SVT lightning

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lol you don't want to use it for towing...a buddy of mine has a lightning and it is wicked. all he has done is a programmer and a pulley and he is putting down 450/600...for gas mileage when he is WOT, he probably gets 8mpg...so probably low teens when taking it easy. But if you are going to use it to tow, the mpg will be in the single digits
 
My dads 01 L (basically stock) gets darn good milage. But he never tows anything with it. He gets around 18MPG just joyriding with the occasional blip of the throttle. He absolutly LOVES the truck....and so do I :D
 
I owned one for a short period of time and I did LOVE the truck. It was fast and got tons of attention. BUT it got crappy gas mileage, 13 in town playing around once in awhile and got 16-17 when I drove it home from Dearborn MI to IN, and insurance was expensive on it. As far as towing with it what do you plan on towing. When I crashed my car I used it to trailor my car home and to a few shops and it didn't like it very much. It was just a crappy little open trailor and with my car on it, it sucked and gas mileage was like 5mpg no joke. LOL
 
The Lightning will have no problem towing a car. But it won't get any mileage like said above. I had a 95 Lightning and it towed really well and I know the newer Lightnings are better trucks and have alot more power.
 
The Lightning will have no problem towing a car. But it won't get any mileage like said above. I had a 95 Lightning and it towed really well and I know the newer Lightnings are better trucks and have alot more power.

Actually the older Lightnings tow way better. Like I said the 99-04s can tow a car but they don't like it and I would not reccomend using one to tow your car alot with. I did it maybe 3-4 times and thats it and I really didn't like doing that. Now my friend has a 93 that he tows his 98 Cobra (semi-drag car) to the track with all the time and says it does a great job.
 
So why wouldn't you recommened towing with the 99-04s. It is a TRUCK.

So is a Ram SRT10 but you can't even tow with that at all. LOL Like I said you CAN tow with a L its that they just dont like it. The truck really struggles towing a car, hell the guy can tow with his Mustang for all I care (though I dont reccomend it. LOL) Im just tellling him my experience with towing with mine.

You have to realise the L was still not made for towing wether its a truck or not, its a performance vehicle.
 
It is geared low. It has 450lb feet of torque and it has a truck suspension or a 1/2 ton suspension. And it also has the good transmission. So if I had one I would use it to tow and it would still be faster than alot of mustangs. So why not have one. It is a multipurpose vehicle. It has good low end torque and that is what a good towing vehicle needs.
 
but it at the same time is not intended for that purpose. a buddy of mine used his 99 lightning to tow another vehicle after it had wrecked and it didn't do good at all towing...it had trouble towing another vehicle that weighed 3300 lbs. no point in using a "performance" truck for towing...it's doing the lightning injustice...lightnings were made for one reason. to be fast....not to tow other fast vehicles around
 
I am sorry. I have never owned a new Lightning and have never tried to tow with a new Lightning. But what kind of trouble did your buddy have with towing another vehicle? It has the recipe for a good towing vehicle. I am just wanting to know what problems he had with it just in case I buy one someday?
 
I can't add to the debate of if the Lightning can tow well or not but there is no reason for it to. It's a performance truck that really isn't built for it.

If you want to tow things, buy a normal truck and save your money.
 
I can't add to the debate of if the Lightning can tow well or not but there is no reason for it to. It's a performance truck that really isn't built for it.

If you want to tow things, buy a normal truck and save your money.

Ya i get what you are saying about it being a performance truck, its not really one to me if i leave it stock maybe add a exhaust intake thats it. I want it for a DD and sometimes tow my car to the track. Not going to haul a Camper or giant horse trailer. But if the cars capable of towing 5000-6000 pounds without breaking or driving terrible i would like to have it. Hopefully it tows around 10-12 MPG on highway. And if someone with a lightning cries about it not being designed for it they can sue me :shrug:

I have heard alot of guys tow there mustangs with the lightning just got to find someone with EXP with it
 
The Lightning has the same tow/haul ratings as a 4.6 2wd F-150 (at least thats what the service department told me when I worked at a Ford dealership)
I am trying to find the article but there was a test of one vs. a SRT-10 and I remember this one line about how the SVT killed a whole tank of gas in 16 min on the race track.........Yikes!!!!, they must have HUGE injectors:shrug: