F-150 Safety Story

I recently purchased a 2009 For F-150 and I am writing you this email to praise the safety features of that vehicle that saved my life. I was recently at the Texas State Fair and was looking at the new Ford vehicles because we will soon be in the market for my wife a new SUV, and I told one of the representatives my story. They told me that I should send the pictures in to someone at Ford. I did a google search for contact info at Ford, and I am taking a guess at your email address from your name.

On May 9th, I was driving on south Interstate 45 from Dallas to Houston at 5 in the morning. It was pitch black outside and as I came over a small hill in the road, there were 6 cattle standing across the freeway. I was traveling 65-70 miles an hour and I did not have time to react and swerve away from the cows. I hit and killed 3 of the cows. I don't remember much of the wreck, but I do remember that I walked away from it. Once the police arrived on the scene, the were sure that anyone in the vehicle was surely dead. As every new officer and helping passer by came upon us, I was asked if I had checked on the people in the vehicle. They were surprised every time that I told them that I was the only one in the vehicle. They would ask how I was even standing after the wreck. I firmly believe that God put me in an F-150 exactly one week before the accident for a reason. The truck was totaled, and looking at the damage, I can see how anyone would not believe that I walked away from the accident. I had a twisted vertebrae, dislocated ribs, a concussion, and some burns from the airbag. All of that is fixable, and the one thing that I also have is my life. If I would have been in my previous vehicle, they said I would have been decapitated. On my F-150, the hood rolled back over the windshield and shielded anything from coming through it. The frame kept the cockpit in tact and overall, this truck truly performed the safety features to the max. No-one ever thinks of hitting 3 900 lb cows when they think of auto accidents, but your engineers and designers have put features into this truck that will save hundreds of lives, and I am sure glad they saved mine. My wife were married in March and this accident happened only 2 months after our wedding. Now we are expecting our first child, and I will only trust Ford vehicles with my wife and family in the future. I have attached a picture of the truck and I will say, the sales staff was fantastic in assisting me with getting a new 2009 F-150.

Thank You So Much,
Joe Cross

Gentry Ford Fall Add

Here is our new add that is currently running. It is about Ford Trucks which include F-Series Pickups and Super Duty Pickups. Be sure to give us a call for all your Ford
Car and Truck needs at Gentry Ford, in Ontario, Oregon 97914. Phone 541-889-9694 or 1-800-767-4510

Pictures from Drive 4UR School event

Gentry Ford Lincoln-Mercury Sales would like to thank everyone that showed up for this Great Event that Ford Motor Company sponsored and a big thank you to our employees that help put on this event.

"Drive One 4 UR School" is a huge success!

Ford Motor Company and Gentry Ford, Lincoln-Mercuy Sales had a great success for the “Drive One 4 UR School,” campain for the Ontario High School District.

Drive One 4 UR School is a program that Ford Motor Company setup with Ontario Ford Dealer - Gentry Ford Sales - that Ford would donate up to $6000 for people to test drive a New Ford product. Ford Motor would pay $20 per test drive of a Ford, Mercury, or Lincoln Car or Truck. Gentry Ford would also donated anouther $500 if we made our objective of 300 test drives.

Good news is Ontario High School Disctrict will receive $6000 From Ford Motor Company and another $500 from Gentry Ford Sales for exceding our objectives. There was 306 people who took test drives in a Ford Motor Car or Truck. Gentry Ford had F-Series pickups, Focus, Fusion, Taurus, Mustan, Escape, Expediton, Edge, MKS, MKX, Milan, Mariner, and Mountaineer all available for test drives.

Accourding to Ken Hart of Gentry Ford Lincoln-Murcury Sales the program was a great sucess due to the students and the supporting commitnity. Mr. Hart also said there was a lot of good comments of the Ford Cars and Trucks. Ryan Gentry, President of Gentry Ford Lincoln-Mercury Sales said he was happy to donate $500 to Ontario High school and like to thank the Community.

Gentry Ford and Ford Motor help Local School

Helping a school
Car dealership, high school join forces under Ford program

By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Friday, August 28, 2009 12:03 PM PDT



Argus Observer Matt Lunstrum, sales manager at Gentry Ford, stands by a big banner announcing the ‘Drive One 4 UR School’ promotion, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Ontario High School. The OHS boosters will get $20 from Ford Motor Company for every person who test drives a new car during the event.



