 F.

No wonder I was so cold! (grin) The whole way home I had the windows mostly up (still wanted some fresh air) with maximum heat pumping out.

Ya, we don't need no stinkin' heaters in Florida! One of the first things I did on my latesk K5 was to rip out the AC Compressor and all the guts to it, and cap the heater hose outlets at the engine! I must have got rid of 150 lbs. of excess weight there. The only time I ever used a heater was when I towed my 5600 lb boat to Central Fla. from Miami, in my first K5. It wasn't the original trailer for this boat and It had a little too much toungue weight on it. I had to run the heater in the summer to keep the truck from over-heating!  Ya, we get chilly when it drops to 28 in our "brutal" winters!  

I know what a real winter is though, I lived in Connecticut for five years. I also spent a winter in South Korea - now that was a *** I almost got my ears frostbit!

What sort of aircraft do you work on ? Military ?

Yea, that car was just cursed! I kept looking for the manitou (evil spirtit) , or Vodoo chicken bones in it somewhere! I pity the poor sap who bought it after I traded it in. The dealer only gave me $150 for it! I figured I ripped them off pretty bad!  

I've heard of people paying off shady folks to 'steal' their car for them. I needed it to get to work, so I was screwd.

I'd hate to admit this but back in the late 80's I was on foot ( no transportation ) my aunt Judy gave me her old car, an embarrising ' 72 AMC Hornet. This car was the uglyest piece of crap ever. This car had a gas guzzling 6 cyl., and a torn up bench seat. After I got it inspected and on the road I had to start throwing money in it. Once a week I'd have to go to the auto parts store to replace something under the hood, this is no joke! One time I opened the hood and when I went to shut it the hood latch fell to pieces to the ground. I once started it and a crap load of carbon blew out of the tailpipe, black *** everywhere. Then the rear main seal started leaking real bad, had to put a quart of oil in it about every three days. One day I was working on it and was so pissed off I took the hammer that was in my hands and beat the hell out of the fender!!! Well I only kept this car for a year, and that was too long. I went to the local Ford dealer to trade this thing in on a used Chevy pickup that I had my eye on. The dealer gave me $ 50 bucks for car. Hell I would have given it to them for free!!  Well enough of this car bull#!$& this is a forum about 4x4's  

I'm no longer an aircraftmechanic. I went to school to train to be one but couldn't find an apprenticeship after successfull gradutation. I worked on mostly small planes and helicopters, but I also got to work on Beech with twin radial engines and a Dash 7 (50 passenger 4 engine turbo-props). I trained to work on all civilian kinds of planes though.

Military planes are cool! I've been to a fighter airplane museum near by. Neat stuff!

Where in Florida do you live? I think I would want car heat anywhere in Florida. We were in Ft. Lauderdale this January and once or twice while driving around at night and it was in the low 60's. Both my mom and I were cold so we had the heat turned on. Perhaps we needed the heat because we were already cold or chilly from being indoors... (a/c, lol)

Ain't no way we're putting on a coat to feel warm when we're paying thousands of *** so we can be somewhere we don't need one. (grin) I hate having to wear a coat to not be cold when it's supposed to be summer-like. (we will anyways, but we are not happy when we have to)

*Perhaps this sounds a little retarded to someone from Florida about why we hate to have to wear a coat... But where we live, since natural gas price has gone up we pay to heat our house to 70 F in the winter, and though that costs us hundreds of dollars a month we're still cold. We'd prefer to have the house at 75-79 F year round, but that could make our annual natural gas bill over $8,000 instead of $3,000-$5000 like it is now.

Also, almost every building weather it be a mall, restaurant or store was too chilly for me in Ft. Lauderdale. But most of the time I could step outside to warm up again. Besides way too much a/c, (lol) I loved Ft. Lauderdale and the Atlantic side of south Florida.

(I only got to see the Atlantic side this time. Previously I'd only been to central FL and north east FL)

I actually like the older FORDs, pre 80's, at a buddys house we had several older ford 2 wheel drives 3/4 tonnes with 390's and 360's and we used to just bag the snot out of em, I actually learned to donuts in a ford!

