2018 Ford F-150 Lariat FX4 Long-Term Update 3: Riders on the Storm

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Lately I haven’t had much quality time together with our F-150, largely because I had been outside of this country for a couple weeks attending a friend’s wedding and talking dreadful Spanish in Mexico. I might have been on holiday, but the F-150 was hard at work. Keep reading to see our truck played when attributes editor Scott Evans employed it to rescue stranded relatives during a snow storm over Thanksgiving break. –Erick Ayapana

My spouse ’s extended family lives in the little mountain city of Quincy, California, approximately an hour and a half northwest of Reno. The main road into town has been shut from the dreadful Camp Fire down the mountain, leaving the rear way from the east or a number of narrow country roads as the sole ways in. Coming from Los Angeles, we went the back way as it’s just marginally longer and more reliable. Coming in the Bay Area in a Tesla Model 3, my in-laws decided to roll the dice to the far more lead back roads over the long way around on highways.

Normally, this Model 3 has no problem using the hills or the space, however arctic temperatures tanked battery efficacy and turned rain at Quincy to snow in the street across the mountain.

We have the collect call just before 9 p.m. Thanksgiving Eve. The in-laws were an hour late getting into some brother-in-law’so house, we presumed due to rain and traffic. It had been worse than that. They have been calling from a payphone in miniature La Porte, California, 30 miles away with no mobile service and also a Tesla battery at 22 percent and falling. Adding insult to injury, bicycle chains and “slippery” style weren’t enough to overcome the unplowed street about the Model 3’s regular summer tires.

We snapped shovels, saws, blankets, water, food, and a classic set of chains out of Grandpa’s F-250 to the long term F-150 and mounted a rescue mission. Rain and heavy fog intended slow moving about the narrow, winding street with no guardrails. Halfway into La Porte, we discovered the snow. Speed dropped from 45 mph as slow as 20 mph, but we got through with the F-150’s 4×4 system switched to four high and its own drive style set into Snow, which significantly helped the transmission and throttle calibration.



Together with the in-laws as much luggage as we could fit in the cabwe put back out over the mountain. Snow had begun to fall heavily again, filling my paths from the manner over and reducing visibility to 100 feet or less. We crawled halfway back to Quincy at 15 mph before we got it through. Even the F-150’s Michelin Primacy XC all-seasons are a far cry from summer vacations, but their mud and snow evaluation proved itself and saved me having to string up.

We walked in the door just after midnight, over three weeks to move less than 70 miles roundtrip, but we left it.

Read about our 2018 Ford F-150 Lariat:

Arrival
Update 1: Time to Work
Update 2: Hold the Doors




























The article 2018 Ford F-150 Lariat FX4 Long-Term Update 3: Riders in the Storm appeared first on Motortrend.

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