It’s no secret that America has an insatiable lust for pickup trucks of expansive dimensions. I mean, truck culture has become so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that country-rock playlists are filled with songs about loving big diesel trucks from each of the Big Three. Well, after driving a 2025 Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus DRW (dual rear wheel), I’m feeling the same way. This 6.7-liter Power Stroke diesel V8-powered $111,000 truck, a Ford Super Duty pushed deep into the luxury domain, was a relaxing companion as I hauled a trailer on a 1,600-mile road trip across the eastern portion of America. The Platinum Plus was so good at being a comfy truck that I think I now love this big American truck more than most German luxury cars.
Yes, this was a bit of a revelation for me, too. I’m the weirdo who bought not just one, but two Volkswagen Phaetons. I still own a Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI and two BMWs. My list of dream cars includes the BMW 850i and the Audi R8 V10. I love German cars so much that I named myself after one of the nation’s brands.
Yet, America’s big trucks offer an interesting proposition. The 2025 Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus has most of the luxuries the average person would expect to find in something like an Audi, but it’s layered on top of a vehicle that can haul a huge amount of weight across an entire landmass, and do so in shocking comfort.
(Full Disclosure: Ford loaned me a 2025 F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus for a little over a week to haul home my new-to-me 1997 Honda Life. I then lost the key to the rig on the road trip. Ford took such great care of me during the whole ordeal, and I still cannot find the proper words to thank those lovely people enough.)
This year, I’ve found myself afflicted with a revived obsession with importing cars from Japan. Back in March, I purchased a 1997 Honda Life for only $258 in a Japanese auction. Then, in June, I purchased a 1998 MGF roadster. Now, the easiest way to get these vehicles home would be to pay a transport company to haul them from the port to your doorstep. But not only does shipping get expensive, but it’s also the boring way to do it. The cheaper and more fun way, in my eye, is to hitch up a U-Haul Auto Transport, drive to Baltimore, pick up my car, and drive home. 
Now, I could have done this trip in a half-ton pickup truck like a Ford F-150. The Honda Life weighs so little that I could have even pulled this trip off in a Honda Ridgeline, but U-Haul wouldn’t rent me a car hauler for a Ridgeline. I took a different approach. So many Americans buy heavy-duty pickup trucks as daily drivers and tow vehicles. What would living with a big dual rear wheel (dually) truck be like? I wanted to find out, so I asked Ford to send me the biggest truck in the press fleet. Initially, that was supposed to be a F-450 Super Duty Platinum Plus, but it wasn’t quite ready to be released into the fleet yet.
Instead, I got a 2025 Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus dually, and it’s a perfect representative of how far trucks have come from their humble roots.
Living Up To The Name
Ford says 90 percent of Super Duty owners use their trucks to tow things. The folks at Ram say that 90 percent of their Ram Heavy Duty customers also use their trucks for towing, too. In contrast, Ram says that only 10 percent of light-duty customers use their trucks for towing. Ford has not given me any data on this, but I would not be surprised to find a similar figure. That means most of the big trucks dotting American roads do get used for “truck stuff.”
The fifth-generation Super Duty launched in 2023, and you can click here to read about all of its nuts and bolts.
Something that I appreciate about America’s heavy pickup truck makers is that they get incredibly granular in explaining hauling capacities. Automakers love to talk about payload ratings and towing capacities. Here’s what Ford gave to the press for the fifth-gen Super Duty’s ratings:
- Gooseneck towing of 40,000 pounds with F-450 pickup.
- 5th-wheel towing of 35,000 pounds with F-450 pickup.
- Conventional towing capacity of 30,000 pounds with F-450 pickup.
- Gooseneck towing of 38,000 pounds with F-350 pickup.
- Conventional towing of 28,000 pounds with the F-350 DRW.
- Conventional towing of 25,000 pounds with the F-350 SRW.
- Gooseneck towing of 23,000 pounds with F-350 Tremor HO Power Stroke.
- Conventional towing of 22,000 pounds with F-350 DRW 7.3-liter Godzilla V8.
- Conventional towing of 18,500 pounds for the F-350 Tremor (gas and diesel).
- Gooseneck towing of 21,000 pounds for the F-350 Tremor (gas and diesel).
- Gooseneck towing of 23,000 pounds with F-250 HO Power Stroke.
- Conventional towing of 22,000 pounds with the F-250 HO Power Stroke.
To give you an example, the F-450 pickup noted at the top of the list can haul 8,000 pounds in its bed and tow a 40,000-pound gooseneck. I got to tow that 40,000-pound load in 2023, too, which was so awesome. The truck doing that hauling wasn’t a fancy Crew Cab, but a Regular Cab with a long bed and a somewhat spartan interior.
My press loaner this time around was the 2025 Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus DRW. Under the hood sat a 6.7-liter High Output Power Stroke V8 firing off 500 horsepower and a ground-shaking 1,200 lb-ft of torque. How much power is this? The HO Power Stroke has so much beef that it will easily spin the dually’s wheels with traction control off. This is a truck that weighs as much as a small house, and yet the Power Stroke gets the truck off of the line and up to 60 mph way faster than you’d think any mass this large should go.
A Super Duty single rear wheel can hit 60 mph in the mid-5-second range, and the dually trucks aren’t much slower. This truck is legitimately faster than some cars half the size. Of course, Ford wasn’t exactly trying to make a heavy-duty hot rod here, as the groundswell of power is mainly there to make towing insanely heavy loads feel natural. The Power Stroke outputs so much power that a Super Duty hauling 15,000 pounds still gets up to speed no differently than a crossover does. That’s the beauty of today’s ridiculously powerful truck diesels.
Six-Figure Rig
My F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus loaner had some pretty great kit in it. According to the Monroney, my truck had a base price of $81,395. Then, the factory slathered on $27,820 in options. Those options included a 35,000-pound fifth wheel hitch kit ($1,745), a gooseneck hitch ($250), the FX4 Off-Road package with skid plates ($550), tonneau cover ($2,200), spray bedliner ($595), a rear bed step ($390), LT245/75R17 all-terrain tires ($165), and a 3.55 limited-slip rear axle ($385).
The big ticket items included the $12,995 Power Stroke engine, the $995 color, and $6,500 for the Platinum Plus package. Well, technically, equipping the Platinum Plus package requires you to check other boxes, including the Power Stroke diesel and four-wheel-drive. So, really, Platinum Plus will cost you at least $19,495 if you’re starting with a base truck. So, most of the options on this truck had to be checked by default to check the box for Platinum Plus.
So, what’s the hubbub about this Platinum Plus thing? Well, it’s Ford’s new flagship Super Duty. Ford replaced the old Limited trim level in 2025 with Platinum. But Ford also had decided that Platinum still wasn’t luxurious enough, so now we have Platinum Plus.
No matter how you slice it, Ford’s top-spec Super Duty trucks command a ton of money. Last year’s Limited had a starting price of $99,190. The cheapest 2025 Super Duty Platinum Plus is the F-250 at $99,455. The F-350 clocks in at $100,955, while the F-450 commands $105,630. My truck was $109,215. Add in destination and delivery and you land at a fat $111,310. That’s solidly German luxury car territory for what some might see as a work truck.
However, the Platinum Plus goes to great lengths to make this truck just as soft and supple as a luxury car.
As Luxurious As A Car
Headline features of the Platinum Plus trim level include “satin chrome” trim all over the truck’s exterior, unique 20-inch wheels, a power tailgate, and a seriously awesome interior. Step onto the retractible running board and into the truck and you’ll be treated to a legitimately luxurious cabin.
Ford says the Platinum Plus features a smoked truffle interior (think gray-ish brown) featuring perforated Venetian leather seats with a French-stitched pleated pattern. More of that Venetian leather and French stitching makes appearances on the door panels. Further leather is found on the dashboard and the center console. Further touches include more satin trim and dashes of real wood here and there. The finisher, I think, is that Ford wrapped the roof, pillars, and grab handles in suede.
Other notable upgrades include Pro Power Onboard 2kW (above), illuminated door sills, special floor mats, and a thick, truffle-colored leather steering wheel.
All of that is great, but it gets better as the seats have heating, ventilation, and massage. I also appreciated this truck’s Bang & Olufsen Unleashed sound system, which featured 14 speakers and 1,080 watts of power. I’ll readily admit that I’m not an audiophile like Thomas is. I just connect my phone and crank the volume up to 11. Oh yes, I’ve probably lost a lot of hearing over the years.
The B&O system in the Platinum Plus continues to live up to what I said about the same system as it was applied to last year’s F-250 Super Duty Lariat that I had as a loaner. The B&O sound system lives up to the “Bang” in its name, hitting so hard you’ll feel it in your heart, and that’s at only halfway up the volume dial. My tunes, often symphonic metal, hip-hop, Star Trek themes, Weird Al, and all points in between, came out clear, loud, and with just the right amount of bass.
I think this system even edges out the one that I tested in the Ram HD earlier this year. At the very least, they’re so incredibly close and both are just plain great if you’re a music normie like me. The truck is also spilling over with tech. My tester came with Ford Co-Pilot360 2.0, a HUD, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, automatic emergency braking, wireless charging, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Ford SYNC 4 running through a gigantic 12-inch screen. Another 12-inch screen handled instrument cluster duties.
