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I can not imagine having a fullsize pickup with a V6.

 

I can't imagine having a fullsize pickup with a 4.6 2 valve. Especially not one that weighs 5-5700lbs and has a 4 speed auto. My 3300lb GT felt gutless with that motor and it had a manual trans.

 

I dont think you can even buy a 4.6 truck in regular trim. when i bought my f150, everything on the lot had a 5.4 unless you went for the 2 door, stripped out with steel wheels and 2wd

 

My 98 Expy had a 2V 4.6. Towed my racecar with it....



Certainly didn't have much power to spare, but it did alright. And it was WAY better than my previous tow-mobile...



....at least from a towing perspective.

 

Last I looked out here most were 4.6 powered.

 

You guys might get alot more 2wd ones than us. Up here its all 4wd for the most part

 

Yeah I bet they sell 80% 2wd down here.

 

Its not like Chevy or Ford V6's get any better mileage than the small V8s. I'd rather see the gas V6's replaced with 3.0L 4cyl. Diesels.

 

I agree on the diesel part, but I think the V6s got better real world mileage. I know that I went to school with a guy that had a standard cad/bed/2WD F150 with a V6. He admitted that it wasn't quick and it could hardly tow anything, but said that is not why he got it. He said that he would get 20-21 mpg just driving around town. I don't think a V8 could get the same mileage.

 

After driving gas-powered trucks all my life, I finally was convinced to go to a diesel with my last one. I'll never go back to gas for a truck.

I've done Rangers, F150s, and 350s, and I am now the most happy owner of a PowerStroke.

Unless you are after speed (as in Lightnings or SRT Rams), trucks should be bought/used for moving loads - towing or hauling - not racing, and if moving mass is the issue, you can't beat a diesel for MPG or pulling power.

I have no concerns about them dropping the V6 - as stated above, they were not making many of them anyways so the economy of scale was not there to justify designing the truck to accomodate the V6.

Wanna excite me about the F150? Show me a 3.5L diesel capable of 400tq and 30mpg... and I'll need some clean shorts!

 

I was thinking the same thing. If i'm going to buy a full size truck or suv for that matter, i want the v8. The 1 or 2 mpg difference just isn't worth it. When we bought our explorer i tried in vain to find a v8 but couldn't find one with the options we wanted so we settled for the v6.

 

Dodg only puts our cheap-chit 210hp 3.7L in the 2WD reg cab trucks anyway...so even we barely use V6s.

With that said however, according to allpar.com Dodge is stepping up to the 265hp 4.0 engine out of the Nitro RT for the standard Ram engine for the new '09 models. That's a helluva step up, and if they did offer it with 4x4 and an M6, I'd be interested to see what the performance of it and MPG of it would be...

 

Some sort of smaller diesel is coming in a couple of years - I do hope you clean your shorts more frequently than that, though

 

Every day, sometimes twice/day!

Seriously... I could get excited about owning an F150 with a diesel. I don't often max-load my SuperDuty, so I could get alot out of a 1/2-ton diesel and not have to have weighted tags, 10-ply tires, and all the other cost-adders associated with a "big truck".
Until that happens though, my posterior will be anchored into a SuperDuty FX4 with the powerstroke and an automatic.

I get 20 empty, 18 and change with a 15k-lb load behind it.
Pulling?!?! OMG. Never struggle to pull anything you can put behind it.

And that's what is so sad IMO... I have a 1-ton truck that is 12 years old, has 120k miles on it, that gets 20mpg, weighs 30% more than an econo-truck, and has tons more work capacity than typical 1/2 tons. So why in heaven's name does Ford, GM, and Dodge put out 1/2 tons that get 15-18mpg empty, and they are slow and stodgy to boot?
Worse yet, more people buy these things than they do crossovers or SUVs - both of which get equally crappy mileage with V8s too. Double -

Vive la diesel in the truck.
Vive la iron-lung in the performance cars.
Vive all the other crap in the transportation appliances offered in the mainstream.