Stewy

Thanks, @firedawg ?

Hi everyone, name is Nathan (a.k.a. "Stewy") and I hail from just south of Flint, MI. I've been lurking around the board a bit and finally decided to join. In the stable I have a 2014 F-250 SD XLT which I've owned for a little over a year. This is my second Ford (first was a 2007 Focus which was my daily driver to work & back - a little over 100 miles a day). A little back story for those interested (otherwise feel free to skip - things will get a little long ?) - From July of 2008 through December of 2017 I had a 1996 Chevrolet Blazer 2-door 4WD. The Blazer wasn't my daily but was an old, reliable truck that had a little bit of hauling capability and the 4WD got me through the snow. On December 4, 2017 Another driver decided red lights really don't mean "stop" and totaled the Blazer (front passenger quarter panel impact, over $3k in repair estimate when I only paid $2k for it in 2008). A few weeks later I picked up the 2007 Focus as a "band-aid" car to get me back and forth to work while I took my time looking for a replacement truck. The Focus was my first Ford product and it was a great little car. Handled like crap in the snow (but what do you expect for such a light car?) but it was great for work commuting (pleased with the MPGs), easy to work on, A/C blew nice and cold, and just an all-around good car (I was even able to haul 8' 4x4's in it ?). It had the 2.0L I-4 and had over 168,000 miles on it when I bought it. I put a little over 20,000 miles on it by the time I sold it (shortly after buying the 250) to a friend (who also wanted it as a "band-aid" car) and last I knew it was still going. There were times when I would be headed home from work on the expressway, keeping up with traffic, and I look down at my speed and I would be doing 90! (again, keeping up with traffic). That little car could do the big nine-oh at that age / mileage without me having to push it in the least. ? Since 2008 I have been very anti-"blue square" (for many reasons) and that ruled out a GM truck. Besides, driving over a hour each way to work on the expressway gave me time to see other GM trucks on the road and seeing how they were rusting so much even when the truck was only a few years old left a very bad taste in my mouth (plus GM has had, historically, poor results with their cylinder deactivation systems, especially on the trucks). Ram trucks were out because with my experience working on the Ram line when I was at Chrysler gave me a view "into the kitchen," so to speak. When you see how your food is made / prepared, you may never want to eat at that restaurant again. The only real competitors for trucks were the F-series and the Tundras. Since I don't buy a truck every day, and since there had been many changes in my life since buying the Blazer (getting married, having two kids, seriously thinking about adding a camper to the fleet and so on), I wanted to upgrade in truck size (and power) to be more versatile with, well, life. That said, I was looking at a few F-150's but wanted as much towing / hauling power as I could get (for my budget) which meant, for a Ford truck, it would be the 6.2L / 250 (the Tundras couldn't compete on engine offerings from what I was seeing in my research). Originally, I was thinking of getting a 250 regular / standard cab however with, from time to time, carting around two adults and two kids I soon came to realize the need for a minimum of an extended / super cab. So, in April of 2019 I bought "B.T.", as we call her - short for "Big Truck". She's a 2014 F-250 XLT and had a little under 93,000 miles. She was (and still is) in great shape (for all of my vehicles, I'm an anal-retentive automotive detailer on the side) and I got the impression the previous owner (I'm the second) cared for the truck. When I bought her, she already had a tonneau cover, Huskey fitted floor mats (front & rear), very clean in and out (found what I think to be wax residue on the paint in the crevices so that tells me they likely waxed her), OEM running boards, spray-on bed liner and aftermarket grille inserts (I don't recall the brand right now). There were only two repairs that needed to be done when I purchased her - in the front & rear passenger seat bottoms there were one small tear in the fabric on each seat but my wife is great with the thread & needle so she easily fixed that (and we even found thread that matches the fabric color!). The other repair was, and I was not necessarily surprised about this, the spare tire winch was seized and needed to be replaced. Maintenance wise, she needed a set of new tires (I went with a set of Micheline Defenders), two side-marker (194) bulbs replaced, a new engine air filter, had the transmission fluid, engine coolant, brake fluid, t-case, and front & rear differential fluids serviced along with a set of new plugs and one new coil (it looked at little worn so since I was already in there, I just did it). There are only a few aftermarket things I've done to the truck - had the spray-in bedliner "refreshed" at my local bedliner place, had the truck undercoated to protect against salt / rust, added LED lights underneath both sides of the bedrails and wired in a weather-proof switch for those lights (love how they light up the bed at night - very useful when loading / unloading the bed in the dark!), added a quick-connect cable near the trailer hitch that runs up to the battery for convenient connections for the Battery Tender (since I don't drive her a lot, I still keep the battery topped off), added retractable anchors at the four corners of the bedrails (only had the plastic blanks / covers in corner holes originally) and added a little "bling" for the grille, tailgate and passenger side of the dash in the form of inlays for the "Super Duty" wording. The final thing I did was add a custom license plate to the front that says "Big Truck" and is a plate for Jefferson county, Kentucky (where the truck was born). I looked at a lot of 250's while truck searching - I was even considering a 250 Platinum but in the end, for my goals and expected use of the truck, the standard XLT fits great. While the truck doesn't have all the bells-and-whistles, I was able to get the features I was after - rear differential locker, 4wd, fog lamps, power sliding rear cab window, bed cover and trailer hitch. Funny thing is, when I walked up to the truck for the first time and opened the driver's door, I was (as counter-intuitive as it may be) pretty happy to see it had manual seats ? (the 250 Platinum I looked at had 10-way power seats but they were partially malfunctioning - a BIG $$ fix!). B.T. joins her fellow stable residents - "Rubi", a 2017 Toyota Sienna XLE (the "family hauler"), "T.C." ("Town Car"), a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu LS (the around-town driver / my wife's ride to the office), a 1980 Suzuki GS550-E motorcycle (for fun) and "Ren" ("Renovatio"), a 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix GT (show car). I have always bought used cars so I really don't pay a lot of attention to the color of the vehicle (unless it's a color that hurts to look at). That said, my wife loves it when the sun reflects off of B.T. and the multi-colored metallic flakes in the paint stand out. GM, for example, does the metallic flakes as well but not the multi-colored ones. Nice touch by Ford ?. So, without further delay, I would like to introduce "B.T." -