Do people really need a "smart" truck?

[Bushman]

Per the new F-150 commercial, it recognizes your voice, finds your tools, dials your cell phone and connects you to the Internet. The other guys just have dumb trucks with muscle, same old same old. What am I missing here? I'm happy when my truck starts, pulls my trailers, the 4wd engages, it hauls things and gets gas mileage commensurate with a medium sized V-8. I don't talk to my truck, I know where I put my tools, I don't use a cell phone and I don't have any trouble getting onto the Internet all by myself. Is the F-150 their only smart one or do the F-250's and Super Duty trucks do smart things too? And how does it know where I put my crescent wrench?

[DancesWithKnives]

I haven't bought a new truck in quite a few years because all the so-called improvements haven't made much of a difference in the areas that matter to me. I'm sure the new F-150 features are entertaining but they would sell me on the vehicle.

DWK

[purple heart]

I don't need a smart truck but my truck could use a smarter owner.
First day of rifle season My buddy kills a nice buck. The weather is too
warm to let the deer hang around so I let him take my truck to bring his deer
home and get the meat in a cooler. On his way back to camp he goes off the
road and smacks a big maple tree. My truck is still in the shop and worse he
has a "well I got mine" attitude. I think in another post I almost found out what my tag would of looked like in his ear. :mad::mad:

[DancesWithKnives]

Oops---posting after midnight error: I meant that the new features would NOT sell me on the truck. Left out the most important word!

DWK

[Bushman]

They must have something going for them or they wouldn't have been the truck sales leader for the last 32 years. It just seems to me that you can't keep gilding the lilly year after year and keep old truck owners becoming new truck owners. My old F-150 has a few warts and moles on her now, but it does everything that I need done with a truck. I'm remembering back when I had a brand new truck and was packing a clippers to trim every bush that might have scratched her. I didn't start having fun with my truck until I got into the damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead mentality. I tore those side mirrors off her more than once.

PH, your unfortunate story reminds me of a guy I used to work with who loaned his F-100 to a co-worker who needed to haul a load of gravel. No tarp and a gross overload that broke the rear axle. People don't take care of your stuff like you would like them to. My own truck has a 5 speed manual transmission and it used to be our trip truck when we went to Canada. Many a time my buddy would try to lug our way through town in 5th gear.

[Hi Ball]

I sure would like to have a "Smart Truck", yep just give it the list and send it down to the feed store, picking up a months supply of dog food. Then have it jog on over to the lumber yard and pick up my 3/4 inch plywood and 2 x 4's as well.

I think a SMART TRUCK would be great in that particular circumstance! I could same a lot of time not running here and there, just let the truck do as it wished.:D

[Bushman]

I know that you have a Super Duty. So it doesn't do all those F-150 things either? When I see the new stuff on the little trucks, but then see that they have retained things like actual levers, lock-outs and bigger cargo boxes on the big working trucks, it kind of makes me think that I'd be perfectly happy with a dumb truck. I'm thinking back to the time when my electronics brain box went out in the middle of the Nicolet National Forest and I'm thinking that a smart truck must have some kind of an electronics package.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman, my other Brother N Law, just got rid of his 2005 Toyota truck that was loaded up and rode very nice on the road (like a Caddy!) He and his brother both went up to the local Ford dealer and the folks gave him a lot more money for his Toyota, that he could not pass up the deal.

His brother purchased a demo 2008 with 9,000 miles on the F-150 4 x 4. Well he got to jawing with the salesman and came away with a 2010 new F-150 4 x 4 two tone truck. I priced those new F-350 & F-450 Fords with 4 x 4 but in all honesty I think I am going to hang on to what I have now for a couple more years. The sticker price was $52,000 Bucks!:eek: :eek: I have around 45,000 miles on my truck, just started to get broke in good.