1993 Ford F-250 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

This truck is great if you want to spend most of your time off-road in the woods or through pastures. Not the greatest choice for a daily driver unless you like paying for lots of fuel. The truck is a bit dated but if you take at least basic care of it you will never have to worry much about things breaking or wearing out faster than the parts are suppose to.Dec 09, 2014

Back in 2000, I was on the job again for a German automotive publication specializing in 4x4s and took the opportunity to test drive a real pickup truck. By that, I mean a light truck designed not for city dwellers trying to fake an air of rugged outdoorsmanship, but for real working people who need a utility vehicle that can take anything and then ask for more. Such a vehicle was my test car, a 1993 Ford F-250 HD 4x4 Styleside SuperCab with a 7.3-liter V8 diesel engine and five-speed manual transmission. As you know, "HD" stands for "Heavy Duty" and that describes the big Ford pretty neatly. Everything about it virtually oozed toughness and durability, from the massive bumpers to the no-nonsense interior, the tall, broad-shouldered stance of the F-250, and even the deep-throated sound of the un-turbocharged diesel engine. My, this truck was big. More than 230 inches of length, 79+ inches of width (without mirrors), and a maximum weight of 8,800 pounds. Can you imagine some big-city lawyer or stockbroker driving around in a truck like this? I sure can't. It wasn't just the sheer size of the F-250 that would have alienated your typical macho wannabe, but its lack of amenities such buyers take for granted, like power windows, vanity mirrors, hi-fi stereo and an automatic transmission, of course. Other than power steering - a necessity in a vehicle like this - there was no concession to comfort in the Ford. Having said that, getting inside and sitting behind the steering wheel was no chore at all. Any 6'4" guy like myself would have found the F-250 quite accommodating. The seats provided ample support, the controls were intuitive and easy to handle. The rear bench seat was cramped, of course, but since this was the Extended Cab version (or SuperCab in Ford's contemporary lingo), it wasn't meant to be more than an emergency seat, anyway. Having been raised on a steady diet of US cars with gasoline engines and automatic transmissions, I approached the diesel-powered, manually-shifted Ford with a certain reserve. My skepticism proved to be unfounded, however. The massive 7.3-liter V8 fired up unhesitatingly and ran surprisingly smoothly and quietly from then on. Not what one would expect from a truck with a diesel. The V8 put out 180 horsepower at 3,300 rpm and needed a good, strong push on the gas pedal to get moving, but once the F-250 was underway, a feeling of limitless torque and power set in, as if one could pull tree stumps out of the ground. I didn' t try that out, but entertaining the idea was plenty of fun. I was wrong about the 5-speed manual, too. It worked like a charm. Shifting gears up or down was easy and precise, and depressing the clutch pedal wasn't nearly as strenuous as I thought. Piece of cake. The F-250's engine/transmission combo permitted amazing flexibility. One could drive as slowly as 30 mph in fourth gear and then just step on the gas pedal without downshifting and pick up speed within seconds, much to the surprise of quite a few motorists on the German country roads and highways I drove the big Ford on. Loved it. A road test in Germany is incomplete without a stretch on the autobahn. Here, the F-250 turned up the volume, namely wind noise generated by the boxy shape and height of the Ford, easily drowning out engine noise from the diesel V8. Top speed was 90 mph, not bad for a truck. On the autobahn, particularly, the F-250 made it absolutely clear that it was not designed to be driven fast. Its stiff truck suspension with leaf springs front and rear made the Ford jittery whenever some kind of undulation was encountered, aggravated by the fact that the pickup bed was empty. A few hundred pounds of load would have smoothed the ride a bit, I'm sure. Anyway, the F-250 made no bones about being a truck, not an SUV. It was a completely unpretentious, honest and straightforward vehicle designed and built for hard work. Being a suburbanite, I sure had no use for such an automobile, but the Ford's competence and toughness genuinely impressed me.Jun 16, 2014