ONTARIO—In an effort to help fund high school activities, Gentry Ford, Ontario, is participating in a Ford Motor Company promotion to raise money by enticing people to test-drive new Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.

Called “Drive One 4 UR School,” the program links dealers with the local high school booster club in a campaign to raise up to $6,000. Gentry Ford staff will be at Ontario High School, in the parking lot next to the football field, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, with vehicles for people to test drive, Ken Hart, Gentry Ford chief financial officer, said.

For every test drive made, the dealer will give $20 from Ford Motor Company to the Ontario Sports Boosters to support activities at OHS. On top of that, Gentry Ford will give $500 to a specific program whose members get the most people to test drive a car, Hart said.

Members of the Ontario High School Future Farmers of America the and various sports teams will be out in force to encourage people to test drive a car.

“They will begin with about 20 new vehicles to the stadium,” Manny Alvarado, OHS athletic director, said, and to be eligible for a test drive a person must be 18 and have a valid drivers license.

Also going on Saturday at the high school is the fall sports scrimmages, along with a barbecue. Those events begin with the volleyball scrimmage at 3 p.m. in the gymnasium, and then the action will go out to the stadium where the girls soccer team will play at around 4 p.m., Alvarado said.

At 5:30 p.m., the football team will begin its scrimmage, break for the boys soccer team and the cross-country team action at 6:15 p.m., after which the football team will return and finish its game.

The cost of the barbecue, which starts at 5 p.m., is $5 for adults and $3 for school-age children.

“We’ve been planning this since April,” Alvarado said of the driving promotion.


“We hope to see people in Ontario come out and support the high school,” Hart said.

Larry Meyer is a reporter for the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at LarryM@argusobserver.com.

Proud to Have a Ford in my Driveway

by : Tim Deese

Our industry has always been a very interesting business since we are the mavericks and the last place that the customer can still actually be the boss. No matter how beat up they get at work, when they come to buy an automobile they know they can negotiate and have a say-so in the way they are going to spend their money. It’s interesting to watch all the changes that have taken place in our industry, especially with all the personalities.

In 2004, I decided that it was time to quit impressing myself with myself, and I traded my S500 for a brand new F150, 4WD Lariat, that I ordered equipped exactly the way I wanted it. The last time I had to get the John Deere tractor out to pull my Mercedes from a muddy field, I figured it was time to go ahead and forget about what I looked like and to be in something that could actually take care of what I was trying to accomplish. That was a Ford truck. I’ve been proud of that Ford truck since it came off the carrier because I ordered it just the way I wanted it.

In watching the ins and outs and the ups and downs of our industry with GM, Chrysler, and Ford, I can’t tell you how proud I am to see Ford stand on its own two feet and say, “We’ll work this out.” I also commend the men and women in the Ford dealerships who are on the blacktop, as salespeople, for hanging in there and staying during this last year when our market and the news has been absolutely terrible.

I remember vividly as a 29-year-old Dodge dealer in Auburn, Alabama when Iacocca had to apply for the loan guarantee and the salespeople that stayed with me through that whole time with the rash of hearing “you won’t make it.” Then Iacocca pays the money back; America applauds Chrysler, the minivan and the K car came out and those salespeople who hung in there had product that everyone in this country wanted. Their commissions went through the ceiling. We had Toyota and Honda salespeople applying for jobs. I was able to get out of both franchises without taking a hit or having to go bankrupt. It was a wonderful transition of going from worst to first almost overnight. At that time I started Progressive Basics.

This weekend my wife and I took the motor home to a beachfront campground in the very rural Atlantic coast of Florida, an unknown campground on the ocean where your motor home and the ocean’s high tide are less than 20 feet apart. I was with four or five guys who had been pulling fifth wheels (which I never understood when you could have a very comfortable motor home with slide outs); however, they still pull them. One gentlemen from St. Louis, who had retired from a chemical company, asked those of us in the group standing around drinking beers (except for me, I quit), “What are you guys pulling those trailers with?”

“Well I’m pulling mine with a Chevrolet,” “I’m pulling mine with a Nissan,” and so on, depending on the size of the trailer or the fifth wheel they were pulling, and when it got back to the St. Louis gentleman he said, “I pull mine with a Ford and I can tell you that I am damn glad to have a Ford in my driveway.” It all came together at that point because I chimed in with him and said, “I’m with you my friend,” and I think anybody right now that needs or wants a vehicle should stand up for Ford Motor Company. It doesn’t matter if it has a few problems; we’re not having to pay them to build cars. They’re standing on their own feet and getting it done.

