2019 Ford F-250 Road Test and Review

2019 Ford F 250 Lariat red off road ・ Photo by Ford

The 2019 Ford F-250 Super Duty is a heavy-duty pickup truck with serious capability. It offers a choice of two powerful V8 engines to get you through the day whether you’re looking to carry a payload or haul a trailer. Bold styling makes no apologies and lets you know this is a truck ready to get some work done.

It balances that capability with a wide range of trims that take the F-250 from bare bones to luxury with pricing to match. There’s also a choice of regular, extended, or crew cabs and either rear-wheel or four-wheel drive configurations. Let’s take a closer look at the Ford F-250 Super Duty and see if its something-for-everyone approach works for you.

Six trims offer a wide range of amenities.

There’s a choice of six available trims starting with the base XL at a price of $33,150, which is your bare-bones work truck. Next up is the XLT at $37,365 with still modest features, followed by the Lariat at $46,140, which boasts a more well-equipped interior. From here on up, the luxury features keep coming and the price starts to seriously climb. The King Ranch is $56,910 while the Platinum comes in at $63,335. Sitting at the very top of the lineup is the Limited, which will set you back $80,240.

That’s a nearly $50,000 spread across the trim range, which shows just how much these trucks change throughout the lineup. It’s less about capability and more about features with better safety and technology, and more interior amenities as you reach those top trims. The days of a work truck being minimalist and uncomfortable are long gone.

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Comfortable and Roomy Interior

There was a time when work trucks weren’t much to talk about when it came to interiors. They were for work, after all, not for lounging. These days, you can still get that truck, but you can also get one that has the capability and practicality of a work truck with the plush interior of a luxury car. The base Ford F-250 Super Duty is minimalist as its price suggests. Once you reach the mid-range Lariat, which is what we tested, things change.

There are leather-trimmed front seats with 10-way power adjustability, a B&O premium sound system, SYNC 3 infotainment, and dual-zone automatic climate control. Additional features as you move up the range include heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, and upgraded leather surfaces. It’s a comfortable and spacious interior with plenty of room for passengers whether it’s a road trip or the trek to the job site.

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Cab and Bed Configurations to Fit Your Needs

Trucks are known for being available in an endless number of configurations, and the F-250 is no exception. First, there’s the option for rear-wheel or four-wheel drive. Next, choose your cab size. The regular cab seats three while the extended cab and crew cab both seat six passengers, with the crew cab offering the roomiest passenger experience. The variety of cab sizes lets you get only room for three if that’s what you need, or something spacious enough for the family to get comfortable in on the weekend.

Finally, there’s the cargo box, which is available in either 6.75-foot or 8.0-foot lengths. That’s a lot of choice, and it makes it easy to find exactly the right F-250 for your plans. You don’t end up getting more truck than you need and instead get just as much truck as you want.

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The fully featured infotainment system is hampered by a small screen.

Infotainment includes SYNC Basic as an available feature on the XL or standard on the XLT. The Lariat offers standard SYNC 3 with optional navigation. It’s a far better choice and one worth paying the extra for on the base trims. It includes an 8-inch color touchscreen, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and two USB ports. FordPass Connect 4G Wi-Fi connectivity is also standard, which lets you connect up to 10 devices as well as giving you the ability to remotely lock, unlock, and start your truck. A premium B&O audio system is also included with the Lariat trim.

It’s a fully featured system with key connectivity features and well-designed menus that are intuitive and easy to learn, but the screen size is small. A larger screen helps reduce distraction by making it easier to find what you’re looking for quickly. Especially in a vehicle this size, the screen is underwhelming.

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It has the capability to tow with the technology to make it easy.

If you’re buying a Ford F-250 Super Duty, then there’s a decent chance you’ll be towing a trailer and that it’s a large part of why you’re going with such a capable truck in the first place. Depending on the configuration you choose, the F-250 can easily meet your towing needs. Standard towing is up to 21,000 pounds. Equipped with a fifth wheel, the F-250 can handle 27,500 pounds, or with a gooseneck all the way to 35,000 pounds.

Making towing easier is a range of available trailering technologies, including trailer reverse guidance. This uses cameras in the sideview mirrors along with visual guidelines displayed on the center screen to make lining up with the hitch easy. There’s also a tire-pressure monitoring system that includes the trailer tires, so you know longer need to manually check them for proper inflation.

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Ample Room for Cargo in the Bed

It’s not solely about the F-250’s towing capacity. This truck can also manage an impressive maximum payload of 7,630 pounds and comes with available features that make loading and unloading cargo easier. There’s a tailgate step that unfolds at the press of a button with a handle to make getting up and down safer. LED lamps in the bed let you see when the workday lasts past sundown, and available box side steps let you reach over the sides of the bed rather than having to flip the tailgate to get at cargo.

There’s remote locking and unlocking with tailgate release that slowly lowers the tailgate using nothing more than the key fob — an especially nice feature for those on the small side who may find the tailgate heavy. If you plan on carrying a payload, the Ford F-250 makes the job a simple one.

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Choose between two robust powertrains.

There is a choice of two powertrains, starting with the base 6.2-liter V8 with 385 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque. There’s also the option for a 6.7-liter V8 turbodiesel with 450 horsepower and an impressive 935 lb-ft of torque. Both are paired to a six-speed automatic transmission.

While either engine is more than capable, those who plan on doing frequent towing of heavy loads will appreciate the extra torque offered by the diesel. It also makes short work of highway merges and high-speed passing is not a challenge. Although you know it’s a diesel, gone are the days when these were truly noisy engines. You hear it standing outside and you hear it sitting inside, but it’s more a reminder of this truck’s power than an annoyance.

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There's incomplete crash test data, but a wide range of available safety features.

Crash test ratings are incomplete on the Ford F-250, with nothing from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and full results only for the crew cab from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In that limited testing, the rear-wheel drive model received an overall five-star rating, but the four-wheel drive model came in with four stars. The difference comes from its rollover rating, which is four stars on rear-wheel drive models and three stars on four-wheel drive models.

Stepping away from crash-test data, the Ford F-250 has an array of standard and available safety features. Available features include a lane-keeping alert, a rearview camera with a high-mounted stop light, blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control with a collision warning and brake support, reverse sensing, adaptive steering, and a trailer tow camera system. The features are there, the drawback is that many are available only as an option — adding to the bottom line.

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Final Thoughts

The 2019 Ford F-250 Super Duty offers a capable and well-equipped choice for those in need of a heavy-duty truck. It comes in a wide range of trims with varying levels of features that can make it feel like a traditional work truck or a luxury car. Options like rear-wheel or four-wheel drive along with multiple cab and cargo bed choices add to its versatility.

Finally, there’s its impressive capability. You buy a truck in this class for towing and hauling and the F-250 does not disappoint, especially with the available diesel engine and its abundance of torque. The biggest obstacle to the F-250 is price, which starts off manageable but quickly climbs, especially with options. Overall, however, the F-250 is a solid choice for those shopping heavy-duty trucks.

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