Is an Electric Pickup Truck A Terrible Idea? (My 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Build Thread)

I haven't been home much for the past month, but now I'm back and that means it's time to pile more miles onto the F-150. 

First, though, I need to complete the 30,000 mile service (current mileage is 30,761). This is just an inspection and a tire rotation, so I decided to do it at home. I was pleasantly surprised by the service at my local dealer, but doing this at home is free and it's the same amount of time as driving to and from the dealership.

As usual, the truck is perfectly healthy. The only thing that caught my eye was the left rear shock, which seems a little moist. The internet seems to think all OEM Ford truck shocks are all prone to leaking, and claims Ford won't warranty them until they get pretty bad. Still, I'll email my service advisor and ask if this would qualify for warranty replacement. 

The truck's tires are finally showing some wear, too--the front and rear centers are at 6/32 and 7/32 respectively, but the front shoulders are nearly bald, likely because I've spent thousands of miles in this truck driving twisty mountain roads chasing modern Porsches. Every Classic Motorsports Road Tour is basically a week-long grinding session for the front shoulders. I'll try upping the tire pressures and see what happens. Time for more front camber, maybe? 

I haven't started researching replacement tires yet, but shockingly my first instinct is to put the exact same thing on it again. These are quiet, comfortable, efficient, sticky enough, and tow well. And as hard as I drive and as often as I tow, I'm not that unhappy with this rate of wear, either.

In reply to Tom Suddard :

For an ICE F-150 tire wear comparison, I'm getting ~45k of perfectly even wear out of each set on my '21 F-150. I'm maybe halfway through second replacement set of tires. We've stuck with factory Pirellis, but mechanic at work said he'll probably put Toyo's on when I wear these out.

I've chased exactly zero Porsches through the twisties, but it has included a fair amount of towing a variety of loads.

On my 22 I got 79,000 out of the factory pirellis; I switched them for the Goodyears that I got 80k out of three times on my 18 but immediately lost 2mpg. I'll go back to the Pirellis next time

In reply to Tom Suddard :

I'm taking my Lightning up to the Glen next weekend!   There appear to be very little in the way of chargers up there, though our hotel in Owego shows it has 12!  None of the apps show chargers in/around the Glen, if you used any during your time there please advise.  Thanks!

I plugged into the level 2 at the park by the marina downtown, since it was next to our lunch stop. Otherwise, I just used the level 3 near our hotel in Ithaca. 

Well this is an interesting way to let people know who is supposed to use this charger. 

I'm sad to share that my 2023 Lightning, with a whopping 1800 miles, suffered what I believe is a catastrophic failure right after leaving the house for Watkins Glen last weekend.  Shortly after leaving I got the dreaded "powertrain malfunction, service soon" light.  I returned home with no issues thankfully.

Monday I went to drive it to the dealer when I got many more warnings including "steering system fault" followed by "charging system fault:  service now".  It literally died on the (busy) road in front of the dealership.  I barely managed to glide into their lot.

I don't have high hopes.

In reply to Loweguy5 :

That blows. It's also why I feel reluctant to buy an EV. Lease for a few years under warranty? Yes. Buy - not so much. 

Whelp, the Lightning had its first bit of expensive maintenance--up until now it's just been wiper blades and one cabin air filter, but I've known a tire purchase was coming for a while now. I'm up in Kentucky running one of our sports car tours, and was pushing the truck pretty hard going through the mountains of Georgia on the way up here. Hard enough, apparently, to flat-spot the inner shoulder of one tire down to the cords. Oops! The truck currently has 33,052 miles on it, and to be fair the rest of the tire's circumference has tread, but is at the end of its life. I don't remember when/how I flat-spotted this, but I must have drug a wheel along at some point to create a 2-3/32 depression.

I've mentioned in the past that I've been seeing accelerated shoulder wear on both the inners and outers of all four tires, which is apparently common on these trucks with the OEM General Grabber HTS60s, but 1000 miles from home with cords showing isn't really ideal. I checked the alignment and didn't see anything crazy (1/8" of total toe in in the rear across these huge tires and 1 degree of negative camber is fine), so I'm going with "it's a ridiculously heavy truck with way too much power being driven aggressively." I'm also going to bump the inflation pressures up in the future, in hopes of more even wear. (From 42 to 47 psi to experiment). 

So, what tires did I install? Since I needed tires instantly, I picked the most appropriate thing the local store had in stock, which happened to already be on my short-list: Michelin's Defender LTX M/S2. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/michelin-defender-ltx-m-s2

The truck's size is 275/60 R20 116H XL, if you're curious. The XL means "extra load," which I believe comes from the "Max Tow" option on this truck's window sticker. 

In theory, these should be an upgrade from the Generals, with longer tread life and a better ride. After a hundred miles today, I'm quite pleased--quieter and seemingly more confident handling, with no observed impact on range. I've talked to tire engineers about this sort of thing before, and sadly street tires are really an area where money = performance. Basically, bigger, richer companies can throw more resources, more testing, more experimenting, and more refining at every step of the tire design process, and it results in tires with better performance and fewer compromises. I've written before about the fact that I get A LOT of tires for free from big and small companies. But I paid full retail price for these and am still happy with the decision. 

So let's talk about the bad part: I spent $1194 plus $71 of sales tax for four tires, mounting and balancing, and disposal fees. Yeah, this isn't an old truck on 15" wheels. Hopefully these last more than 33,000 miles, but today my wallet learned the downside of driving a 6800 lb. truck that runs 12-second quarter miles.