lee

so my friend is considering an F-150... im trying to steer him to a tundra!

anyway, the f-150 looks like this:



its a 2000 Ford F150 Extended Cab with V8 engine. interesting part is that it was converted to Natural Gas, but works on both.

so what do you think of the nat. gas conversion? will that be a problem? how is maintenance?

thanks!

tulsa_97SR5

Don't know anything about the nat. gas conversion, but you can send him to this site
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr.../tsbsearch.cfm

so that he can read about the 179 TSB's for the 2000 f150 vs 50 for the Tundra.

lee

nice. great argument..

i really would like some info on this natural gas conversion thing, though, mainly out of curiosity. if anyone has anything, thatd be great.

SLC Punk

A lady at my work has a Chev Lumina that has the natural gas conversion. She said that it runs better on the natural gas and is almost $1 cheaper a gal.

lee

where do you fill it up?

SLC Punk

She said that there are a couple of gas stations that have natural gas pumps. Her car has a hose that comes out of the grill, she hooks it up to that and fills it up like a gas car.

PoBoy

You can fill up at your house...takes like an hour to fill up though.

a good quick read: http://www.whynot.net/view_idea.php?id=928

According to this...it's only 21 cents cheaper gallon for gallon: http://www.pge.com/about_us/environm..._gas_vehicles/

Flamedx4

When I lived in British Columbia there were a lot of conversions - it was very popular. Doesn't seem to be any durability issues, some of the people I talked to swore by it and had really high mileage trucks, often towing big trailers and such. That's all I know though.

BT17R

So, was it a former fleet vehicle? If so, I put them in the same category as former rental cars = undisclosed/unknown problems that will surface sooner rather than later.

lee

im not sure on the vehicles history, but i asked that same question (if its a fleet vehicle). hes going to find out more today and get back to me.

he lives in vancouver, and i guess as flamed said, its pretty popular in BC. hes just unsure as to whether its opening a bad can of worms.

thanks for the links, poboy, ill pass them on.

Flamedx4

Down here, with used vehicles being so plentiful and resale values so low is so different from BC where everything is so expensive (including the ICBC robbery...er insurance racket.) I'm with BT17R, it would have to be one sweet price deal to make me buy any fleet vehicle or rental return... That being said, he should be able to buy that F150 for half the price of a 2000 Tundra. (Is it 4wd? Doesn't look like it in the pic) *Heresy alert!!* I love my 98 F150 5.4L and have never regretted buying it.

Mudfreak

Id say stick with the ford, but Im bias. But what worries me only slightly is the conversion.


Indeed this will be a nice debate, cause if I could get either a new Ford or Toyota truck....Id have a hard time choosing. both are built solid.

Thank god I dont have to choose and I have one of each!

mike_d

it may be cheaper per gallon, but the energy density of cng is much less than gasoline. you really need to look at dollars per mile rather than dollers per gallon.