You know and I know that it all starts from the sales floor up. It doesn’t start from the president of one of these manufacturers down; look at General Motors; they got all that money from the government and poured it all into the factory, that didn’t help them retail one more vehicle. They should have poured it into GMAC and allowed the dealers to put their sold out of trust units on notes or freed up that money to finance these 600 and up beacons, which are not that bad to begin with, and let the blacktop start the ball rolling again. That is where it’s all done.

And from an old Chrysler dealer in the Carter era, Ford Motor Company, I commend you with all my heart and soul, especially those men and women on the blacktop. I say this as proudly as I can, being a disabled Vietnam veteran, I am proud to have a Ford in my driveway.

Tim Deese is the CEO and founder of Progressive Basics, Inc. He is a former franchise car dealer who has designed and implemented used car training and marketing for 15 manufacturers in 28 countries. Progressive Basics has trained over 50,000 dealers and managers. He has been a speaker at numerous NADA conventions, and was one of the top rated speakers in 2001 and 2008 at the Australian Automobile Dealers Associations Convention. He spoke at FADA conventions in Quebec and Hong Kong, along with Ford and BMW of the Middle East. Tim Deese is also one of the key speakers at Fenabrave in Brazil 2009.

The New 2010 Ford Raptor

Recalibrating our brains for the most radical pickup truck ever.
BY MIKE SUTTON
August 2009


2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor - First Drive Review


With flamboyant, seven-foot-wide bodywork plastered with “digital mud,” an industry-first long-travel suspension, and a résumé that includes a third-in-class finish at the Baja 1000, Ford’s 2010 F-150 SVT Raptor is about as subtle as the feeling one gets sitting on a cactus. Naked. That a street-legal, 6000-pound pickup designed to traverse the open desert at 100 mph even made it past Dearborn’s Byzantine and conservative product-review board is a miracle in itself. But after a grueling and secretive development period—during which Ford’s marketing department was heard talking of driving the truck “right up Toyota’s ass”—it did. And we can confirm after some thrilling seat time near California’s Anza-Borrego Desert State Park that the Raptor is one of the most formidable off-road production vehicles ever built.

No Comparisons

Ever-greater performance vehicles come out all the time. And with each new iteration, we usually can sum up their placement on our automotive totem pole by referencing how much quicker they are than this, or how they grip the road better than that. But there are no formal benchmarks for the Raptor; this is way beyond Rovers, Hummers, and Unimogs.

A track widened seven inches over a normal F-150, with reinforced underpinnings suspended by unique front coil springs and rear leaf springs, are what give the Raptor its impressive front/rear suspension articulation of 11.2 and 12.1 inches, respectively. Cool details abound the chassis, too, particularly the “SVT” stampings on the aluminum control arms. But the magic lies in the massive, three-stage, internal-bypass shocks from Fox Racing. Commonly found in purpose-built racing trucks and pre-runners, these high-end units compress progressively, with a firm initial stage for good body control and softer second and third stages that allow maximum wheel travel at high speeds off road.

Specifications
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 2+2-door truck


BASE PRICE: $38,995


ENGINE TYPE: SOHC 24-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection


Displacement: 330 cu in, 5400cc
Power (SAE net): 310 bhp @ 5000 rpm
Torque (SAE net): 365 lb-ft @ 3500 rpm


TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic


DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 133.0 in Length: 220.9 in Width: 86.3 in Height: 78.4 in
Curb weight (C/D est): 6000 lb


PERFORMANCE (C/D EST):
Zero to 60 mph: 8.3 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 17.8 sec
Top Speed (governor limited): 100 mph

FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city/highway driving: 14/18 mpg

On the highway, the Raptor feels much like the softer-sprung, four-wheel-drive F-150 on which it’s based, with the shocks keeping the body from flopping about during transitions. Get the Raptor in its element, though, and it gobbles up rough terrain like a Ferrari tackling a chicane. Traversing a winding desert wash with large rocks, undulations, and two-foot-tall whoops, we frequently reached highway speeds with little drama. Ford’s more experienced pilots regularly hit the truck’s 100-mph speed governor over the same section. That the company’s own press photos show the truck launching all four wheels several feet in the air speak to what the Raptor was built for. We of course had to try, more than once, and almost succeeded—albeit by accident—in clearing a two-lane fire road at what felt like 50 mph. That landing was a little rough, but the truck rarely bottomed out during our drive and we never wished for a neck brace or kidney belt.