One of my complaints about some of these high-end trucks was that they often feel like their manufacturers started with a work truck and then filled them up with leather. What this means, at least in my eye, you get great seating surfaces, then brush your hands against nasty pebbled plastic on the door panels or on the A-pillars. They’re reminders that, at their heart, these are still work trucks. I noticed this in last year’s Lariat and with this year’s Ram HD Laramie. Even some top truck trims make this compromise.
The Platinum Plus did an admirable job hiding the truck’s working roots. The suede-covered pillars felt like something I’d expect to see in a BMW. Ford was also much better at covering the door panels in premium materials than Ram is. Remember, here’s what the doors look like on a Ram truck that costs nearly $100,000:
That pebbled plastic felt as out of place as it looked. This plastic was used in Ram’s flagship trucks, too.
Now, here’s the Platinum Plus doors:
Sadly, not everything is great in there. There are some cheaper-feeling plastics on the dashboard that feel a little out of place compared to the beautiful leather seats. The same sort of plastic can also be found on parts of the door panels. However, this plastic doesn’t feel so out of place that it’ll ruin your experience. In fact, I bet most owners and people not being paid to evaluate things will never notice or care. Heck, even German brands have this same sort of deal going on with interior plastics today.
On the road? This truck is incredible for what it is.
As A Daily
Motor City Solutions of Detroit dropped off the truck right before Memorial Day weekend, and I loved that because it gave me time to treat this truck like many folks do. I drove it to the grocery store, took it to a baseball game, and cruised around with my wife.
Operating a dually truck as a daily driver is a bit funny. You don’t sit in most parking spaces, so you have to park at the back of the lot if you don’t want to look goofy. These trucks also don’t really fit in apartment complex parking lots well, either, so I had to park the Platinum Plus in the overflow lot where folks park campers, limos, and the occasional semi-tractor.
Driving the big truck as a daily also just changes how you tackle the open road. Your seating position towers above almost everyone else who isn’t driving a semi and the truck’s big hips mean you can’t just make tight turns like you would in a car or a smaller truck.
But you also have a commanding view of the road ahead. I’m used to driving tiny Smarts and Kei cars, where you can’t see past the pickup ahead of you. Well, now I am the pickup driver, and I see everything. Admittedly, this sort of became intoxicating after a while. I’m used to driving vehicles so small that everyone either doesn’t see me or cuts me off. That doesn’t happen in the big truck. It’s weird, but it was almost like the F-350 was demanding respect from other drivers on the road. The same kind of drivers that would make me test out the brakes on my Vespa didn’t mess with me now.
People seemed to love this particular look of the Super Duty. Normally, I prefer some real color, and the sort of “creamy” grays that are so hot with automakers right now aren’t my thing at all. However, I make an exception in this case. At least in my eyes, the satin trim works well with the blue-ish gray of this truck. Strangers at gas stations called the Platinum Plus “classy.”
The truck also had pretty respectable fuel economy as a daily driver. The empty Super Duty did over 18 mpg on the highway and around 22 mpg when just cruising around town. It’s impressive that something that feels as large as a cruise ship even hits those numbers.
But I won’t say that the truck felt like driving a car. You’re reminded that you’re in a heavy-duty pickup truck the moment you take a corner too fast and you feel the weight of the truck resisting the change in direction from the helm and the tires screaming “seriously?” The suspension is also rougher when the truck is unloaded. The remarkably comfy seats ensure that the ride never reaches the level of being uncomfortable, but like all big trucks, the Super Duty sort of just bounces and jiggles off big bumps and Chicago-sized potholes.
Hauling Empty
The real reason why I got this truck was to drive it 773 miles out east to Baltimore to pick up my 1997 Honda Life. Now, I already covered how that whole trip failed to work out exactly as planned after I lost the truck’s key fob. If you missed it, click here to begin reading my three-part saga. The good news is that I made it exactly 697 miles before I lost the key. So, I still managed to put around 1,500 miles on the Platinum Plus, and most of those miles were towing.
My preferred method to pick up cars from a port involve renting a U-Haul Auto Transport at home, towing the trailer out to the port empty, and then bringing the car back home. U-Haul Auto Transports are only $55 a day if you return them to the same U-Haul store. However, a long-distance one-way rental may run you $1,000. So it’s actually cheaper to tow the empty trailer.
Anyway, the U-Haul trailer weighs 2,210 pounds. A Honda Life weighs about 1,700 pounds. That’s just 3,910 pounds, or a fraction of the 28,000 pounds that a F-350 DRW can tow from the receiver hitch below its rear bumper. It sounds silly to tow such a small amount of weight with such a huge truck, but this is something that real heavy-duty truck owners do. They aren’t always towing gigantic campers and tractors, but some are just towing home a car.
