What makes an F-150 look tiny and consumes diesel at roughly the same rate as a small navy? Welcome to the world of the full-size, heavy-duty, diesel pickup truck, in this case Ford’s top-of-the-line F-250 Platinum.
I’ll skip the whining about parking and driving something this big, because this isn’t what you buy when you want a truck-shaped car: It’s what you buy when you need to do real truck stuff–or if you feel something lacking in your life.
Either way, you’re not going to be cross-shopping fuel economy or turning radius (none and none, thanks for asking). Instead, you’re going to be asking, “Can this do the job?”
In my case, the job was towing a race car around the country, and I logged tens of thousands of miles behind the wheel of a 2001 Ford F-250 before downsizing to a newer F-150. Our associate publisher still tows with a 6.0 Ford, and Super Duty trucks are a fixture in every paddock. I was eager to see how far these trucks have come in 25 years, so I grabbed the keys and spent a weekend using the F-250 as a support vehicle for our annual Amelia Island Kickoff.
I really thought this truck would ride like a Cadillac and steer like a Miata, but it just doesn’t. Instead, it rides like a dump truck and steers like a container ship.
I know physics are physics, and you can’t tow 20,000 pounds with a chassis optimized for ride quality when empty, but I figured there had to have been some progress over the decades.
Turns out that progress is all in the powertrain, as the "high-output” 6.7 diesel makes 500 horsepower and a whopping 1200 lb.-ft. of torque. And it’s paired with a nearly perfect 10-speed automatic that keeps it humming right along in between the occasional random downshift.
The diesel is an $11,495 option, and the “high-output” tune adds $2000 and 25 horsepower to that, but it means this truck is legitimately quick. It also means it’s a blast to drift around a parking lot with the rear locker engaged. Heavy-duty pickup powertrains have come a long, long way since the ‘90s.
But the interior and ergonomics are where you can really see the relentless progress of pickup truck natural selection in the United States. All of it is, frankly, perfect. From the flat rear floor with the seats folded up to the infotainment system to the cameras to the seating position to the switchgear, the F-250 feels like it has sucked up not just a small navy’s worth of diesel but a small navy’s worth of R&D time and money, and that’s because it has.
I’ve said before that pickup trucks are the most optimized vehicles on the market in this country, and I think this truck proves my point. The Platinum trim ads a big, thick layer of luxury on top of those perfect ergonomics, slathering the truck in speakers, motors and “Smoked Truffle Leather.”
So it’s time to talk about another way it’s optimized: Ford’s not running a charity, and this truck has been optimized to put as much money into the company’s coffers as possible. Total MSRP: $108,945.
That gets you massaging seats (hey, they are nice), but it also shows just how expensive new trucks have gotten. Skip the Platinum package and all its fancy goodies, and the least expensive crew cab 4x4 XLT trim with the normal-output diesel is still north of $70,000. That number only goes up once you add the stuff you’re going to want if you’re buying a new truck, like the tailgate step, 360° cameras or a bedliner.
So, can it do the job? After forklifting plenty of pallets of stuff in and out of the bed and logging a few hundred miles, I’ll say that the answer is obviously yes. But at one point I found myself standing on its $780 retractable bed step, slamming the $1280 tonneau cover closed on a bed full of trash, and wondering how much more expensive trucks can get–or who is actually buying them. If I could afford to daily drive a Platinum, I’d probably instead buy a Ranger or a Maverick, then hire somebody else to do the heavy lifting for me.
But this review isn’t about any theoretical business model. This review is about a truck, and the F-250 is one of the nicest ones I’ve ever driven. Now, if I could just get Ford to finance it for 30 years so I could afford one …
I almost lost my morning tea over this quote.
I really thought this truck would ride like a Cadillac and steer like a Miata, but it just doesn’t. Instead, it rides like a dump truck and steers like a container ship.
Since the vehicle is Huge with the capital H, that makes sense.
I got to drive this truck a couple hundred miles as well, and I was blown away by the luxury. I own a 2006 Nissan Titan, so that was really my only bar of comparison. The F-250 is far comfier, faster, and more useful; but for the price I could buy more than 25 Nissan Titans (based on the $500 I bought it for and the $3000+ that I have put into it).
I own a 2021 F-250 Platinum, and IMHO "rides like a dump truck" isn't really accurate. It's certainly no luxury cruiser, but the ride is a lot more comfortable than the GMT800 2500HD Silverados that I owned before the Ford.
In 1995 I bought a Volvo WIA64T to haul freight. That truck dragged 80,000 pounds over two mountain passes in BC (highway thru hell plus one more if you know the show) 5 nights a week for the 4 years I had it. It had a 315 hp cat engine with 850 pounds of torque. I did 110 kmh other than the hills and it got 8.5 mpg. Pickup trucks today are overbuilt not because they need to be, but because people seem ever willing to pay for far more truck than they need. But I lurk on a couple class A RV sites and I see people complaining that their 45,000 pound RV slows down on hills and is there something wrong with the motor, and I realize that the horsepower race will continue until hills are completely flattened or consumers finally run out of money.
When pick ups started hitting 50-60K I thought the prices were insane (I am cheap)
If you did a lot of driving I could see justifying one of these.
On a whim I ran the numbers; and you're looking at $1500 to $1600 a month.
This makes me feel pretty good about keeping the old duallie on the road. It’s been paid for for a long, long time. And it doesn’t ride like a Cadillac or steer like a Miata either. 
Well... if you want the F350 dually version, it'll run about $116,000.
I suppose what gets me most about buying a truck like this is when would I ever be comfortable using it as a... truck... you know - doing truck-stuff with it? I'd honestly be sweating bullets watching a forklift driver load pallets into the bed.
Tom1200 said:When pick ups started hitting 50-60K I thought the prices were insane (I am cheap)
I’m sure we’re quickly going to be mentioning these $125,000 trucks people are driving…..
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:I suppose what gets me most about buying a truck like this is when would I ever be comfortable using it as a... truck... you know - doing truck-stuff with it? I'd honestly be sweating bullets watching a forklift driver load pallets into the bed.
The "truck stuff" that a Platinum trim level truck does is towing. RV trailers, boats, and race car trailers aren't going to scratch the paint much, and those are the owners who are hauling stuff long distance and want the luxury features.
The F-250s that regularly see forklifts loading pallets into the bed are lower trim levels, likely with the 7.3 "Godzilla" motor in them instead of the diesel, and start at less than half the price of a fully loaded Platinum.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:The "truck stuff" that a Platinum trim level truck does is towing. RV trailers, boats, and race car trailers aren't going to scratch the paint much, and those are the owners who are hauling stuff long distance and want the luxury features.
The F-250s that regularly see forklifts loading pallets into the bed are lower trim levels, likely with the 7.3 "Godzilla" motor in them instead of the diesel, and start at less than half the price of a fully loaded Platinum.
I think this is a great point.
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