You guys would of loved it, we had like 10acres of horse field that we would till up with them on a regular basis....it was all out mayhem. BUT when we did get em stuck it was a CHEVY to the rescue all the time, it was the only 4x we had and the only 4x we felt was worth buying. 

We used to have races around the field with a bunch of em, it was pretty nuts, had a few collisions and a whole lotta fun, there was so many old fords around people were giving them to us.

No one would part with CHevys though.

If you ever get a chance, run a 390 with no manifolds......holy crap is it loud!!!and its quite the light show.

Anyways they were tough old trucks, I was amazed at the beatings they took, it seemed like after they changed into the 80's everything went for #$%^. 

Cheers

I know how that apprenticeship thing goes. I was an electrician in the Navy working on millon dollar equipment all the time. When I got out they would not let me change a lightbulb alone unless I was an apprentice for a 'licenced' electrician for at least 4 years!  I also got to work around some F-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats with an Aviation Mechanic rating buddy of mine. Nothin in this world gets your heart beating faster than a '14 in full dual afterburn!!  ( except maybe for being gun crew on a twin 3-inch 50 mount during a rapid fire excercise ) Cool times.

I agree about Florida and the A/C. After a while you get too used to it and you start sweating like a pig when it's 85 outside. I know both sides of hot & cold though. I lived in Connecticut for 5 years. Now I live just nort of Palm Beach on the East Cost. Hurricane Country! We had two of 'em back to back year before last. The first one stalled over us for 18 hours, and the second came about 8 days later. Talk about sick of it!! We had another last year but this one came from the West Coast. It was a weird one. The temp dropped to about 50 right after the last band went offshore! We've got a local Piper Aircraft plant just north of us and the storms pretty much did them in. I think they're still buildin planes but they're strugglin.

I like the pre-80's Fords too. I got a buddy with a 78. He's put a whole lot 'o bucks in it too. I wouldn't part with my Chevy K5 for any amount though.

I can relate to the no manifolds thing! We had an old off-shore boat with a straight 6 GM plant - no mufflers, just straight pipe. Talk about a poppin Johnie!! The thing about left us all Deeef !! The difference between running an engine in a truck and one in a boat is that when the engine cover's off, you're basically standing in the engine compartment with it!! When you crank it, you're up close & personal with it!

Sweat like a pig when it hits 85 F? LMAO!

I found out last summer that unless it is 80 F or more, it drives me nuts when people tell me to keep my hands out of my pockets; I use my pockets to warm my fingers and shield them from sub-80 F breezes!

No temps by themselves have been hot enough to make me sweat like a pig. Not 98 F with 55% humidity in coastal SC and not 103 F and 35% in central NC.

All that happens is I get the tiniest beads of sweat all over like a light mist and that's all. The only way I get slimy is when my heart rate goes up and I feel my neck throbbing from very heavy excercise, and it'd still have to be like 75 F or more to become slimy.

I have never had any sweat spots on my shirts bigger than 2 or 3 inches in diameter ever in my life! I think if I moved to Florida, I'd only become more heat tolerant, since I'd always be wearing long sleeves whenever I expected to be indoors for long peroids.

I'd love to go for a ride in a fighter plane! I'm a G-force junkie! Sounds like you had fun!

Fun doesn't even come close to describing it. It's sort of like the problem the astronauts had after walking on the moon - how do you top that for the rest of your life ? Probably the closest feeling on the ground would be driving a top fuel dragster - something I've always wanted to do to, but I probably won't get the chance. The wife won't let me go parachute jumping either. - she's got a point - what happens if somethin stupid happens and then my kids got no father. The things we have to sacrifice for parenthood!

You haven't experienced 'hot & muggy' until you spend a summer in Bangkok, Thailand dude! Picture this: It's just after dark on a summer afternoon. and if you closed your eyes while standing in the middle of the street you would swear you were standing locked in a very small closet in a Miami house at noon on 110+ day. I guarantee that you will be sweating at that point - not misting or slimy. The air is hard to breathe out in the open some days!

For high humidity try a monsoon season in the Phillipines. It's constantly wet & humid - you can't keep anything dry. I put my clothes in my locker and took a 3-day pass to Bagio city up in the mountains. When I got back after 3 days and opened my locker I had a chia-pet colony in there! I could not belive it.