Helium
Well-known member
- Thread starter
- #1
Well not 50,000 miles but how about 49,534 miles since June 6th 2022 in my Rapid Red Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat. Gather around children, sit back, and listen to my tail of woe. It has thrills, chills, spills, and kills!
Again not quite, it has been pretty boring, with minor irritations along the way.
Just to put it out there, I live in a rural area of the country that is flat and spread out. I don't get the typical EV advantage like you might if you lived in a city nor do I get amazing regen rates from hills or mountain passes. I normally drive within 5 miles of the speed limit which I estimate 80% is 60-65 mph. I also estimate my city driving is less than 5%. My expressway/interstate driving is probably around 10% with the rest being on gravel roads.
General
So, as you might expect, there must be at least one maintenance issue. Turns out, there have been two. Battery fault and air dam fault. The air dam fault gets thrown randomly when passing through the 45-50 mph speed zone though it has popped up at lower and higher speeds. 2 visits to the shop, no resolution.
The battery fault is the one that got to me. So, let's bring a touch of drama to this tale. I receive multiple emails telling me my battery has thrown a fault. I, being a loving and caring Lightning owner, call the shop immediately and get scheduled in for service. I can't let MY BABY! be neglected. The day before I took it to the shop, I received a letter in the mail with the line: "You are receiving this letter because you have not responded to our attempts to contact you...." Now I'm really concerned, there must be something really terribly wrong with the battery. OH NO! MY BABY IS SICK! I took her to the shop the next day. Since the shop is 28 miles away, I take the afternoon off from work because "MY BABY IS SICK!"
The dealership tech and the service manager had no idea why Ford was insistent I bring my truck in. The BEV support desk didn't either. 2 weeks later, the Ford tech that was supposed to look at the scans and tell the dealership tech what parts to replace didn't know what parts needed to be replaced. We are still waiting to hear, and it has been months.
Disaster Strikes!
The fateful morning was awash in oppressive foreboding. You could tell the day wasn't going to end well. The animals were nervous. Dogs barking at nothing. Chipmunks and squirrels constantly snapping their heads left and right, looking for danger. I just knew something was off when I rolled out of bed. It was probably the fact I was somehow wearing my girlfriend's underwear, my god, that was painful.
Outside, in the front yard, the water company was repairing the fire hydrant. I decided to move my vehicles to a short access road next to my property to get them out of the water company's workers' way because accidents do happen (notice the foreshadowing there, heightens the drama, I can tell a story!). This was the fateful decision that would bring me to tears eight hours later. One of the contractors working on the house across the street decided to back into the access road so he could turn his pickup and trailer around and leave. 3 people witnessed the terrible event. 2 of them are unable to return to work and are seeing a therapist daily. I am certain you are wailing into the night with tears running down your face, "Say it ain't so! How could this hardworking, beer drinking, flag waving, apple pie eating every man be so careless!"
His trailer tire rubbed the corner of my bumper. When I was alerted to the issue, I ran to MY BABY's side, to not just comfort and console, but to heal if I could but I knew I couldn't make it right! I was helpless! I...had....failed...her! How could she ever forgive me?! That feeling of when something is done and there is no going back. I was wracked by sobs as I felt MY BABY's pain. It tears at your soul and makes you curse Einstein for not allowing us to travel back through time to fix terrible wrongs and tragedies alike. "Nay", he says, "You shall not pass! Embrace your suffering you ignorant fool!" Einstein was like that, cold and merciless.
Anyway, the guy had left but he came back and gave me his insurance information. It costs the insurance company about $625 to fix. No wait on parts, no problem, good job though I had to take it to the Chevy dealership for the body work...talking about embarrassment.
Observations
It is a 90% solution as far as trucks go. The truck does what it is advertised to do. I can do everything I want to do with it but then again, I did not buy it to pull big bulky trailers. When it comes to that, it is not necessarily the trucks' fault but the infrastructure. If we had as many charge stations as gas stations, even this would not be a problem. People forget that this is a Lightning. The last version of the Lightning could not carry more than 500lbs in the bed. I can carry 1800lbs with my configuration.
The FUD out there about electric vehicles is astounding. Everything from about how they will bring down the electrical infrastructure (OH NO! it isn't like we haven't double the capacity of the electrical infrastructure 3 times since the 1970s) to how toxic the batteries are (have you taken a whiff out of diesel tail pipe lately), to how much it cost to recharge (these people don't know how to read their electric bill and do the math).
Either I am extraordinarily lucky, or Ford went into the EV truck space in a serious manner. I have read that the Lightning is so good it forced Tesla into a redesign. I do not know what the truth\reality is, but my truck has been amazingly trouble free. For my use case it checks nearly every box.
I used to get stopped all the time by people asking questions about it. The newness in this area has warn off so it does not happen as much. I have my tour of the truck down pat enough that I get asked if I am a salesperson for Ford. I have noticed attitudes change dramatically when I mention how much I save on maintenance and fuel. I have about 10% of people say they would never own one, but they do not really have a rational\technical\pragmatic reason. I suspect it has more to do with politics than the actual vehicle.
