It was five years ago that Ford first brought up the concept of using Hydraulic Launch Assist (HLA) in some of the heavy duty trucks that they were looking to create. While we have seen some of those heavy duty trucks come to life we have yet to see Ford use HLA, until now.
The system uses a hydraulic pump/motor and high pressure accumulator to recapture kinetic energy when braking, which can then be released when the truck is accelerating to assist the engine. It’s a type of mild hybrid system really, though its effect is promised to be substantial.
The master cladders at Ford Motor Company have left almost everything to the imagination with the spy shots of the next-generation F-Series pickup that have been seen around town, which is expected to debut for the 2009 model year. But as the truck moves into final confirmation prototypes, a number of them were caught road testing, in three cab configurations. Spotted in Detroit have been standard short cab, extended cab, and four-door crew cab ’09 versions, suggesting Ford will be ready to rumble with a full lineup when the trucks launch next year.
The Ford F-150 comes in a broad range of models, yet they all seem to have nicely balanced suspensions that make them enjoyable to drive and well-designed, comfortable cabs. They offer a quiet and refined ride over dirt roads, rough pavement and freeway slabs. Yet they also offer controlled handling, with a minimum of body roll in corners.
Investigators installed damaged cruise control switches in Ford vehicles and then waited for them to cause a fire. The result was a phenomenon that has never seen before. Just two inches long, the Texas Instruments Model 9F924 speed control deactivation switch does not look like a device that could be deadly. But a sporadic malfunction in the switch that sparked engine fires stumped engineers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for two years.