Ford F-150

Pickup trucks not perfect, but 5 make safety priority

Pickup trucks always seem safe. Sitting high off the road and in a vehicle with all-wheel drive or 4WD capacity provides a sense of security. But trucks don’t always have top safety ratings. No 2020 pickup trucks so far have received a Top Safety Pick or a Top Safety Pick+ — the highest ratings — according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Not all 2020 models have IIHS ratings yet, but at least three reasons contribute to trucks’ surprising ratings. Do pickup trucks seem too safe? Truck drivers, feeling safe, sometimes drive too aggressively in inclement weather. Pickup trucks often have body-on-frame construction and accident impact results are often severe. Some automakers may also focus on their cars

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Pickup trucks, SUVs rule global market

Grande Prairie, Alberta is a petroleum and agriculture-dominant city about 300 miles northwest of Edmonton. Winter driving is brutal. Citizens and seasonal oil field workers mostly rely on pickup trucks or sport utility vehicles. A few years ago, when visiting the city for several days during the late summer Tour of Alberta, the now-defunct professional cycling event, I re-enacted a version of the old family vacation game. But instead of counting license plates from different states, I counted vehicles. On two early morning runs with temperature in the mid-30s, I categorized the first 25 vehicles viewed. Combined, 43 of the 50 were pick-ups or SUVs. The roads were icy and muddy, potholes plentiful. Driving a heavy, all-wheel-drive vehicle made sense.

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Ford rules best used trucks for $10,000

With its dominance in new truck sales, it only seems logical the Ford has the same good reputation used truck sales. It does, and it’s good news for truck buyers with a budget of $10,000 whether in the market for a work truck or a vehicle to tow an RV or boat. Chris Ford, a writer for HotCars.com, has compiled an interesting list featuring used trucks from 1999 to 2018 — all in the affordable $10,000 price range. As the best-selling vehicles in the United States for more than 40 years, Ford has five trucks on the list, dating from 1999 to 2014. Chevrolet has three vehicles on the list, dating from 2004 to 2014. Toyota is represented by two

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GM adds to new corps of pending electric trucks

General Motors has joined several other manufacturers and will debut a Chevrolet electric pickup by 2025. It’s another boost to the truck industry as buyers continue to abandon sedans for trucks and sport utility vehicles. The manufacturer, which revealed concept sketches of the pending vehicles to Car and Driver, reports the electric truck won’t be identical to the recent announcement of the electric GMC Hummer. The Ford F-150 electric, Tesla Cybertruck, Rivian R1T, Bollinger B2, the Lordstown Motors Endurance are all predicted to debut within the next few years. The Hummer EV SUT will debut in the fall of 2021. While the Hummer is being billed as a lifestyle vehicle, the new Chevy truck is expected to more resemble a

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2020 Toyota Tundra improved, still trails truck royalty

Like multi-word vehicles’ exterior paint colors, the names of cars and trucks are no longer simple. Welcome the 2020 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro CrewMax. The initials TRD stand for Toyota Racing Development, with the word Pro added as embellishment. Combined, it’s one vehicle simultaneously focused on racing and off-road duties. The TRD Package means Bilstein shocks raise the stance two inches, good for the 18-inch wheels. It also includes dual exhaust, a front skid plate and an eight-inch touchscreen for the Toyota Entune infotainment system. CrewMax means an extra spacious cabin, with a five or six-seat configuration and more interior storage space. Overall, the Tundra is a brute-force beast. It’s 19-feet long, about 6 1/2 feet tall and the same

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TheWeeklyDriver.com’s 2019 Best Cars, Trucks

Welcome to the 13th annual Best Cars and Trucks of the Year list, selected by TheWeeklyDriver.com. As is our logical way, we wait until the end of the year to name our selections. As in previous years, the 2019 choices were selected only from the list of 35-40 cars and trucks manufacturers provided for weekly reviews. Co-host Bruce Aldrich and I will discuss the list on The Weekly Driver Podcast. The 10 vehicles on the 2019 Best Cars, Trucks list include manufacturers from the United States, South Korea and Japan. The Weekly Driver has been writing about our main automotive vent for years. How do prestigious industry publications determine their vehicles-of-the-year selections before the calendar year starts? Selecting a list

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#113, Fiat 500, Maine cheapest car, state for insurance

Where you live and what kind of vehicle you drive has a lot to do with how much your car insurance is going to cost. carinsurance.com has all the data. It’s crunched the numbers and determined the cheapest cars to insure in every state and the cheapest state in which to insure vehicles. Penny Gusner, a Consumer Analyst for the website, is our guest on this episode of The Weekly Driver Podcast. Gusner talks with co-hosts Bruce Aldrich and James Raia about the cheapest cars to insure in every state and how the results were determined. She details how cars are built and how other factors fit into the equation. Road quality, technology, weather, etc., all contribute to a vehicle’s

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2019 Nissan Titan: tough competitors, tough road ahead