Towing the empty U-Haul with the F-350 DRW was interesting. I have often said that when a journalist tells you that they “don’t feel it back there” when describing towing, they’re almost always exaggerating. You always feel the trailer back there, even if your tow vehicle is amazingly capable. Well, towing the light U-Haul with the F-350 was the closest I’ve ever came to being able to say that statement. But, that’s not at all surprising given the fact that the empty flat trailer was only 7.8 percent of the truck’s conventional towing capacity.
Now, I felt the trailer back there because the trailer did impact braking performance a little and I could feel the trailer move on the hitch when I hit bumps. But as far as the truck was concerned, 2,210 pounds was nothing. The truck averaged 17.2 mpg on the highway with the empty trailer and even the suspension seemed entirely unbothered, as it was still pretty hard.
Yet, I found myself loving the seats all over again because even after 11 hours of driving, I felt only limited fatigue. I remember only three moments when I thought the truck was too rough, and it was when I hit bumps so bad that the empty U-Haul trailer got a little bit of airtime behind the truck.
The Platinum Plus was the perfect road trip companion. I turned on my ventilated seat, hit the radar cruise control, and ate up literally hundreds of miles at a time. The Platinum Plus has a generous 48-gallon fuel tank. At 17.2 mpg, that means 825 miles of driving range, or more than enough fuel to drive 773 miles from my apartment near the Wisconsin border to the Port of Baltimore without stopping.
Sadly, I didn’t get to take a picture of me loading the Honda Life up behind the Super Duty, but I was able to get that picture later, after Ford’s hero of a driver brought me the truck’s second key, allowing me to hitch up to the U-Haul trailer with the Honda already on it.
Hauling A Car
Hitching up to the trailer was easy. Now, I come from a family of heavy haulers and have been towing trailers pretty much since I got my license. However, not everyone can hitch a trailer blindfolded and with an arm behind their back. So, the Ford, like so many modern trucks, has a bunch of hacks to make towing easier even for novices.
This truck came equipped with a sweet suite of cameras, giving me a 360-degree view of the truck. Normally, I have to back the truck up, jump out, check my position, hop back in, and then do it all over again. Or, I’ll have a spotter direct me. The Super Duty makes that easy, as a camera and a dotted line will guide me straight to the tongue of the trailer. Then I just hit the parking brake, dropped the tongue of the trailer, and hooked everything up.
Ford also offers the Pro Trailer Hitch Assist system (shown above), where the truck can reverse itself straight to the tongue of the trailer, even steering itself there. This function does require that a special sticker be placed on the trailer, so I wasn’t able to test this out on the U-Haul. That’s just the tip of Ford’s hauling and towing tech, which you can read more about by clicking here.
Loading the tiny, lightweight car made little change in how the trailer pulled. The trailer wasn’t just a flat deck scooting down the road, but now it had a car on top and now surface area finally mattered. Realistically, the truck didn’t haul any differently with the car on the back. The rear suspension was perhaps just touch softer from the weight, but performance was pretty much the same. The truck was able to cruise in 10th gear with the car back there all day long. The only obvious indication of making the truck do any work at all was that fuel economy dropped to about 13.3 mpg.
If anything, I love being able to say that. I love that this truck has such an excess in capability that towing a car is pretty much a non-event for the truck. That’s why people go big like this. Sure, a large crossover could have hauled this load without a problem, but the truck made it look and feel easy.
Even better is how you have so much excess capacity that you can park the car trailer, hitch up the girthy gooseneck, and then tow a tractor to the farm. I’ve had the privilege of towing really large trailers with the fifth-gen Super Duty, and it’s extremely capable at that, too.
The Platinum Plus was also the most comfortable truck I’ve slept in, too. I’m a serial cheapskate and sometimes, I don’t want to get a hotel. So, I’ll park the truck, lay out a blanket on the back seat, and get to sawing logs. I got a full night’s sleep on the rear bench of the F-350 and I honestly felt great when I woke up the morning after. As it turns out, the soft leather seats make for a good bed! It was actually much better sleeping in this truck than in last year’s F-250 Lariat, so there’s that.
That said, a lot of the people who use these big pickups as hotshot trucks or similar will fold up the rear seats and then plop down something resembling a real bed onto the expansive floor. That’s also a good option that remains here.
Unfortunately, losing the key meant that I also got to test how durable the Platinum Plus interior is. The poor truck got caught in a downpour with its sunroof open. The seats and some of the interior equipment did get a pretty good soaking, but it all dried up really well. The truck even still smelled new after. So, all of the pretty leather isn’t as delicate as it seems. If you want to read more about that, click here.