I was incredibly surprised at how many women like the truck, with a few noting the remote frunk opener would be amazingly handy.
I have never felt the punch in the chest on acceleration but passengers and the one and only person that I let drive MY BABY! said they felt it. As with nearly all electric cars, it accelerates faster than you will ever need with only minor torque steer.
I am tempted to install a small diesel-powered heater on the battery for winter. Where I am at it is not terrible but if ever move further North, I will do it in a heartbeat. Using a gallon of diesel to add significant range to my battery for several months of the year seems like an obvious compromise. I'm willing to bet it would not be that difficult to do so.
Things I would change:
More range. I have come home at night with only 5 miles left on the charge. 320 miles of theoretical range is not enough, I have to think too much about range\charging. If caught on a 20F day, into a head wind, on the expressway, I can lose 40% of my range. Seeing 1.2 m/kWh on the display is not comforting at all. Due to this, if I am more than a hundred miles from home and there is a charger handy, I will stop and charge it to 80%. But because I am very conscientious of ensuring I am constantly charging if I am at home, I have never really been gripped by range anxiety. I have only been denied going somewhere a couple of times because of the charge level.
More on range. It appears Ford has "tuned" the configuration and shape of the truck to get the most out of it. It appears any minor change, from tires to aerodynamics, just reduces range. Combining this with environmental conditions, road surface, etc. Makes mods a no go.
I really do want factory installed refrigerated cup holders in the center console. This is such a no-brainer.
The front grill is ugly, and it collects bugs like an entomologist.
The lights that run across the tail gate and front grill should be tinted the color of the vehicle, so they don't stand out during the day.
Finally, there are a lot of bells and whistles on the Lariat trim level that I'll never use but everyone else that sees them loves them.
edit: fixed a lot of typos
Again not quite, it has been pretty boring, with minor irritations along the way.
Just to put it out there, I live in a rural area of the country that is flat and spread out. I don't get the typical EV advantage like you might if you lived in a city nor do I get amazing regen rates from hills or mountain passes. I normally drive within 5 miles of the speed limit which I estimate 80% is 60-65 mph. I also estimate my city driving is less than 5%. My expressway/interstate driving is probably around 10% with the rest being on gravel roads.
General
- I charge at home with the Ford Charge Station Pro better than 95% of my charge sessions.
- I use Electrify America almost exclusively when traveling
- When tripping, I always stop and charge twice as often as theoretically necessary in case a station is out of order, this distrust has served me well.
- I normally charge to 90%, but occasionally charge to 100% right before I leave to go a significant distance.
- If I'm charging at a fast charging station, I'll charge it to 80% as the rule but I have pushed that to 90% out of distrust of the EA infrastructure.
- The Ford Charge Station Pro is de-rated to 66 amps since it throws fewer errors than at 80 amps, but it still throws faults.
- Averaged 2.1 m/kWh. The absolute best I've seen on the readout for any significant length of time (47 miles) was 3.6 m/kWh (warm day, tail wind, it was glorious)
- Actual Range is about 275 miles on a full charge
- Still have 312 miles of the original 320 miles of estimated range at 66F.
- When charged at home, it costs me about $0.035 per mile
- I have spent less than $2,000 dollars to cover 49,534 miles
- Gas in my Silverado would have cost me around $14,860 at 13 mpg at $4.00 a gallon (approximate average cost of gas over the past year)
- The tread life on my tires has been amazing. I fully expect them to last another 10-15K miles more.
So, as you might expect, there must be at least one maintenance issue. Turns out, there have been two. Battery fault and air dam fault. The air dam fault gets thrown randomly when passing through the 45-50 mph speed zone though it has popped up at lower and higher speeds. 2 visits to the shop, no resolution.
The battery fault is the one that got to me. So, let's bring a touch of drama to this tale. I receive multiple emails telling me my battery has thrown a fault. I, being a loving and caring Lightning owner, call the shop immediately and get scheduled in for service. I can't let MY BABY! be neglected. The day before I took it to the shop, I received a letter in the mail with the line: "You are receiving this letter because you have not responded to our attempts to contact you...." Now I'm really concerned, there must be something really terribly wrong with the battery. OH NO! MY BABY IS SICK! I took her to the shop the next day. Since the shop is 28 miles away, I take the afternoon off from work because "MY BABY IS SICK!"
The dealership tech and the service manager had no idea why Ford was insistent I bring my truck in. The BEV support desk didn't either. 2 weeks later, the Ford tech that was supposed to look at the scans and tell the dealership tech what parts to replace didn't know what parts needed to be replaced. We are still waiting to hear, and it has been months.
Disaster Strikes!
