I ordered the truck in September, I've been reading this site since October, and I just plunked down a total of $35,000 like the rest of you. Nobody likes a whiner, but...

Am I alone in thinking the fit and finish is crude? The lower panels all have rough edges and don't fit all that well.

And the grill - it's very plastic looking. The style is nice, just the material says, "Mattel".

The storage box behind the seats is just plain cheesy.

The way the trailer light plug is mounted is crude and ugly, too.

Again, don't want to rain on anybody's parade but I can't help but think these could all have been done at a much higher standard.

Sign me,

Whining tonight...

 

You cannot see any of the things while your driving it. SO just drive it and have fun. If you want a perfect show truck, I think your gonna have to build it yourself. All Ford wants to do is make money selling cars and trucks..... and you bought one didn't ya ? They didn't have to spend the extra time to make it perfect to convince Joe public to buy it. They just slapped a blower on it and made it "good enough"
I think it is the best "good enough" thing that they have had the ***** to make in a long time.
Remember, it is an F150, not a BMW.
Drive it, have fun and let the BLOWER do all the WHINNING

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Cars and Trucks are made to be driven. NOT worshiped

 

My black 2000 L has none of the problems with
fit and finish, that you wrote about. The trailer plug IS ugly (I'll give you that), but if you hate it that much... relocate it.
As for the cargo box behind the seat, take it out, I did. Maybe you just got a bad ground effects kit on yours. I guess the grill is just a personal preference thing. I
think it looks SHARP, anyways I hope you learn to love your truck as much as we all love ours. Just keep driving it and I'm sure you will.

 

That is funny as hell " let the blower do the whining"

 

Pound for pound they're a hell of a deal. Was looking at a Lexus IS300 on the highway last nite. $40,000 CDN, same as our trucks. Which one do you think is a better deal?

I keep seeing Road & Track performance numbers for vehicles costing $75,000 US and more and keep smiling to myself how badly these guys would feel getting blown away by our trucks. A little plastic flashing and misalignment isn't going to spoil my day!!!

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2000 Red Lightning - #835 of 4966 Born 3-8-00 / Delivered 3-22-00
22% Window Tint, Clear Corners, MPulse LoPro Tonneau, AIM 2" Drop Shackles, Bed Rug, PSP Filter Kit, Other Goodies, Group Buy Floor Mats
Best time: 13.45 sec. @ 101.99 mph

2000 Red Trans Am Ram Air WS6, 6 Speed - Delivered 2-15-00 - Awesome Looking Car

My Zing.com Album Click Here

 

Lightfootning, Im with you on this. You may think that 30-35K is a lot to spend on a truck, but its not a Merc or BMW, which would a hell of a lot more if they made a truck like ours. The fit & finish would be better, but would also cost you over 40k.

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99' Black (Wikd)SVT
best run 13.20 @ 105

01' Nissan Pathfinder
16.13 @ 82.59
240hp/265tq
wanna mod, but wife rolls her eye's

[This message has been edited by Yoda (edited 02-21-2001).]

 

Even some of Fords domestic competitors might have to break the $40k mark to make something that competes with out Lightnings. Here's a good hint, they've been promising a Silverado SS since a Black Lightning graced the cover of Car and Driver magazine, and were in the process of being shipped to dealers across the country. well, that was a solid two years ago.

Infact, I have gotten so tired of waiting, I have decided to build my own Silverado SS. [/sarcasm] Did they make Silverados in 66?

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99 Black Lightning!
factory tonneau cover, 100k mile warrantee, Line-Xed
F150online.com R hp sticker mod in the mail. Where's it at?
2.145 60' 8.789@82.71 (1/8) 13.603@101.05 1/4
straight pipes, 'Major' rear lights, no chip
Kills! More kills!

[This message has been edited by Tundra (edited 02-21-2001).]

 

Trabuco, you've never owned a truck before, have you? It is not a car, don't scrutinize it like one. You've got to be rational here. The SVT boys have the challenge of turning a standard F-150 into a Lightning, do it on a limited production basis, keep the truck affordable (which it is) and make the whole project (from engineering to durability testing to crash testing to production) come out in the black. The ONLY way they accomplish this is A. Use as much existing componentry as possible (i.e. hit the Ford parts bins), and B. Don't go blowing excessive dough on developing Lightning-only storage bins and trailer plugs and expensive grilles etc. The Lightning is a Ford truck. What you primarily paid a premium for was the engineering and hardware costs of making a 4,600 lb. huck-a-buck truck run mid-13's and handle and brake like a sports car, spread over a THIN production run. What we are not paying for is to re-invent this truck to be built to some Lexus-like standard well beyond what American full-sized trucks are built to. And I'm glad they don't. I've got enough stress in keeping my cars perfect and pristine, it's relaxing to own a truck that I don't have to treat like jewelry. Not that I'm one of those guys who treats my Lightning like a scab, it's more of the fact that for an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist nut like me, the unrefined and rugged "truckness" of my Lightning is a welcome and relaxing addition to my garage. I'm glad it's not perfect.

