Ford Truck and SUV Questions, Answers and Comments

Rather than a full-blown Questions and Answers column this month, we're going to go with a simple case in point of what occured one day when a Duramax attacked. The driver sheepishly took his whooping and took to the back of the line.

This email comes from another wise Off-Road.com reader, Ford250PSD, who typed up the following message:

"A Power Stroke will out-pull a Duramax any day."

Case In Point: We were flat towing one of our Jeeps up the grade from Vegas to Cedar City, Utah for Off-Road.com's Annual Burgers and Brew party this weekend at the Goodyear/Skyjacker Extreme Rock Crawling Nationals.

We don't have any photos of the ordeal mentioned here in this story, but it is nevertheless true. The photos that follow is another CASE IN POINT. This Power Stroke here was on the I-95 pulling this loaded horse trailer, leading the way.

Loaded down with a massive Jeep equipped with 35s, enough soy burgers to make a China Man sick, brew for the thirsty rock crawlers and soda pop for the kiddies, loads of ice to keep the cold ones cold, char-broiling barbeques from being infected with disease, one burger-flipping spatula, a bottle of the Captain's finest, some cases of cheap un-Kosher hot dogs, three smack-talking ORC staffers sharing nOrm jokes and a tank full of 39 gallons of a buck-39 Flying J diesel, we were pulling the load up the final grade to Cedar City at about 90 miles per hour. The grade was steep.

The big bad Power Stroke snuck up on the vapor trail of a sports car with some cute little brunette Betty behind the wheel. Charged with the task of catching one last glimpse of the smiling beauty for the boyz riding shot gun, the PSD made its move and performed flawlessly.

Then, as we pulled back behind her in the slow lane, close enough to see the white of her green eyes, and got back to our BS-ing match, I looked up into my own rear view mirror and see this shiny new Chevy Duramax doing its best to keep up. In no time at all, it was creeping up along side of us. The almighty 5-speed Duramax was pulling a horse trailer lightly loaded with some clapped-out furniture that would have made no more than day's wage as lawn dressing for a garage sale at the Al Bundy estates.

Anyway, I turned to the clowns sitting beside me, who both were drooling over their own jokes, and say the famous last words that usually preclude a major disaster, "Watch This!"

Just behind the lead Ford on this shallow grade, pulling a similar and equally loaded 20-foot trailer, this Power Stroke is at home on cruise mode.

I adjusted my chin and stretched my neck forward.

The Duramax, with his Allison, then eases up alongside of our four-speed Power Stroke, and the driver just sits there with a sheepish "Maybe I should make nice with this Ford just in case my over-priced POS Chevy can't make the grade." Then, the Duramax driver turned to face the hill and seem to think: "Since I've got the run on this hill should I laugh and smirk like a jerk and make a run for the top and hope I can outrun these boys?"

Well, the Chevy dude jumped into door two with his eyes closed in fantasy land. It wasn't a pretty sight for a guy that had just laid down full price on a $45,000 rig that was about to get his ass passed.

As soon as he scooted by us with some traffic tucked in behind him, the race was on. We jumped out into the fast lane and laid into the throttle with our one-ton solid-axle monster. At 90 MPH, the waste gates began ripping its way toward the triple digits and the steepest portion of the grade was in sight.

Paul, the sales team, and general manager Eddie Perez dropped their jaws and buckled their belts.

In our own PSD, we had to slow down to snap this photo of this trailing Chevy, pulling a much smaller horse trailer.

"Hey, this thing can really move," Paul says. "Eddie, how's your Jeep doing back there?"

Responded Eddie, "It has no choice but to make the pass on that Chevy. This Ford is pulling it up this hill like a rag doll."

Before we knew it, we were flashing our headlights to make way for our progress. The Chevy man moved his ass out of the way and to our right to allow us by. He didn't budge his frozen eyes from the horizon. It was the look of disbelief. He stared through that Chevy windshield like he'd made a $45,000 mistake.

Impressed with the smooth ride of the stock suspension and the silence and never-ending pull of the oil burner beneath the hood, the ORC Staffers were shocked.

Paul chimed in, "Wow buddy, this thing's pretty quiet and very comfortable for a truck. Even my wife's company car isn't this slick."

CORRECTION: In the original version of this page, an inadvertent error was made, stating that the Chevrolet Duramax is outfitted with a seven-speed automatic transmission, when in fact it is outfitted with a five-speed automatic transmission. In addition, the Duramax was referenced in a photo caption. Obviously, the photo that accompanied this caption was a C-1500. As is stated elsewhere upon this page, the photos that accompany this article are not of the actual event depicted but add to the flavor of the story. FG