Geared up for the outdoors Ford’s F-250 gains practicality with Cabela package

2009 Ford F-250 FX4 Crew Cab Styleside Super Duty: $38,510

6.4-liter Power Stroke Diesel V-8: $6,895

TorqShift 5-speed Automatic Transmission: $1,490

LT275/65R20E OWL All-Terrain Tires: $1,720

Cabela’s Luxury Package: $5,390

10,000 lb GVWR Package: $185

Power Slide Moonroof: $995

Ford Work Solutions In-Dash Computer: $1,195

Tool Link: $1,120

Cable Lock: $120

Traction Control: $130

Transmission PTO: $250

Heavy-Duty Alternator: $75

Rear-View Camera: $470

Stowable Bed Extender: $250

Vehicle Price with Options: $58,795

Destination: $975

Total Vehicle Price: $59,770

New for 2009 is the Ford F-250 Cabela’s Edition FX4 crew cab. Ford has partnered with one of the best-known outdoor retailers on the planet, famous for huge stores that look like giant hunting lodges on the outside and natural-history museums inside. According to Ford research, 76 percent of F-Series buyers hunt and fish.

The available Cabela’s Package ($5,390) isn’t shy about appearances. It advertises the tie-up with big yellow Cabela’s logos on the cargo box, a two-tone paint job and bright-polished 20-inch aluminum wheels. The cursive name is stitched into its two-tone, brown-and-beige seats and embossed in the all-weather floormats and wheel center caps.

It also includes such bells and whistles as painted tubular side steps, a power-sliding rear window, dual-zone climate control, memory seats, adjustable pedals, back-up sensors and heated seats. Driving the Cabela’s F-250 in town is only a little less subtle than riding your Harley to work while wearing Blaze Orange.

More specific to outdoorsmen, however, are some key features that aren’t available from the factory in other Ford pickups. There’s lockable, padded storage hidden under the rear seats to store long arms or take-down rods, and a small locker in the front center console to safeguard valuables or a handgun. The built-in storage is especially welcome if you live in a state that requires firearms in motor vehicles to be secured when driving. We had no problem fitting a Ruger 10/22 in the box under the back seat, and a .40-caliber Walther PPS looked right at home in the front locker.

Work and play

All that might sound rewarding for use during off-hours, but how does the Cabela’s F-250 pay for itself? Here’s how: The truck can also be equipped with Ford Work Solutions and its in-dash computer (a $1,195 option).

Ford Work Solutions is a new suite of hardware components aimed at work-truck buyers. The in-dash computer is the heart of the system. It includes high-speed wireless Internet ($49.99/month, unlimited data or $25/month, limited to 25 MB) and a wireless keyboard; navigation; Tool Link (extra $1,120), which uses radio frequency tag readers in the truck to keep track of tools so they aren’t left behind at home or a job site; and a flexible, extendable cable lock (extra $120) that secures equipment left in the bed.

Tool Link and wireless Internet access are worth more than they cost. In the case of Tool Link, you use the touch-screen computer to create custom job listings, like “My Roofing Kit” or “My Drywall Supplies,” on the truck’s master job board. Tagged tools can then be assigned to one or more jobs.

When you start the truck up, two RFID readers mounted in the cargo box scan the bed for all your tagged items and tell you what’s present and what’s missing, based on those job lists. You can also run the scan manually at any time.

With Tool Link, if you’ve planned your work for the day ahead of time, you may never leave home or a work site again missing a critical piece of hardware. That saves you time, money replacing tools, and fuel running to the hardware store or back home.

Tool Link is very flexible about what a job can be. When we drove the Cabela’s truck, we decided to use Tool Link to tag our fishing equipment for a trip.

Each tag had a unique serial number that we wrote down on a piece of paper with the name of the gear it was attached to. Back in the cab, we manually scanned the cargo box for the new tags, which promptly appeared. It took another few minutes using the wireless keyboard to turn the serial numbers into plain English descriptions, like “Mike’s Fishing Rod,” and assign them to the “Fishing” job on the job board.

The only issue we ran into with Tool Link was the steel ammo box, which we tagged with an RFID sticker. The readers can’t pick up RFID tags that rest directly on metal.

Here, we should have used a zip-tied sticker.

Going online

The Cabela’s F-250 in-dash computer has an Opera Web browser built in. It looks and works just like Explorer or Firefox. We used it to check the news and Twitter. You could use it to access Web-based e-mail as well as fishing blogs and online fishing reports. The wireless keyboard was a bit troublesome to sync up with the computer, but once the Bluetooth connection was secure, it worked well.

The F-250’s in-dash computer also featured satellite navigation, but it wasn’t anywhere near as friendly or nice to look at as the navigation features added to Ford Sync in other vehicles. Both Ford Work Solutions and Sync provide near real-time fuel-pricing information.

Diesel power

The rest of the F-250 showed solid work-truck bones through all the fancy Cabela’s gear and gee-whiz electronics. Its 350-horsepower, 650 lbs.-ft. of torque, 6.4-liter V-8 Power Stroke diesel with a 5-speed automatic and integrated trailer brake controller mean this truck is made to pull a trailer or boat. The three-quarter-ton Super Duty had a 3.73 rear axle with a 12,500-pound max towing rating, but our boat was already at the lake, so we didn’t do any tow testing.

Like all modern diesels, the F-250 meets strict government regulations that dramatically limit sooty exhaust, so you won’t see black smoke coming from its tailpipe. In 276 miles of mostly unloaded highway driving — except for our fishing gear, supplies and four grown men — the truck averaged only 12.81 mpg.

The ride was excellent in most conditions, but the truck hopped noticeably in the driver’s hands over several rough patches of Michigan highway, particularly around one nasty freeway roundabout transition. The F-250 begged for a load to settle down and find its on-road sweet spot.

Our truck’s base price was $38,510 before adding almost $8,400 for the diesel powertrain and another $1,720 for its tires. With the Cabela’s Package and Ford Work Solutions, plus other optional items — like a rear backup camera and stowable bed extender — the total price of the truck was around $60,000.

Yep, that’s a major investment. As we’ve described, though, this is no longer just a work truck — it’s a life truck, especially for a hard-working family man who wants to make the most out of his rig. It’s built to be used and enjoyed, 24/7.