the Ford f-150 is the best-selling vehicle period sells better than any
cars and a trucks mini vans SUVs you name it and it's
pretty good but for 2018 it's even good or with five things that stand out that
will keep the f-150 relevant for a few more years you may not notice the front
styling changes at first but take a second look and you'll notice much finer
details in the grille it has a classier appearance than the old one and this
isn't even the top trim level we're here with the platinum and then there's one
more more expensive limited on top of that the grille is a lot cleaner and
then the headlight has a little extra pizzazz in it there's a little more
Sparkle than the old one and the fog light housing is also changed it now
goes like this instead of that so from this to that this to that our
platinum f150 test truck has the 5.0 liter v8 and this were 2017 I'd probably
be a little disappointed that we weren't testing the EcoBoost 3.5 liter because
well the 5.0 has just been a little disappointing in the f-150 up until now
that is because there's more power and there's something else up its sleeve
under the hood though there's 10 more horsepower and 30 more pounds feet of
torque this new engine has the traditional port style injection system
and then there's also direct injection added for 2018
the real trick though comes when this engine is paired with the all-new 10
speed automatic transmission 10 is a big number of gears the transmission readout
on the instrument cluster looks more like it belongs in an elevator than a
vehicle but that 10 speed does wonders especially for the 5.0 liter with the
6-speed automatic the 5.0 liter just took way too long to get in its happy
place took a long time for those revs to build and it was kind of pokey off the
line and now with the 10 speed the overall experience with the
speed is this is a much snappier truck it's more responsive it's more fun to
drive and you feel like there's a lot more guts underneath the accelerator
pedal it feels quicker but also fuel economy is bumped the comparable
Platinum 5.0 liter that we're testing has two miles per gallon better for 2018
than it did in 2017 and when you're only talking 1819 miles per gallon that's a
pretty substantial increase not a whole lot has changed on the inside of 2018
but there are a few noticeable enhancements one is this new color
that's unique to the Platinum model and two is the new standard stereo on the
Platinum it's a Bang & Olufsen stereo that replaces the former Sony premium
stereo now trucks aren't really known for their thing and sound systems there
aren't a lot out there that stand out but this one to my taste does two thumbs
up very nice another new feature for 2018 is forward collision warning with
automatic emergency braking this is an advanced safety feature that you just
don't see on trucks yet it's prevalent on cars SUVs but it's just not in the
truck space Ford says it's the first and in class to have the feature and what
it's going to do is it uses camera and radar to detect a vehicle or a
pedestrian and if it detects a collision it's automatically going to brake for
you the sensitivity is adjustable in the settings which is a nice addition that
not all systems give you part of this system is adaptive cruise control a
separate feature that uses similar hardware as the Ford collision but it's
going to give you the ability to set the cruise control and it's going to follow
the car ahead of you again this is not new technology but it is new to trucks
and something that makes the 2018 f-150 unique in the space
my biggest takeaway for the 2018 f150 is just how much richer of an experience
that 5-litre is with the new power torque and most importantly the 10 speed
automatic transmission fires are gonna have a harder time deciding between
upgrading to the Eco booster sticking with the five liter that's standard on
this platinum trim level and this platinum trim level is $63,000 $63,000
is of course a lot of money to ask for a truck but this platinum even with the 5
liter v8 feels like luxury truck and it's even
more justified with that price with what's change for 2018
you