The fateful morning was awash in oppressive foreboding. You could tell the day wasn't going to end well. The animals were nervous. Dogs barking at nothing. Chipmunks and squirrels constantly snapping their heads left and right, looking for danger. I just knew something was off when I rolled out of bed. It was probably the fact I was somehow wearing my girlfriend's underwear, my god, that was painful.
Outside, in the front yard, the water company was repairing the fire hydrant. I decided to move my vehicles to a short access road next to my property to get them out of the water company's workers' way because accidents do happen (notice the foreshadowing there, heightens the drama, I can tell a story!). This was the fateful decision that would bring me to tears eight hours later. One of the contractors working on the house across the street decided to back into the access road so he could turn his pickup and trailer around and leave. 3 people witnessed the terrible event. 2 of them are unable to return to work and are seeing a therapist daily. I am certain you are wailing into the night with tears running down your face, "Say it ain't so! How could this hardworking, beer drinking, flag waving, apple pie eating every man be so careless!"
His trailer tire rubbed the corner of my bumper. When I was alerted to the issue, I ran to MY BABY's side, to not just comfort and console, but to heal if I could but I knew I couldn't make it right! I was helpless! I...had....failed...her! How could she ever forgive me?! That feeling of when something is done and there is no going back. I was wracked by sobs as I felt MY BABY's pain. It tears at your soul and makes you curse Einstein for not allowing us to travel back through time to fix terrible wrongs and tragedies alike. "Nay", he says, "You shall not pass! Embrace your suffering you ignorant fool!" Einstein was like that, cold and merciless.
Anyway, the guy had left but he came back and gave me his insurance information. It costs the insurance company about $625 to fix. No wait on parts, no problem, good job though I had to take it to the Chevy dealership for the body work...talking about embarrassment.
Observations
It is a 90% solution as far as trucks go. The truck does what it is advertised to do. I can do everything I want to do with it but then again, I did not buy it to pull big bulky trailers. When it comes to that, it is not necessarily the trucks' fault but the infrastructure. If we had as many charge stations as gas stations, even this would not be a problem. People forget that this is a Lightning. The last version of the Lightning could not carry more than 500lbs in the bed. I can carry 1800lbs with my configuration.
The FUD out there about electric vehicles is astounding. Everything from about how they will bring down the electrical infrastructure (OH NO! it isn't like we haven't double the capacity of the electrical infrastructure 3 times since the 1970s) to how toxic the batteries are (have you taken a whiff out of diesel tail pipe lately), to how much it cost to recharge (these people don't know how to read their electric bill and do the math).
Either I am extraordinarily lucky, or Ford went into the EV truck space in a serious manner. I have read that the Lightning is so good it forced Tesla into a redesign. I do not know what the truth\reality is, but my truck has been amazingly trouble free. For my use case it checks nearly every box.
I used to get stopped all the time by people asking questions about it. The newness in this area has warn off so it does not happen as much. I have my tour of the truck down pat enough that I get asked if I am a salesperson for Ford. I have noticed attitudes change dramatically when I mention how much I save on maintenance and fuel. I have about 10% of people say they would never own one, but they do not really have a rational\technical\pragmatic reason. I suspect it has more to do with politics than the actual vehicle.
I was incredibly surprised at how many women like the truck, with a few noting the remote frunk opener would be amazingly handy.
I have never felt the punch in the chest on acceleration but passengers and the one and only person that I let drive MY BABY! said they felt it. As with nearly all electric cars, it accelerates faster than you will ever need with only minor torque steer.
I am tempted to install a small diesel-powered heater on the battery for winter. Where I am at it is not terrible but if ever move further North, I will do it in a heartbeat. Using a gallon of diesel to add significant range to my battery for several months of the year seems like an obvious compromise. I'm willing to bet it would not be that difficult to do so.
Things I would change:
More range. I have come home at night with only 5 miles left on the charge. 320 miles of theoretical range is not enough, I have to think too much about range\charging. If caught on a 20F day, into a head wind, on the expressway, I can lose 40% of my range. Seeing 1.2 m/kWh on the display is not comforting at all. Due to this, if I am more than a hundred miles from home and there is a charger handy, I will stop and charge it to 80%. But because I am very conscientious of ensuring I am constantly charging if I am at home, I have never really been gripped by range anxiety. I have only been denied going somewhere a couple of times because of the charge level.
More on range. It appears Ford has "tuned" the configuration and shape of the truck to get the most out of it. It appears any minor change, from tires to aerodynamics, just reduces range. Combining this with environmental conditions, road surface, etc. Makes mods a no go.
I really do want factory installed refrigerated cup holders in the center console. This is such a no-brainer.
The front grill is ugly, and it collects bugs like an entomologist.
The lights that run across the tail gate and front grill should be tinted the color of the vehicle, so they don't stand out during the day.
Finally, there are a lot of bells and whistles on the Lariat trim level that I'll never use but everyone else that sees them loves them.
edit: fixed a lot of typos
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