I’ve been gushing a lot about this truck. Truth be told, the F-350 Platinum Plus is now my second-favorite new truck, and it’s second only to the mighty Ford F-150 FP700, which is definitely my dream pickup right now.
Headaches
However, there were some problems that cropped up on this tester. One was that the truck’s trailer wiring did not respond well to being driven in a heavy downpour. About an hour into my drive home, I hit heavy rain. As I drove through the deluge, a warning popped up on my screen about the trailer light and trailer brake modules failing.
Thankfully, Ford has a super handy trailer light checker program so you can inspect things by yourself. On the outside, the effect was that the trailer’s running lights worked fine, but brake lights and turn signals did not function.
At first, I thought these modules failed because of the open sunroof incident, but some diagnosis (i.e. this find on the internet) led me to the wires that connect the truck’s trailer wiring to the rear bumper. The connectors were full of water, presumably from the tires kicking water up at the undercarriage. If I dried these connectors out, the errors went away. It looks like I wasn’t the only person to have this problem.
Thankfully, the easy solution would be to use dielectric grease in the connectors to help keep rain out.
I also had an issue where the driver side running board stopped deploying. This issue began happening before the sunroof incident. I’d hear the motor attempt to turn on, but the board wouldn’t drop. As it turns out, the running boards can detect resistance, and too much resistance will cause the board to either fail to deploy or fail to retract. The boards can get stuck if the joints are not cleaned and lubed. Cleaning gunk out of the joints returned function to the driver-side running board.
I’m also still just not a fan of how tall trucks are. It’s gotten to the point where the bedsides of heavy-duty pickup trucks come to the top of my shoulders and bed floors are getting above belly button level. Heavy-duty trucks have huge beds, but they’re often quite hard to actually use. It’s unsurprising that automakers have come up with weird solutions like tailgate steps or tailgate barn doors.
I’ve asked a Ram HD engineer about this, and I was told that, at least in Ram’s case, the sky-high truck was a sort of compromise. Truck buyers want lots of ground clearance and tons of articulation. However, they also want usable beds. The compromise is to jack the trucks up high for off-road capability, and then to give you a step ladder or whatever to access your bed.
The towering height also makes visibility difficult for some drivers. Now, I don’t have a problem driving this truck, but that’s because I love driving big vehicles and generally know where my vehicle’s ends are. However, I noticed that shorter drivers might have a hard time seeing obstacles in front of the F-350’s long hood or behind its tailgate. It would also likely be somewhat hard for that person to gauge just where the front bumper is. If you’re a shorter driver, I’d imagine the cameras would be absolutely critical to pulling this truck out of your driveway without driving over the neighbor’s dog or flattening your kid’s bicycle.
Of course, the driver of smaller cars among us, myself included, also don’t like how, among other things, huge trucks basically block the view of the road ahead. I’m not really sure of a solution for all of this, but it is something to be aware of. Big trucks are great, but going huge does have notable trade-offs.
This next one is less of a problem and more of a suggestion.
Earlier, I noted how I lost the truck’s fob while on the trip. I have an entire three-part series about this, so click here to read it. The short version is that I accidentally left the fob on the cowl in front of the windshield. The truck started and I drove it out onto an interstate, where the fob ejected itself from the truck, disappearing off the side of the road. The truck then let me continue to drive and it didn’t even warn me of the missing fob until about a mile later when I pulled over and put the truck in park. Unfortunately, the truck then shut itself down and effectively bricked itself. This meant that any window that was open was now stuck open indefinitely.
Now, Ford has a solution with this with the FordPass app. Pair the app to the truck and you can gain emergency access to its ignition. Unfortunately, a previous journalist had already paired the truck to their phone, so FordPass was useless. You might run into the same issue if the truck you’re driving is a work truck, a rental, or borrowed from someone else. In this case, I think there should be a way to emergency close the truck’s windows (or emergency open the windows if a baby gets trapped inside). You’re already having a bad day from losing your key, seeing your $100,000 truck’s interior ruined because the windows are bricked would add insult to injury.
Better Than A Luxury Car?
Overall, I loved my experience with the Platinum Plus. I had such a great time, even, that I came to a conclusion that I wasn’t expecting. If you’ve read my work for long enough, you know that I adore German luxury cars. I love driving something with oodles of power, with the quietness of a library, and with all sorts of trick toys layered on top of high class.
This truck does almost all of that. It was remarkably quiet, while its turbodiesel V8 hits like a sledgehammer and has an exhaust note that sounds like a crack of thunder. The seats were luxurious and comfortable, while toys were abundant. Sure, this truck doesn’t have wall-to-wall screens, any trick summon features, augmented reality systems, AI, glass dashboards, motorized doors, or any other gizmo gimmick.