 

I took out the storage box and replaced it with subs. Much better

Then I had the grille sprayed with black clearcoat. Very sharp

Also, its a truck and based on the regular F150. Fit might not be that of a BMW or Lexus, but they are sturdy as hell. Many cars with better fit dont stand up nearly as well to the bumps and jolts of everyday use.

 

trabuco,
I bought a 00 and agree with you. I refused the truck for fit and finish at the dealer.
They removed all of the ground effects, front and rear bumpers. Ordered new ones from the factory , finished and fit them. They re-aligned the bed, passenger door, and even the fuel filler door.

I accepted the truck. Point: You do not have to accept the way that they come out of the factory, just the dealer.

 

I'm sure that some trucks come through pretty bad, but in those cases if it involved any painting I would simply refuse the truck, period. I wouldn't accept a new truck with body panels that had been painted at the dealership. The odds are that the finish on those panels will not be as durable, or stand the test of time, compared to the factory finished panels. Especially on flexible pieces like ground effects. 9 out of 10 dealership body shops aren't capable of putting a quality finish on a doghouse. Poor prep work is the usual m.o.. Think of all the 87-93 GT Mustangs you see on the road with paint peeling off the front & rear bumper in sheets. Dealer re-sprays. They may have done a bang-up job for you HIHOAG, and that's good, but my observations have been that it's russian roulette getting a factory-durable and quality job from the monkeys at the dealership body shop.

 

69 hit most of it on the head. Take a look at your dealers lot, probably lots of 6cyl. rubber floored, stick shift 15k "work" trucks. That's what you bought with some SVT add on's. You get what you pay for in life and the "L" is still a pretty good deal. If you look hard enough at anything I bet you can find something wrong with it. Be happy and drive the **** out of it, when your done trade for a BMW or Benz.

 

Exactly alphadoggy. It's all in your perspective skydive69. I could look over your truck, or mine (which also has nice fit and finish within the context of what it is), or any Lightning sitting on a lot, and pick it apart from 20 feet out, no matter how well you think things are lining up. But the truck is good for what it is. Ford isn't "getting away with" anything on this, it delivers appropriate value, performance and fit/finish for the money. You can only get what you pay for. Nobody should have to "settle" for a truck that's bolted together all crooked, or has substandard paint. It doesn't cost more money to do those things right. That's not my point. What I'm really getting at is that there are many components of the Lightning that MUST be carried forward from the standard truck to control costs. The storage bin is cheap, the door panels are cheap, the A/C switches and entire dashboard is cheap. There's a WHOLE lot of cheap in a truck. They're cheap because normal truck buyers don't want to pay for Lexus or BMW quality, they just wan't a tough beat-on-it truck, with components that are sturdy, but cheap to replace if they happen to bust it. And that's where the money goes in building a truck. Toughness. It's SVT's challenge to try to transform this worker's conveyence into a refined and poised asphalt burner. They butter it up as best they can afford to with the leather seats, white guages and nifty wheels, but what you're really paying for is the cost of the go-fast hardware and engineering allocated across a small production run of vehicles. It's amazing that SVT even exists in these days of mass-production and mass-standardization of product to reduce costs. My truck is no pillar of craftsmanship, but do you see any Japanese or German competitors producing anything that matches the performance and utility of the Lightning for anywhere in the ballpark of its price? Not even close. I got what I payed for.

[This message has been edited by 69bossnine (edited 02-21-2001).]

 

Thank you. I read all your comments twice through and your points are well taken. If the "perfect" product could be manafactured by Ford I'd have to pay at least another ten grand. With that ten grand not spent but in my hands I can take the truck to any level I want.

Another helpful event was when I drove up to the Trabuco General Store this morning where I have coffee in the mornings with the locals. This is a happy but quick-to-be-cynical crowd who have a fair collection of metal amongst them. They loved the truck and congratulated me on my purchase. Then, as I drove off, I gave it a good go and the boys in the rear view mirror were jumping up and down...

I feel all better now!

 

That's great! I have a similar early morning coffee every a.m., and the waitress told me once that after I leave in the morning all the elderly gentlemen at this one table start rattling on about how they wish they could buy my truck! Of course, when I'm sitting right there in front of them, nothing's said.