2005 Ford F150 XLT SuperCab Flareside review from North America

The tires had "flat" spots from sitting on the lot, making the truck drive a little roughly. The dealer told us to drive it for a week to see if they would smooth out. They did not smooth out and the dealer upgraded the tires without hesitation.

The black paint has started to flake off of the "F-150" emblems on the front fenders.

Other than these two little issues, the truck has been excellent.

We purchased this truck when Ford was offering the employee pricing deals, so we snagged it for about $8,000 less than its list price. Since the price was decent, we opted for the 100,000 mile warranty as we tend to keep cars for at least 5 years.

The truck has the smaller V8, but we find it to be very responsive for daily driving. The fuel economy was about 19 MPG at first, then it jumped to 21 when the engine was "broken in." This is so much better than our old Suburban that only managed 12 MPG on a good day, albeit not as good as the Jaguar's 24 MPG. We sold the Suburban and the Jag to make room for the F-150. It is cheaper to run the one vehicle opposed to the two, of course.

The interior of this truck is finished well. The panels fit together perfectly, although some of the plastic is a little hard and might scratch easily. The fabric seats look and feel expensive and are very comfortable for traveling. I was relieved to see that Ford bothered to design a classy-looking steering wheel and dashboard instead of those plastic shell dashboards that plagued previous Ford trucks. Overall, the interior is very inviting.

The step-side bed has proven to be very useful considering the depth and height of the bed. The back of the truck also has a much sportier look to it with the wraparound taillights. This is also the only F-150 with this body style and color combination (White w/Sand bottom) that I have seen locally, making ours very distinctive among the others around that all have standard fleet-side beds.

Although the truck is too huge for me to drive comfortably every day (parking it can be a chore), it is good for my Dad's commute. It tows our medium-sized Hi-Lo camper quite nicely while getting about 16 MPG opposed to the Suburban's 10-11 while towing. This truck is much more practical than both of the Suburbans that we had before it. It is also much quieter which is always a welcome feature in any truck, as many of them are made to be obnoxious with loud exhaust systems and more wasteful with their over-sized tires.