No, in my eye, the Platinum Plus has luxury features that I think most people will actually use. Automakers are finding out that people don’t really care about unnecessary tech like capacitive buttons, features locked behind menus, and passenger screens. But people do like leather, heated seats, cooled seats, and massage. There probably aren’t a ton of people out there who absolutely must have automatic opening doors and motorized door handles on their next car, but everyone loves a great stereo.
But, what’s great is that you get realistic luxury wrapped up in a package capable of towing a 38,000-pound trailer. That’s just nutty, and I get why some folks drive right past the Mercedes-Benz dealership to buy their luxury truck from the Ford dealership. These trucks wrap you in leather, jack you to the sky, and make you feel like you’re the queen of the road. I sure know that I felt powerful in the Platinum Plus.
It’s weird, but the Platinum Plus was a bit of a confidence-booster like that. I felt awesome behind the wheel of that gray lump of metal and diesel. I felt like I had the power of a nuclear reactor under my size 10 slip-on and so long as I was in my leather throne, anything was possible.
I figure that this is also part of the reason why trucks sell so well. That feeling of being in power is intoxicating. Who cares about paying more than $150 for a tank of diesel when you feel like you have enough torque to singlehandedly change the rotation of a planet?
So yeah, I get it now. If you gave me the choice between a new BMW or this truck, I’d take the truck. If you came to my door with a mint condition Volkswagen Phaeton V8, I’d still take the truck. Besides, the truck can haul a whole trailer full of Volkswagen Phaetons. As the song goes, I like big trucks and I cannot lie.
(All images: Author)
I like the comparison of the super-luxury trucks to a German luxury sedan. It makes them seem a bit less ostentatious when you’re comparing it to a Mercedes S-Class that costs more and gets about the same fuel economy. Especially when you consider the practicality for certain people who might need a truck anyway. This is an interesting perspective I’ve never really thought about.
This is a wonderful review.
Am I the only one who thinks that the shiny panels on the rear tailgate/hatch that denote a Platinum Ford look like garbage? I feel like they have the aesthetic of a $20 stick-on decal from JC Whitney
Ridiculous hugeness aside, “Ford F-350 Super Duty Platinum Plus”.
JFC, it sounds like the name a cartoon like Futurama would give to a joke vehicle that Amy would buy because it includes eagle down and, of course, rich Corinthian leather.
And I thought “Big Horn” was a terrible name for a truck trim. Well, it still is I guess.
Might as well name it “Small d” edition, because that’s definitely the clientele where I am.
I mean its cool, but I still think *it* should be the one emissions came for not the small turbo diesels that the Germans would sell here if we werent fools.
Should be reading how this would be a fun toy if it was allowed and how well small diesel engines grew to fill the niche but none of that happened and the small diesels are gone.
If there was onus to compete, the triple turbo bmw diesels would have a word but why juice a 3.0 when you can just ban that and hock 7 liters to customers that daily drive them.
We live in the worst timeline.
I’m not sure I agree. I can tow 3.5tonnes (7716lbs apparently) with my BMW X5 (to be fair you can’t drive a vehicle with a combined mass of 6tonnes on a car license where I live anyway, so anymore than 3.5tonnes you are almost pushing the legality of your license). I actually can’t think of anything that is bigger than that, that I would be comfortable towing – I have no desire to become a truck driver. I’m still wrapped in comfort, it handles, its fast, its still a nice big straight six diesel and for 99% of the time that I am not towing something I’m not driving something the size of a block of flats. The rest of the world manages fine with smaller trucks and SUVs, I’m not convinced that for most people there is a use case for a truck this big in everyday life.
You’re not convinced there’s a use case for “most people” because this clearly is not a vehicle for most people.
At that price point, I would imagine it’s either doing serious work or being a serious fashion statement. Where I am, serious fashion statement is far more likely.
Huge trucks are not in any way, shape or form “sporty”, which is pretty big part of the German luxury sedan thing. Guzzling fuel and having to park an aircraft carrier also separates them.
I get the appeal of the luxury truck, but I miss the honest, simple trucks of decades past. 100k for a truck is just absurd to me.
Great news, they still sell them!
I guess it depends on what you think fits that definition.
I don’t see many vehicles analogous to an early 90s Toyota pickup or something like a Mitsubishi Mighty Max.
Trucks are much bigger and more luxurious than they were on average, perhaps partly because people need one “do everything” vehicle now vs having trucks just for truck things, but it’s also because that’s where the money is. Or at least, that’s my take.
