david ortiz

Hi everyone,
I am 18 and currently have a jeep liberty 04(111,000 miles) . I want to get a better truck/Suv for my freshman year(I will be driving about 30 miles a day 4-5 days a week). I thought about a jeep wrangler but the prices are kind of high for the mileage. I was thinking about maybe getting a Ford 150. How bad is mpg? Is the truck reliable ? Do you have any suggestions? I want to spend around 10-18k used.

rraiderr

Some F150s are great some are turds, just luck of the draw off the assembly line.

I commute with mine and it does fine especially on bad snow days. Its not the best to park in the tight parking ramp. I get around 17MPG with the 5.0 V8.

I have some guys at work with 250000 + miles on theirs and some who bail out at less that 30K do to issue and poor dealer service.

david ortiz

Is there a year or model that is more prone to repairs the another?

SteveLord

If you're looking for something reliable and gets good mpgs....for a college freshman.....you're in the wrong type of vehicle.

me1234

If you go an older truck, like a 97-03 10th gen, you can find good ones for around 3k(at least in my area). That's cheaper than your 10k price range, but $7,000 dollars can get you a heck of a lot of gas. I drove my 2000 4.6L through high-school, drove it locally for 1 year, then drove it 2 years making a 50 min-1.5 hour commute 3 days a week while working on my Associates. I got around 16mpg, but cheaper base price made up for low milage. It's still my daily driver; 4 months ago i took it on a 1,000 mile round trip from Virginia to Kentucky, through mountains, with no issues.

Reliability is all about maintenance, milage, and luck of the draw from the factory. There's a funny thing about this "luck of the draw", some manufacturers have a lot more lucky vehicles than others. In Ford's case, they appear to make a lot more reliable trucks than lemons.

As for which years I would avoid, I don't know much about 2009+ but for 2004-08 I would avoid the 5.4L due to cam phaser(variable timing) issues. From looking around here, it appears the 04-08 4.6Ls aren't prone to this problem. The 04-08s also have a split spark plug issue. This isn't too big of a deal, but you need a special tool to get the spark-plugs out right.

None of the 97-03 have cam phaser issues, as they weren't implemented until the 11th gen trucks. The older ones do have their quirks though. If the spark-plugs on 97-03 4.6L and 5.4Ls aren't torqued correctly, there's a chance of the plug shooting out the of head and taking the threads with it(expensive if a shop repairs it, pia if you do.)

When choosing a truck, it's all about price, looks, and what potential issues you feel like dealing with. For me, I like the 10th gens, but I'm a little biased cause I have one lol. Good luck with your purchase and school!