A Ford F-250 Tremor parked off-road

Ford F-250 Tremor: I don’t get it…

Jeff Glucker

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Big trucks can be fun. Off-road-ready trucks are tons of fun. Combining those two ideas should work well, right? Two rights don’t keep the party rolling, it seems. At least not for the Ford F-250 Tremor.

This is a big-ass truck. The Ford F-250 is large and quite capable. Under the hood of my lovely red tester sits a 7.3-liter V8 dubbed Godzilla. It makes 430 horsepower and 475 lb-ft of torque, and it sounds good when you stretch the throttle pedal. It can haul, tow, shuttle, and sling plenty of weight around, and everyone in the cabin will be quite comfortable on the journey.

But this specific truck isn’t just a regular F-250. No, this one wears the nearly $4,000 extra bits that come with the Tremor package. We’re talking about underbody protection, side steps, burly wheels and tires, and different shocks. This is the “off-road” ready F-250. And that statement is stupid. If I’m going off-road, you know what I don’t want to be driving? A heavy-duty truck!

The Raptor is already amazing off-road, a large intimidating machine, and costs about the same as this Tremor. It can’t tow anywhere near as much, but I feel like the person who buys a Tremor doesn’t actually care about towing. This truck is for aesthetics. This truck is an odd flex. I do not get this truck, at all.

Especially not at its nearly $74,000 as-tested price. If you live somewhere this truck is useful and you use it as intended, by all means have fun spending your money on one. There are better options out there for off-road pickups. There are better options for towing. And if you really want an F-250 for towing and also an off-road tow, get a non-Tremor F-250, a trailer, and a Honda side-by-side.

About

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff

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7 responses to “Ford F-250 Tremor: I don’t get it…”

  1. SlowJoeCrow Avatar
    SlowJoeCrow

    That seems like either way too much truck for difficult trails, or nowhere near enough truck. If I’m going of road in a giant crew cab truck, I want a Tatra 813. Otherwise I want something Bronco sized

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Tatra_813_KOLOS_1.jpg

    Reply
  2. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    At an old job, we had a shop truck we paid next to nothing for. It was a F250 that had been used for deliveries out to remote unimproved locations. When we bought it, the truck had logged 250,000 miles in four years, doing “truck stuff” just like in the commercials. I think if the original owner was shopping for a truck today, this would be a good candidate.

    Reply
  3. Zentropy Avatar
    Zentropy

    I don’t think this should be compared to an F-150 Raptor because they really fill different niches, but if I were to do so, I’d go for the Tremor mainly because of real-world capabilities. I’d also choose a specifically-optioned V8 XLT 4×4 over a Raptor, because of the engine aesthetics and price.

    To be honest, I really think the Raptor is the “flex” purchase of the two. Yes, it’s amazing off-road, but beyond that it’s just testosterone filler. It’s the master of one trade, jack of none. I agree with GTXcellent on this one– the F-250 Tremor would suit my needs much more effectively. I don’t care for the blackout trim, but otherwise the truck is nicely specced.

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  4. Scoutdude Avatar
    Scoutdude

    If I’m going off road the last thing I want is a LD pickup. Give me the full floating rear axle and the straight front axle of the Super Duty over the semi-floating rear and IFS of the F-150. Otherwise give me a Scout or Bronco if size and/or weight is an issue. If I did a new F-250 the Tremor package would be the way to go, as it is a single box to check that gives me what I want.

    The skid plate, the scrapes on the bottom of the one on my current truck say it has been used.

    34-35″ tires and I’ve been in situations where a smaller tire wouldn’t have cut it and I’d prefer a mud terrain tire rather than the street/all terrain tires that are the usual 34-35″ factory tire. Note I’m not a fan of the black wheels, I’ll take my plastichrome laminated wheels over black any day of the week, but silver painted would be preferred and I’d probably repaint or at least plastidip any black painted aluminum wheel. Black accents can look good but all black does not.

    Beefy step bars, use them every time I get in the truck and again the scrapes on them say that standard running boards wouldn’t have held up.

    Electronic locking diff, don’t have that on my current truck but I sure wish I did as there are many times I would have pulled the dial before turning it to 4wd and I’d love it for use in 4wd too.

    7.3, not around when mine was made but It would be my engine of choice in the current line up.

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  5. GTXcellent Avatar
    GTXcellent

    It doesn’t have to be $74,000. The Tremor package is available with XLT trim, and a very nice truck can built for under $55k.
    I think it truly depends on where you live, because I’ve come really, really, really close to pulling the trigger on a F250 SuperCrew XLT Tremor. Sure, a lot of it is the aesthetics of bigger tires (funny, the exact same 285/75/18 tires I just put on my truck) and different rims. But, for $4000, you get the Godzilla motor, electronic locking rear, the big tires, different rims, off-road running boards, power seat and under seat storage (remember, those are options on XLT), as well as the skid plates and off-road shocks. Those are all options that I would add regardless.
    Granted, where I live, I’m not going on technical, tactical trail rides. We don’t have a Moab. But, I do have no-maintenance forest roads. And I have snow-covered frozen lakes. And spring-time is a snowy, muddy mess that lasts for a couple of months. And I pull an 18 foot trailer hauling a pair of UTVs, or a tractor, or a load of scrap metal, or a car.

    Reply
  6. Vairship Avatar
    Vairship

    At that point, just MAN up and go the whole hog: https://www.torsus.eu/

    Reply
    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      I guess this might actually have less of a blind spot up front…

      Reply