Pickup trucks for many years have topped annual sales charts. With their sport utility vehicle cousins as co-conspirators, several manufacturers did what seemed unfathomable — abandon their sedan lineups. Poor gas mileage, difficult entry and exit and sometimes clunky rides don’t matter. Masculinity and versatility reign in new automotive purchasing. The top six best-selling vehicles in the United States in 2018 were either pickups or SUVs. Good reasons abound. In many instances, pickups are luxurious small apartments. The Nissan Titan is among the few trucks struggling. Sales slipped to just over 50,000 in 2018, a loss of nearly 5 percent from a peak year in 2017, according to Kelley Blue Book, the automotive research company. The manufacturer is trying to

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Ford celebrates enduring truck success with clever emoji

Ford Motor Company makes the country’s best-selling vehicle, the F-150 pickup. It takes the truck seriously. But the carmaker can also have fun. Consider the manufacturer’s recent clever marketing: “Developing a new vehicle is a challenging process under normal circumstances, but this is something completely different. Today we’re proud to introduce the #TruckEmoji.” The campaign has fun with the wondrous, sometimes silly world of emojis. It’s posted on Ford‘s official YouTube channel. Viewers of the video had many responses, some clever, others were less than complimentary. Here are a few: “Wanted a Bronco reveal, got a pick-up emoji.” “It looks like the hill climb challenge game pick up truck.” “Where can I use or find that emoji? what applications does

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Justin selects his top-5 parts under $500 for 2009-2014 F150s

In this episode of AmericanTruck’s (AT) “The Haul” YouTube Video Series, host Justin 
Dugan selects his favorite top-5 parts for under $500 for 2009-2014 F150s. Including parts from AT’s most popular categories like Truck Lighting, F150 Lift Kits, Exterior Accessories+ more, Justin’s Top 5 focuses on functionality while sprinkling in a few F150 exterior styling mods for good measure. Parts featured in this video: Barricade HD Bull Bar w/Skid Plate & 20-inch. Dual Row LED Light Bar, Textured Black, JLT, V3.0 Black Oil Separator Passenger Side, ReadyLIFT 2 in. Billet Aluminum Leveling Kit Anodized Black, Husky X Act Contour Front Floor Liners Black & TruShield Soft Rolling Bed Cover. American Trucks is regarded as one of the best, most reliable

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Ford calls another massive recall in F-150, Super Duty trucks

For the second time in three months, Ford is recalling large quantities of the best-selling F-150 vehicles in North America over a several-year time frame for fire risks. The manufacturer has just recalled 900,000 F-150 and Super Duty trucks to replace an engine block heater cable to due to the risk of fire. The recall involves more than 410,000 vehicles sold in the U.S. and nearly 464,000 in Canada. Affected models include: * 2015-19 F-150 vehicles built at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant between March 18, 2014, and Nov. 17, 2018, and at its Kansas City plant between Aug. 21, 2014, and Nov. 17, 2018. * 2017-19 Super Duty vehicles built at Ford’s Ohio assembly plant between Feb. 5, 2016,

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Ford Mustang Bullitt GT Coupe honors film’s 50th anniversary

Celebrating anniversaries is a thing in the automotive world. Ford and Chevrolet are particularly active in marketing the milestones of their cars and trucks, the F-150 pick-up to the Corvette. Ford has celebrated its Mustang several times, and it’s doing so again with its 2019 Mustang Bullitt GT Coupe. The accolades are based on a 10-minute movie clip in 1968 often cited as the best car chase scene in cinema history. The film stars Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, thus the name of the movie. He chases bad guys, including the famous sequence on the hilly streets of San Francisco when he’s driving 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback. McQueen did most of his stunts, further building the

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2018 Ford F-150, 2018 Toyota Corolla icons of success

The Ford F-150 pickup, the overt sentinel of masculinity, and the Toyota Corolla, the tiny titan compact sedan, have little in common with two exceptions, reliability and enduring success. The Corolla, manufactured since 1966, is the best-selling car in history with more than 43 million sold. The Ford F-Series, introduced in 1948, has been the country’s best-selling vehicle for decades. It’s the second best-selling vehicle in history with more than 40 million sold. While the sedan might be able to fit in the bed of the pick-up and cost one-third as much, driving either vehicle is experiencing automotive royalty. There’s little out of the ordinary about the Corolla. It’s understated and remains increasingly popular because of its consistency. The F-150

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Episode 42, Ford F-150 still rules, less safe cars, hydrogen

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:37 — 37.9MB)Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | MoreThe Ford F-150 pick-up has no equals, except for its siblings. They comprise the stable of the country’s best-selling pick-up trucks. The truck’s legacy as the second best-selling vehicle in history as well as its pros and cons among three topics discussed in Episode 42 of The Weekly Driver Podcast. Co-hosts Bruce Aldrich and James Raia recently drove the 2018 Ford F-150 (Lariat) trim. Neither of us are pick-up enthusiasts, but the new F-150 won us over. It’s powerful, comfortable, spacious, rugged and luxurious — at least as much as pick-up trucks can be luxurious. The new Ford F-150 is also expensive. We review

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