Hopefully the Maverick will spur on a wave of smaller, more livable, pickups for light duty usage, but I won’t hold my breath. Too many people pick their ride as a status symbol vs how useful it actually is to their vehicular needs. Though I guess that IS a need for some.
Love the review! My old friend owned a F-350 crew cab dually with a V-8 engine and 4wd. He hauled a travel trailer from Wasilla, Alaska to Fort Myers, Florida. After that he dailyed the truck for many, many years. That truck was him.
It’s still gdamn truck… That you have to take corners slow and wide with and allow more stopping distance and it’s a pain to park. Heck, won’t even fit through my garage door. And when a vehicle gets this big and driving it becomes work, I expect to get paid to drive it and not vice versa!
Wait, so I can’t even get the Platinum Plus package in my engine of choice? Dang these manufacturers all to heck. I really wish I could a la cart this sort of thing.
Maybe it’s just where I live, but big trucks like this are a dime a dozen, so I would imagine it doesn’t feel all that towering anymore. The “high sitting position” arms race is real and we are all losers.
You must live in a rich area.
Plenty of lifted trucks with d-bags behind the wheels in most parts of the country. I don’t even live in “truck country” and we have plenty here.
That 10% towing rating is probably optimistic around these parts, even if a small minority of people do have boats and waverunners.
As a real comparison of big American truck vs Euro Lux I suggest you pull your next JDM import with a new Euro luxury barge.
Do any of them have a good tow rating though? 7K is marginal when it comes to hauling a car after you include the weight of the trailer and everything else you’re bringing, and if you’re doing this a few times a year you probably want an enclosed trailer that bumps it up to 8-9K.
Good point.
Great review. Now, let’s get a photo of the truck at any pedestrian crossing from inside the truck to see the blind spots for anyone walking who’s under the height of “NBA draft pick”.
“Operating a dually truck as a daily driver is a bit funny. You don’t sit in most parking spaces, so you have to park at the back of the lot if you don’t want to look goofy. These trucks also don’t really fit in apartment complex parking lots well, either, so I had to park the Platinum Plus in the overflow lot where folks park campers, limos, and the occasional semi-tractor”
And that’s one major problem with these monsters. Unless your living situation includes private parking for this and whatever you bought it to tow you’re going to be the inconsiderate jackass whose pedestrian crushing, safety view blocking toys take up WAY too much public curb space.
And that’s whats great about old American cars like the Roadmaster and Park Ave. Minus the aircraft carriers of the 70s, you got all the great qualities of these trucks (comfort, ability to tow, decent ride height) in livable, scaled down packages.
Too bad the modern day market for those qualities have dictated that they want to sit as high as semis.
“Minus the aircraft carriers of the 70s, you got all the great qualities of these trucks (comfort, ability to tow, decent ride height) in livable, scaled down packages”
And they could fit in a standard two car garage under bikes and other crap hanging from the ceiling.
I grew up in Texas, and can appreciate how stunning these ultra-comfortable behemoths are for highway cruising & towing. I understand the love!
But I can’t image anything more annoying to daily drive. All the power in the world won’t make it nimble or graceful. Maneuvering in and out of any parking lot or space takes extra time and effort. And climbing in and out of the cab gets really old when you do it 10 times a day. In a rural areas they make more sense, but even then they are just sort of a pain to use regularly if you don’t need the capacity. Any vehicle where people regularly use a step stool to get in and out is failing the convenience part of “comfort & convenience”.
Don’t forget the privilege of having to lift whatever cargo 5′ just to get it into the bed.
Can I borrow that step stool again?
I have to daily drive a 2024 F250 (ex. Cab, long box, with essentially a camper shell) and I hate it. But, it’s for work , so I deal with it.
I do own an F250 (2002) , but it only exists to do truck stuff. For me, all the(non-work) daily driving is much better suited to something more reasonably sized.
I am very much not a big truck person, but nothing wrong with appreciating what they’re good at. I’d just advise against changing your name again…Ford Streeter just does not have the same ring to it, hahaha!!!
Directions unclear, my new name is now Mercedes Ford. 🙂
Oh just split the difference and call yourself Mercury!
I genuinely cackled. Well played.
The problem with these trucks being able to hit 60 mph faster than a stock Miata is that they weigh more than 3x as much as that Miata. The truck tested was over 7600 lbs (assuming it was a 4×2) and that’s a lot of mass to whoa. Car and Driver tested an F-350 at 162 ft for 60-0. Motor Trend clocked a Miata at 108. Do truck drivers leave an extra 54 feet of braking distance? It’s not like they can quickly deke around whatever’s in the way.
Most truck owners have no idea what their truck weighs, and they try to drive them like sports cars. I get why they’re heavy, but it should be acknowledged in a road test.
