1997 Ford F150 Lariat from North America - Comments

All I can say is that when I bought the truck from a dealer lot, it needed some work. My first impression was good. They had rigged the truck to pass a test drive, but after purchasing the truck, I found a lot wrong with it. The front brakes were bad and needed a complete overhaul including rotors and bering's. I replaced the hardware and the truck stopped fine. Cost $275.00 my labor. Then the battery died, $75.00, then the check engine light came on, $235.00 my labor, light is still on. It needed two tires, that's normal. The paint is beautiful, the interior required a lot of deep cleaning, to the point I almost bought a new carpet for it. I continue to this day to use Oxy clean and a water vaccum to get the carpet clean. Possible flood victim? and one more thing, the windshield washer does not work. The pump is fine, but the washer doesn't spray. I had to have the windshield replaced, and have the rear sliding glass window resealed. $400.00 for both. They poured water into the cab real bad. Probably why the carpet is so trashed. The leather interior is in real nice shape, despite all of the other problems. I am treating the leather on a regular basis now.

I am happy with my truck. All though I had to put over a thousand dollars into her, after the $7000,00 purchase price, I have a screaming truck for $8,000,00 dollars. She fires up every morning, knock on wood, and has no problem going down the open road. I have installed a k&n Air filter and a flow master muffler and added cold air induction and she get 19 MPG on the highway with 148000 miles on it.

Hey I have the same year lariat and I have 186,000 on the OD still with the stock 4.6 auto, the truck is unbreakable!!

I also had a problem with no windshield washer fluid spraying out. To fix it, I rotated the end of the turn signal lever (as if you're changing wiper speed) while I was pushing in on the end of the turn signal lever to dispense the washer fluid. After doing this for about 30 seconds, the fluid started to flow as it should. Based on this result, I'm assuming that there was poor electrical contact. And my little method of fixing it must have cleaned off any corrosion inside the turn signal lever assembly.