More Than Just Fancy Shocks

If the Raptor’s added width and trick dampers are its foundation, its myriad electronic and drivetrain upgrades make up the total package. At each corner are beefed-up disc brakes (13.8 inches in front, 13.7 in the rear) surrounded by 17-inch alloy wheels and SVT-specific, 35-inch BFGoodrich all-terrain tires. Differentials with 4.10:1 gears help turn the hefty rolling stock, and the rear axle sports an electronic locker that can spool both wheels together for maximum traction. Ford’s two-stage electronic-stability-control system also sports a special off-road mode that raises the threshold for yaw and anti-lock-brake intervention, sharpens throttle response, re-maps the six-speed automatic to hold gears longer, and allows the locking diff to stay activated up to the vehicle’s top speed. A new hill-descent-control system also is included and worked great to limit our speed while crawling down steep slopes lined with jagged rocks and deep holes.

All this hardware makes for very high handling limits off road, and we quickly learned that owners will need to build up the skill—and bravado—to make the most of it. Because of the inherent nature of the bypass shocks, the Raptor actually seemed to ride smoother the faster we hit obstacles; hold back or stab the brakes and the front end would compress violently over whoops. Even more exhilarating was the high-speed stability afforded by the wider track. With the off-road electronics, the wheels can be locked up initially for better braking on loose ground, while also permitting gratuitous, Scandinavian-flick rally turns at speeds that would send normal trucks into barrel rolls. A Land Rover-esque off-road-driving school might not be a bad idea here, Ford.

Still an F-150 Underneath

Yet, second only to its prowess off road, the Raptor’s most surprising attribute is that it performs much like a regular F-150 everywhere else. Sure, it’s a couple inches taller (which you notice behind the wheel) and nearly one foot wider (which you really don’t), but on the pavement it’s quiet, composed, and about as well behaved as one could expect from such a dirt-oriented setup. Braking performance felt respectable and the extra cushion in the suspension made for a compliant ride with less of the rear-axle hop common with unladen pickups. Road noise and tire roar also weren’t bad, owing mostly to the softer compound employed in the special BFG rubber.

Inside is a mostly standard F-150 cabin, which is a pretty pleasant place to start. Nicely bolstered sport seats kept us supported and comfortable, while the contoured steering wheel felt great when sending commands to the revised steering rack. Other touches include white-faced SVT gauges and new console-mounted controls for the off-road electronics and auxiliary power switches. Optional Molten Orange seat inserts and trim help brighten the mostly dark interior, but we could live without the center-console appliqué, which looks like a cheap sticker from the local auto parts store. Even without the huge F-O-R-D spelled out across the new grille, the Raptor is instantly recognizable as an F-150, albeit one with ultra-aggressive proportions and an imposing stance. And there are plenty of cool details here, too, including skid plates galore, functional heat extractors on the hood and fenders, beefy hydroformed bumpers, and LED marker lights in the grille and on the flared wheel arches. Available colors are limited to orange, black, blue, or white.


Wait for the Boss

Our only real complaint with the Raptor is the 310-hp, 5.4-liter V-8 that comes with the $38,995 base price. Feeling woefully over-taxed by the vehicle’s mass and large tires, it strains to move the truck up hills and out of corners with any verve. The six-speed automatic helps, and the issue isn’t as bad in the dirt, where the suspension allows you to build and keep momentum. But we frequently had the throttle mashed to the floor just to get moving at a normal pace. Fortunately, a new Boss 6.2-liter V-8 will be available early next year, packing around 400 hp and adding $3000 to the sticker. Other major options include a luxury package (power heated mirrors and front seats, dual-zone climate control, an upgraded stereo, and adjustable pedals), moonroof, navigation, and the aforementioned body graphics.

Although a fully loaded Raptor should top out near $50K, the package seems like a bargain, considering it is still drivable everyday, can tow 6000 pounds, and carries a factory warranty. And then there’s the off-road performance, which would require at least $20K in modifications on top of an F-150 FX4 ($36,065 base) to match. Ford says its Dearborn truck plant will be able to turn out up to 5000 or so Raptors annually and that there also will be plenty of performance accessories available in the near future. As it is, the Raptor is the most unique SVT-engineered vehicle next to the 550-hp Ford GT supercar, and that’s saying something. Maybe it’s time we define a new category of vehicle: the supertruck.

By Car & Driver