New England B.S. Thread

I use it on the highway, but I drive slooooow so I usually hit it to 67 and sit in the right lane with everyone blowing by, usually don't have anyone to "adapt" to in the front . So, for a truck, I am second guessing the need a bit. But, I don't have a highway commute at the moment, if that changes, we'll see. I have a 10 minute B road commute to the office every day. I sometimes have to use regular CC at 30 because the speed limit is too low for the road and that's the only way I'll maintain a semblence of not being pulled over I don't have blind spot, rear cross etc. Just the adaptive cruise and I assume E brake. And lane keep warnings but I have that turned off.

 

Sure seems like my old 2002 Quad cab Ram 2500 turned a smaller circle than my 2019 DCSB Tacoma too.

 

At first I had a problem with the turning radius with my dclb taco, then I came to accept that it was actually easier to "back" into parking spaces. Offroad it hasn't bothered me much and there was only a couple of times when it was a small hassle. One time I had to do a 10 point turn around on a trail due to a closed gate and another time I needed a spotter to make sure that the side of my truck was going to fit in between 2 trees while turning. Other than that, I will never go back to a short bed. The usefulness of a 6 foot bed is above and beyond the crap I dealt with regarding the frustration with a short bed.

 

I won't give up a 6 ft bed either. I'll probably sell or trade this truck within the next year and asked a friend with a 2010 F-150 if he'd be interested--he always talks about getting one around the age of mine. He told me he won't go without a full crew cab. I can't comprehend it--he's a single guy who uses his truck exclusively for truck things and has a Forester that he uses for anything else. Wouldn't you prefer the longer bed and still very useful cab over a short bed and giant cab when you never have passengers and are almost exclusively towing and hauling?

 

Yeah, if I was single, I would be driving in a regular cab if I could. Obviously, with the 3rd Gen Taco that is not an option unless you do some serious mods. But if I was looking for a full size truck I would definitely look at regular cab with an 8' bed.

 

The Ford SuperCab (extended cab) is perfect for me. It is nice to be able to have someone sit in the back in a pinch, or for groceries. Overall, the back seat room is pretty similar to a Tacoma Double Cab. I still get a 6-1/2 ft bed without having an excessively long truck.

On the Tacoma, I sort of wanted an access cab. Only reason I went with a DCLB is because the rear seats were not useful for an adult for even a 5-minute trip.

 

I'd prefer a regular cab/8 foot bed for my truck, honestly. The problem is that when you find an HD regular cab these days they're base-base-base models. And if you special order one with some bells & whistles, the price ends up being so close to a larger cab model that's on the lot that you might as well upgrade for the extra lockable, weatherproof storage space. I'm strongly considering an F250/F350 for my next truck, because of the Supercab option, but even those aren't that common for the equipment levels that I want.

 

I like the real back doors and my 6.5' bed. Perfect combo for my purposes.

 

Even a decently optioned 302a XLT SuperCab is a little tough to find compared to the crew cabs. Most SuperCabs around here are STXs or lower. I search for 502a Lariats occasionally and there are almost none of those in SuperCabs.

 

Yeah, the combination I'd want is really rare to find in a Supercab. 6.2l, XLT premium pkg, with upfitter switches, plow/camper prep, split front bench (instead of the console) and bed lights. Impossible to find in a regular cab, nearly impossible in a Supercab.

 

This guy gets it!

Honestly, the one option that made the STX package a non-starter for me was the keypad entry. I use it a lot and you can't get it on an STX. I'm on my 3rd relatively stripped down XLT now. There are a few options that would be nice to have, but I'm sort of liking the more basic truck.

 

Keypad is a must; super useful when hiking or hunting. I miss it on my current truck.

 

I use it a lot too--didn't think I would, but now that I have it I think it's great. I don't think the STX has height-adjustable seats, which would bug me. I'd also miss my heated seats, remote start, bed lights, and power inverter.

 

Jeez, my XLT doesn't have most of that stuff either. I don't have heated or height adjustable seats, no bed lights, no power inverter. I had height adjustable seats on my '13 F-150 but neither or my 250s have had it. I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. I've never had heated seats, once I finally have a vehicle with it, I doubt I'll ever give it up. I would really like a heated steering wheel and cooled seats. I added remote start to all 3 of my Fords so far, it's been quick and inexpensive to do after the fact. I wouldn't mind some bed lights and have tossed around the idea of adding the Recon lights in the stock location but, for the price, I'll likely just add rope lights under the bed rail.

 

My next truck will not be a V6 DC SB Tacoma, for sure. Potentially hybrid sticking with the Tacoma, if not then I'd go full size. I like it, but a 6+ ft bed would be nice, and having room with that to at least have people in the back seat. The F150 extended cab has that space, the back seats in the tacoma crew cab aren't really worth having over the 1ft of bed space. But, the extended cab tacoma wouldn't fit a dog crate behind the seat which I'm working on that setup.

 

For Fords, factory bed lighting is an easy add-on. I think I spent $170 on the kit and put it in myself in like 30 minutes. Then I had to go to the dealer and get them to 'activate' it in the computer, but I MAY have pretended like they were there all along and had suddenly stopped working, so they didn't charge me for it

 

Have you seen Forscan? That was a factor when I bought the tacoma, you can go in and program a ton of stuff, like your startup screen, stupid door chimes, seatbelt alarms, headlight configs, etc. Some people have dropped adaptive cruise into the XLT trim for about $1k, so I considered that. Ultimately decided not to do that, if I ever got in an accident, I'd be blamed almost guaranteed for some rinky dink shenanigans setup - so I went factory. Unfortunately for the F150 it only comes in the top trims, and I don't care for all the other shenanigans that come with it like sunroof leather heated wheels etc.

 

The Recon kit is about $150 but would require some wiring (which I'm ok with). I wanted to avoid the dealership trip, even though I know I can just use Forscan. I still need to download that program to correct my tire size at some point.

ForScan is awesome, but you really have to be careful with it. You can do a lot of damage in hurry. Some guys figured out how to basically write a custom tune in so, if you plug it in, you'll never know it was a tuned vehicle. I read the write up on the adaptive cruise control, really cool but it was a really damn involved installation and calibration. It was awesome that they added it relatively inexpensively, but it took a lot of work to get that system up and running!

 

There are a few more options I could have. I am missing FX4, Sunroof (which went away on SuperCabs for 2019), nav (I just use Android auto), mirror spotlights, blind spot monitoring, and the bigger fuel tank.

I wish I could have gotten some things on the Lariat, like the better sound and the wiper deicers.

 

There is one setting somewhere that the forums have outlined with "Don't change this setting unless you never want your interior lights to work again".

I tried adding average speed to the cluster once and it wasn't happy--lost the ability to use drive modes, the dimming controls kept popping up, etc. Changed the setting back and it was still not working right. I let the truck sit for a few minutes and it was okay. I'm told all I had to do is reinitialize the cluster and that would have fixed it and worked, but I'm afraid to try that one again.