Ford's Ups F-350 Torque Output Mid-Year; Trounces Chevy, Dodge
The heavy duty pickup market is a numbers game. Nullifying the airy-fairy ideals of driving dynamics and subjective measures like handling accuracy and prowess, they’re bought as any other tool is bought: to do a job. And the tool that is most capable of doing the job is the one most people buy.
So, after Chevy trounced Ford with their latest Silverado 3500’s torque output, Ford’s Duramax engineers opted to fire back with a mid-year update to the powerplant’s computer programming. Dialing the peak torque output up from 635 foot pounds to an astonishing 800 foot pounds, all F-350’s currently on the production line with benefit from this update. Interestingly, that’s not the only mid-year update the engineers did, though. Adding more material to the framerails, all F-350s from now on boast a fifth-wheel towing capacity of 22,600 pounds… an increase of 1,000 pounds over previously manufactured models.
All owners that bought their F-350 prior to these updates have until August 31st, 2011 to take their F-350 to the dealership, where the application ECU reflash will be performed at no cost. Sadly, nothing will be done to strengthen the existing trucks’ framerails, though.
