The drive-mode button is a huge design fail.

[WillieFlo]

I hit the damn thing by accident sometimes and it freaking annoys me they don't have a "CANCEL" button. It would also be nice to have a tactile "divot" or "bump" to not take your eye off the road and feel the button pads. I end up hitting the "Mute" button sometimes instead of the "Steering" button by mistake as well, without looking down.

 

[melvimbe]

me too...but mostly annoyed that it won’t remain in 4A when I go from normal to sport....yet if I had it in normal mode w/ 4A engaged, shut the truck off & get back in the next day, it’ll stay in 4A while defaulting to “normal” drive mode

however if I shut it off when in sport mode w/ 4A selected, the 4A remains engaged but it still defaults back to normal....makes no F’n sense!?!? Why does it retain the 4A function but not the drive mode!?!

Is it possible for the truck to revert back to 2WD on start up like that? I assumed it didn't do that partially because it's a mechanical process that needs the engine running to switch, while the drive mode is primarily software. The other reason is that 4WD is an available feature on all F150s while the drive mode is not, or at least wasn't in 2017. It made sense that the 2 related features were not as connected as they should be since they were not both available on all vehicles.

But none of that matters to driver.

This is a definite development opportunity for Ford, one that I’m pretty sure they missed this time around.

Yea, they could a lot of improvement here. Step 1 would be to allow defaulting to Normal, Sport, or last drive mode. Step 2 would be to the default mode in into the seat memory or the key used, bluetooth pairing, etc... so that you can have different defaults for different drivers. Step 3 would be allow the user to set some sort of conditional rules for default, based on GPS location, time of day. etc. Step 4 would be to automatically switch drive modes while driving, based on GPS locations on the Map, the weather report, etc. How awesome would it be if you were able to mark the typical places you go offroad, and have the truck know to switch modes because it knows it's at your usual trail?

Of course this could apply to other settings as well, such as the steering wheel settings, exhaust modes, etc.

 

[GordoJay]

Speaking of defaults, is there a way to have the audio default to a phone? If I drive it without my phone it turns on the radio. Then it stays there until I manually change it. Annoying. I did a little hunting through the menu system and it wasn't obvious to me.

 

[Sonicsunspot]

Agree with pretty much all the comments above.

I might just add... you know we have pretty badass trux when we bitch about things like "all the above".

 

[melvimbe]

How cool would it be if they allowed you to set the common items people change through forscan? Seriously, it would be a big selling point (to me anyway) to be able to 'dial it in' with these sort of changes easily.

 

[jabroni619]

I thought it was just me. I put it in 4L on the freeway once by accident. About the time I saw what I had done, it blinked out and said "Shift in progress". I was going highway speed and it thankfully didn't shift. I'm swerving all over trying to change it before it exploded. Of course it was brand new. Now that I know where the button is and how it works, I'm fine with it. My wife? As long as she doesn't touch the steering wheel, she'll be fine.

4L isn't shift on the fly. You can be going fast, slow or stopped, it wouldn't have shifted to the low range unless you were in P or N

 

[Mike O]

A bit off topic, but still regarding driving modes, I am slightly bugged that Dodge is using the term "baja mode". WTF??? I guess "high speed off-road mode" is asking a bit much of them.

 

[GordoJay]

A bit off topic, but still regarding driving modes, I am slightly bugged that Dodge is using the term "baja mode". WTF??? I guess "high speed off-road mode" is asking a bit much of them.

Why? They copied everything they could. It’s a compliment. I can’t wait until they run it at Baja.

 

[Mike O]

Ha! That would be fun to see.

 

[smurfslayer]

4L isn't shift on the fly. You can be going fast, slow or stopped, it wouldn't have shifted to the low range unless you were in P or N

True in the Raptor.
but the old school, lever engagement models could be shifted to 4 low on the fly. The manual warned you not to do it, but one of my delinquent friends did it to me in an S10 4x4 back like ... 1988 or so. We weren’t going fast, maybe... 25-30 but Holy cr@p it felt like we literally dropped anchor. I thought for sure that was the last shift that transfer case would ever do, but the truck was ok.

Back to the topic; I know Ford took a lot of OE stuff from the F series trucks and tried to implement a clean adaptation. I think they were successful at this. I don’t use the steering wheel buttons for phone use and I haven’t had issues with poor ergonomics. I’d like the modes to be customizable or at least let us hold the last mode. It’s still the best truck going.