I’ve owned a Dodge 2500 diesel for nearly 15 years, and I’m very aware that it weighs 7700 lbs empty. The manual transmission reminds me of that regularly, of course, but I always try to drive accordingly. I feel more kinship with semi truck drivers than sedans.
Down here in the swamp, I wish more people had your attitude.
How can the HD truck driver leave 54 feet of extra stopping distance when they’re only 3 feet from the rear bumper of the Miata?
“Car and Driver tested an F-350 at 162 ft for 60-0. Motor Trend clocked a Miata at 108.”
And that’s on dry. I shutter to think how they do on wet or icy, especially when doing truck things.
If you’re in front of one, you’ll probably be shuddering until the moment your eyes are permanently shuttered.
That is certainly an impressive interior from here, and I do appreciate the plethora of buttons.
The solution to lack of forward visibility is requiring fish eye school bus mirrors on any vehicle with a hood height of over 4ft.
Heck yeah. It’s not like anyone cares how many miles per gallon it gets anyway, so the drag doesn’t matter!
Oh man, it’s time to sell the fleet of Teutonic terribleness and get yourself a Ferd F-Teenthousand.
In seriousness, though, early 6.7s are getting alarmingly affordable. My preferred spec is King Ranch with the FX4 off-road package, but single rear-wheel because I don’t need a dually.
You like big trucks and you cannot lie
You other brothas can’t deny
When a truck rolls up with a rumbling PowerStroke
Towing a camper full of your family folk
You get sprung: want that Built Ford Tough
’cause you notice that cab was stuffed
Deep leather seats it’s wearing
A/C and heat?! I’m staring!
(…back to work…)
Hey Mercedes, do you have a hood-open picture of the engine bay, from the side if possible? I am seriously curious how much of the hood is enclosing engine, and how much is enclosing air. When I see these from the outside, they look like you could fit a few golf bags under there, and the hood could be lowered from its macho position to make it 75% easier not to kill a small person, bicyclist, or pet.
Also, the next time you’re in one of these, could you take a forward-facing picture with the camera at your eye position?
Amazingly, I do not have a photo of the hood open! I might have missed that in all of the key loss madness. Amusingly enough, I might test another Super Duty later this summer, so I’ll get those photos then!
That said, yes, there is a bit of air between hood and engine. The top of the hood also came to about nose level. I’m 5’6″ for reference.
I look forward to it. I may be wrong, and the engine takes up enough of the space to justify it. But I suspect that the breakover edge between hood plane and grille plane of most 2, 3, 4, and 5 series trucks could be moved down by several inches, and possibly many inches.
You’d be surprised. My buddy just bought an 2023 RV based on an F600 chassis with the 6.7 power stroke and I certainly wouldn’t want to try to wrench on it.
Great review. Makes my truck look like a poverty spec.
My only wish is that you could get the top level packages with the gas engine.
Honest question here, why would you get the gas over the diesel version? I don’t disagree with you and given certain situations may choose to do the same thing. As a tow rig the diesel seems like the obvious answer. However, I had a Yukon XL with the 8.3 gas engine as a tow vehicle for several years and loved it, probably more than I would have a diesel one if they existed. For me, I’d often end up towing things to remote places where finding diesel was kind of sketchy. It also just seemed a better winter “normal” car when I wasn’t towing, and I didn’t have to deal with any weird emissions or diagnosis things. I can troubleshoot just about anything on a gas engine but have to admit that I’m only smart enough now to realize how little I know when it comes to diesels by helping out with a Jetta TDI Lemons car for a few years.
Several reasons:
1) To save $12,000 up front.
2) I’ve had abysmal luck with diesel reliability. I don’t relish the repair bills, I don’t want to be stranded, I don’t want to mess with regens, I don’t want to buy DEF, etc.
3) The gas engine is astoundingly capable. I don’t need to tow 40,000 lb, I want to tow 10,000 effortlessly. Either powertrain is capable of that.
I completely agree with you. If you’re doing this full time diesel is probably better, but if it’s just towing a race car or camper 5 times a year, it’s easier to own a gas vehicle, especially if you don’t drive as a daily and in good weather maybe every 2-4 months.
I also had space constraints. The Yukon XL had 1/2″ of clearance to the top of the garage door, and 2.5″ total between the back of the garage and the door. It sucks having to deflate the tires to pull in/out of the garage and then inflate them when there’s snow on the ground
All the money spent on “upgrading” to and the maintenance on a diesel will buy a lot of gas. And as a professional truck driver, maintenance on modern diesel engines and emissions is something I know a thing or two about. If my Pete needs emissions work, a $15,000 repair bill is cheap.