F-250 or F-350

[olgoat]

I am in the market for a new Super Duty, upgrading from an F-150. I have driven four or five F-250's and think I have a pretty good feel for the difference in ride quality between the F-150 and F-250. Up to this point I chose not to even look at F-350's because I thought they were only available with an 8' bed. I just learned yesterday that F-350's, although rare, are available with short wheel base. Test drove a short wheel base F-350 today, mixed highway and rough Houston TX city streets, and didn't notice much difference between the F-250 and F-350.

Anyway, does anyone have real world experience moving from an F-250 to an F-350 as a daily driver and how much degradation in ride quality did you see?

The payload improvement is significant about 3,400 pounds for the F-350 vs 2,100 pounds for the F-250 with the equipment we want.

I know it would tow better as a long wheel base, but it will also be a daily driver so I am going to stick with a short wheelbase truck.

Thanks for your input.

[pjshier]

Our increment was F150 to F350 for payload reasons. Mitigated the stiffer-tho-not-deadly ride of the F350 with Rancho adjustable shocks, Sulastic spring hangars in the rear, and airing down the tires when unladen. With the Leer topper, the ride is very acceptable. Not as nice as the F150 Platinum, however.

[JonDNC]

We just bought a F 350 short bed FX4 Platinum. Came from a Sierra AT4. We test drove 250 and 350s back to back and could not tell the ride difference. Same level of trim on both. For the minimal cost delta 350 made sense to us.

Had it a few days and happy so far. Only gotcha is truck is much higher than out Sierra was with a 2” lift. Requires a new longer shank for our Blue Ox.

[uraljohn]

Originally Posted by pjshier

Our increment was F150 to F350 for payload reasons. Mitigated the stiffer-tho-not-deadly ride of the F350 with Rancho adjustable shocks, Sulastic spring hangars in the rear, and airing down the tires when unladen. With the Leer topper, the ride is very acceptable. Not as nice as the F150 Platinum, however.

I second the "Sulastic Shackles". I installed a set on my 2013 E150 XLT van. This van has a 8600LB GVW rating and the rear axle is rated at 5120 LBS. Made for a pretty stiff ride when empty. "Sulastics" really made a big difference.

Anyone that has a F250/350 should take at look at these. Cost was $400.00 and worth it. Took me less than an hour to install in my driveway with jack stands and regular (no air tools) tools.

There are a couple of videos on youtube showing install. Easy stuff.

[CRH]

I have a gas F350 with both snowplow springs and slide in camper certification. Payload is over 4k. I have no complaints about ride either empty or with the AS on the hitch.

[CWSWine]

My Great Great Grandfather came across the USA in months not days in a covered wagon with wood wheels and not much of a suspension system. Today we have gotten so soft that a ride in an air-conditioning Super Duty is too much for us to handle in daily commutes. I'm not exempting myself since I purchased a GMC 3500 because it rode better than F350 and Ram 2500 over other 3/4 ton trucks because of the ride.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

You can get a F-250 Platinum with a payload of a 2,952 pounds on the door sticker. That's with the camper and snow plow packages on it. The next bump up is a 350 for not much more money (less than $2K if I remember correctly). You get another leaf in the rear springs, but not much else. Indeed you *can* add more packages to the 350 from that starting level and take it up quite a bit from there.

Ride wise, that F-250 and the "simple" F-350 didn't really feel all that different to me. A whole lot of things between the two are same / same so it is not the big leap going to a 450 is ride or handling wise.

Bob

[gypsydad]

Agree with UB; not much difference in ride, but the extra leaf spring if you need the extra payload, adds a lot more support. Not much difference in price either...guess the question for you is, what are you planning to haul and will you require more than 2200# payload? If so, get the F350 and enjoy!

We got the KR F250 model with 6.7L diesel, and my only dings are as a daily driver, it is expensive for fuel in some states (MT diesel is cheaper than regular!), oil changes and fuel filter changes are expensive ($105 for oil service and $118 for fuel filter), plus not the easiest to maneuver in parking lots...I get 13-14 mpg at 65mph when towing now, and 17 around town.

While pulling our AS, it is great! Braking, power, and handling our 28' the diesel is great! Make sure to get the step in the tailgate.

[AlanMcD]

I went with the F250 gas because it has 3,200 pounds of payload vs. the same truck in an F250 Diesel with only 2,100 pounds, not much more than a F150. Plus the tow capacity on my F250 is fine for my trailer. For that matter most trucks are but most lack in payload. If you want the killer high tow capacity AND payload (~4,000) then the F350 is the way to go.

[JonDNC]

My suggestion when you shop is to compare between 250/350 make sure you compare the exact same spec to understand the ride difference and cost difference. The options can radically influence pricing. I.e. a fully loaded Lariat with additional options can rapidly approach the cost of a Limited.

[davidrrand]

I am planning on upgrading next year with the new model Super Duty from my current F150 Lariat V8. Once the numbers are available on the new 7.3 V8 and I get a feel for fuel economy and any reliability issues, hopefully by next spring, I will choose between the 6.2 and the 7.3 gas engines with 10 spd trans. Several notable upgrade from 2019 to 2020.

Dave

[Cirrusaly]

Made the change from short bed SRW F-250 to short bed SRW F-350 last year, solely because of payload difference. Both diesel. Put 50K on the F-250. Have 21K on the F-350. Both stock; no suspension mods to either.

I detect very little “ride” difference. I like both.

Good luck!

[olgoat]

Originally Posted by Cirrusaly

Made the change from short bed SRW F-250 to short bed SRW F-350 last year, solely because of payload difference. Both diesel. Put 50K on the F-250. Have 21K on the F-350. Both stock; no suspension mods to either.

I detect very little “ride” difference. I like both.

Good luck!

Good info, thanks.

[graysailor]

I have a Lariat F250 with no complaints. If I were to do it over I would go for the F-350 just because of the greatly improved payload. There is a very small price increase. Remember the hight the package the less payload you get.

[dumbclub]

Originally Posted by graysailor

Remember the hight the package the less payload you get.

Obviously, there’s a miscue here, but I can’t figure out what you intended to say for “hight”.
Please give it another shot.

[CRH]

He means higher trim level. A truck with a lot of options will have a lower payload than a stripped down model.

[rjmaype]

Remember:
"You can never have too much truck.
Many times you may find yourself without enough truck.
But you can never have too much truck."


From an old timer who convinced me to buy the F350

[davidrrand]

I agree. If you go diesel get, buy the 350. Many diesel 250/2500s only have a hundred or more pounds of payload than my current 15 Lariat 150 4x4 SCab V8 with 2031 lbs. My previous truck was a ‘99 F350 diesel SCab with 6 speed manual and I loved it. The wife, not so much. Noisy and rough riding but durable and good economy. Don’t make em like that any more but new ones are very nice and twice as capable and twice the $$ too��

[JonDNC]

The new Diesels are much quieter and civilized, we took ours,out last weekend putting on some miles and wife’s comment at the end of the day was more comfortable than our Sierra AT4.

[mikeinca]

Something was brought up briefly in another recent thread and since my questions about it wouldn't have exactly been on topic I didn't want to hijack that discussion. This thread seems like a better place to get some responses from the forum.

To the point, it's been said a few times that "you can't have too much truck" but is that really true? The comment made in the other thread was that a TV that's too stiffly sprung for the task can beat up the trailer resulting in stuff like popped rivets, cabinets flying open while travelling, additional stress on the frame, etc. I know that those kinds of problems can occur with a poorly matched hitch but it seems reasonable that they could also be associated with a poorly matched tow vehicle.

Obviously it depends greatly on individual requirements, but I'm just wondering if the question of F250 versus F350 is really so completely cut and dried. For example, after accounting for all of the fixed payload requirements like tongue weight, hitch, and passengers my 2017 F250 high trim level diesel with max tow has 550 lbs or so of spare payload capacity. Since I typically carry a couple of hundred pounds of gear in the bed of the truck, this leaves me a significant payload margin. Given that all the other attributes of the F250 are more than up to the task of towing my 30' Classic what would be the advantage of a one ton truck in a situation like mine? And isn't it possible that I'm doing my trailer a favor by not towing with a more stiffly sprung TV than I need? Or not.

Thoughts?