3 Reasons A Ford F-150 Is The Best Truck To Survive The 2020 New England Winter
By: Kyle Newton
Tags: Vehicles, Ford, Vehicle Maintenance, Ford F150, Self Help

Long gone are the days when you could walk into a car dealership, shout ‘I want a truck,’ and expect to see that brand’s ‘signature truck’. If you were to do that in the last decade, you’d probably get the nearest car dealer to give you a funny stare, followed by a comment similar to: ‘Yeah, why else would you come to a Ford dealership for, bub?’ For many, there came a sense of comfortability knowing that a brand put so much trust into a single truck. Nowadays though, most brands are spreading their truck line as thin as their cars! This leads to a lack of trust due to companies choosing to sell truck lines, not truck dependability. Like a chef with too many options on the menu, it’s difficult to be known for one good dish when you have too many to choose from. However, unlike a chef’s world, car lines are forged through decades, not years. Such accountability comes from trusting a name for 45+ years, which Ford has done with its F-150 line.

For a lot of people, there is something genuine missing in a dealership that can’t place their trust in a single machine. Thankfully, there is a truck brand out there that plans to satisfy your craving for comfort…by overpowering the competition. Literally.

Of course, I’m talking about Ford’s F-150. And below I’ll discuss its multiple engine options, cab sizes, and an unmatched towing capacity, making this the truck to handle all your needs for the bitter New England winter

When It Comes To Plowing, The Ford F-150 Is First-Rate

Don’t get me wrong, other trucks such as the Ford Ranger have some great qualities, but plowing isn’t what they’re known for. I often ask my customers how big their plow jobs are, which is the definitive question for most buyers. If you have a small homestead, or an even smaller driveway, the Ford Ranger is perfect! However, for anything bigger than half a basketball court, the half-ton Ford F-150s are entirely different beasts. Over the last few years, Ford Motor Corp discovered buyers were using their Ford F-150s as utility trucks due to their stability, durability, and tow-strength. This means people were also discovering the strength these trucks possessed in plowing snow and/or debris. It soon became a HUGE draw for New Englanders. Because of this, over the last three years, Ford has been perfecting its 5.0L V8 engine, allowing your truck to keep its tow & pull strength ratio all without any cost from your maneuverability!

That being said, The F-150 line was never built specifically as a plow truck, so this is nothing more than a flex of all its abilities at once, to show its versatility. The Ford F-150 is a personal-use vehicle when it comes to plowing, which companies such as Fisher Snow Plows have noticed. Over the years, they’ve crafted more high-end, low-weight plows to help extend the plowing life of these utility knives on wheels. If you’re starting a plowing business, you’ll want to START by looking at the Ford F-250’s, which I will be discussing in an upcoming article. As for personal use goes, can another truck get by with being plow, tow, AND family truck? Eh, possibly, depending on how small the driveway is. Can the Ford F-150 do all this? With a 5.0L V8 engine, you’re only scratching the surface of what this truck can do!

2. Sometimes, Size Does Matter

A Ford F-150 is an excellent companion for any outdoor job, which runs aplenty in New England, especially during the frosty winter months. That being said, a midsize truck, (take a Ford Ranger for an example), might get the job done…around the house. However, when you’re out in the wilderness, getting tossed around by unearthed rocks or gnarled roots, all while towing your equipment to the job site, you’ll want to know you won’t lose maneuverability with all that weight. This makes the common New Englander’s ‘tool of choice’ a full-sized Ford F-150. After decades of being tried and tested, the Ford F150’s tow strength has proven it won’t diminish, even as it’s towing the max payload of a staggering 11,300 lbs! On top of that, you’ll have a comfortable 62.8 cubic feet of cargo space, assuring that if your trailer doesn’t have room, the bed well. The reason for this comes from the Ford F150’s ability to call upon its engine and/or electricity for more power, when needed. It’s this fusion of towing strength and carrying capacity that has come to be something New Englanders rely upon in the snow-bound, wooded backcountry. The added option of a 66–96 inch truck bed means Ford’s F-150 comes with the expectation of wanting to see a long, hard day’s work.

The style and durability of truck beds for the Ford F-150 speaks to its expectation or workload. It comes with the versatility of a Supercab, Supercrew, or simply your Regular cab size configuration. This offers your single truck to be useful for everything from a personal work vehicle to a multiple job site workhorse.

3. The Ford F-150 Offers Enough Engine Designs To Fit Each Of Your Specific Needs

Some of you might think this part belongs in the previous section, but the horsepower versatility options balanced with its torque output deserves its own chapter, much less its own category in a blogger’s article. That being said, I’ll do my best.

This is usually the section where many people tend to favor the Ford Ranger…at first. That’s because its only engine option is a 2.3L Ecoboost, giving this truck a height of 270 Horsepower. The reason this type of truck is only good for a small day-job is because eventually, even with the reliability of a Ford Ranger, its maneuverability is still sacrificed. But for Ford’s F-150, you not only have 3 options for your Ecoboost engine (a 2.7L 325 Horsepower with 400 lbs of torque, a 3.5 L option, offering or 375 Horsepower with 470 lbs of torque, or you can go all-in with the 3.5 L Output Ecoboost which can see 450 Horsepower, and can crank out up to about 510 pounds of torque!) You also have the lighter-weight 3.3L V6 engine, offering you further control over power output. But probably the biggest workhorse of an engine is the 3.0L Powerstroke V6 Turbo Diesel. Built by Ford and its partnership with PSA Peugeot Citroën, this is known as the ‘Lion’s Engine’ for a reason. That’s because this bad boy brings 440 lbs of torque to the party, offering a balance of steer control and towing capacity that was unheard of until 2018! Since then, it’s been declared: first diesel engine in a half-ton truck, which meant it had a lot to live up to.

To make sure it’s impact landed with an exclamation point, its versatility was met with a promise of up to 30 mpg on the highway and 22 in the city. This meant Ford could help adjust your engine to a single job site deep in the woods of New Hampshire’s White Mountains all the way to multiple worksites across the city of Portland, or the state of Maine itself!

A Final Note

So, if you’re considering which truck you’ll buy next, don’t stress, you’re in the same predicament as many buyers, but thankfully there’s a few easy questions to help solve your problem. Do you need a workhorse for bad weather or rough terrain? Do you need a reliable, start-up company truck in the city? Or is it simply to help the family enjoy outdoor activities when you go camping in the green mountains of Vermont? Either way, the Ford F-150’s option and versatility from truck beds, engines, to cab sizes has all the answers for you. It all comes down to what you see yourself doing with it.

And if you’re still not sure of which truck you’d like to consider, or you’d like to know how sitting in a Ford F-150 feels in comparison to another truck, feel free to email me here and I can be sure to help you meet all your truck buying needs. You can also check out my website, gather a few more questions, and message me here, or on Instagram @ ‘Kyleisfordfocused’. Check out my ‘Vehicle of The Day’ too and get a special bonus upon purchase!