Key Points in This Review
- Ford’s largest, longest consumer-oriented heavy-duty pickup truck is remarkably capable.
- The Platinum Plus version of the Super Duty F-350 is impressively luxurious.
- The Super Duty F-350 dually is not meant for casual use, but a vehicle that can tow 38,000 pounds has never been more usable.
My weekend with the Ford Super Duty F-350 was a solution akin to employing an anvil as a paperweight. The problem was comically mundane: five folks set for a weekend of hiking and leisure in Joshua Tree, Calif., and hey, wouldn’t it be great if there was something big for us to ride around in?
Big? I’m hearing big big. Like, laughably big. You got it! Here’s the Ford Super Duty F-350, perfect for simple commutes around California’s most hippy-dippy desert city. (I drove a 2025 model-year F-350 for this review, but changes for 2026 are modest.)
Related: Diverse Haul: 2026 Ford F-Series Super Duty Brings More Choices to Buyers
When they requested “something big,” I’m sure my buds pictured a Chevrolet Tahoe or Nissan Armada, not a heavy-duty dually pickup truck with an 8-foot bed. One of them specifically mentioned a Range Rover — you know, something nice. I may have overshot the dimensional mark, but Ford put serious effort into the Super Duty’s ritzy, line-topping Platinum Plus version, whose trim and tinsel weren’t too far off what you’d encounter in a mid-grade Lincoln.
Is the Ford F-350 Platinum Plus Luxurious?
- Takeaway: It’s as nice as a mid-grade Lincoln.
Cowboy Cadillacs — maybe Bozeman Bentleys? — don’t get much better than this. The Platinum’s genuine quilted leather seats are as cushy as they are expansive, and they’re also fitted with heating, ventilation and a massage function. Everything’s power-operated, the wood applique is real, and as many surfaces as is reasonable in a luxe heavy-duty truck are soft-touch, including a faux-suede headliner and leather trim that extends to the doors and grab handles. This is all impressive accoutrement to the standard “nice truck” kit, which includes power running boards, a power tailgate and a number of household outlets sprinkled around the cabin.
Hey, if I had 10,000 pounds of thoroughbred racehorse to tow between my coastal ranches, I’d want my ass massaged, too. That said, 10,000 pounds is just over a quarter of the max towing capacity of a properly equipped F-350; with dual rear wheels and a high-output diesel 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8, this truck’s capacity tops out at a stunning 38,000 pounds with a gooseneck trailer, 28,000 pounds with a standard hitch. If you restrict your hauling to whatever can fit in the truck, payload capacity for the four-wheel-drive crew-cab variant of this configuration is an impressive 5,850 pounds.
So, uh, enough for a few bags and a cab full of people. And by “a few bags,” I mean just my bags, as last-minute schedule shifts meant the three-part party drove up from Los Angeles separately. I did pack an extra duffel for hiking boots and soon-to-be-stinky activewear, but I only hucked maybe 80 pounds into the bed. I therefore employed a gigasaurus to do the job of a Honda CR-V, pointing a locomotive with 1,200 pounds-feet of torque between an Airbnb, the local organic cafe, a group sound bath and a number of trailheads in Joshua Tree National Park.
Is the Ford F-350 Good for Five People?
- Takeaway: Sure, provided you pick the larger crew-cab version.
Obviously, passenger space was not a problem — even when sitting three abreast in the backseat — nor were the F-350’s excellent and notably upscale appointments. None of my friends had any real complaints, other than a few comments about the jouncing ride. Once I explained this was a feature of the heavy-duty truck species due to towing requirements, not a bug, they found it more of a novelty than an annoyance.
For the most part, at least. After that (quite relaxing) sound bath at the fabulously named Integratron, we diverted into the desert to check out a natural landmark. A maintained dirt road was the only means of access, but it quickly became apparent that it could be managed by just about any SUV on the market, let alone a beefy pickup.
If the F-350’s 9.8 inches of ground clearance had me extremely confident, its 4×4 configuration and optional FX4 off-road package only swelled my delusions of invincibility. The $600 FX4 package adds off-road-tuned shocks, hill descent control, and a set of beefy skid plates for the transfer case and fuel tank — hardly a match for a Bronco Raptor, but severe overkill for a (mostly) flat, sandy road. I settled into a nice, 50 mph cruise through the gently undulating dust track, lazily slaloming to avoid football-sized rocks and jutting debris.
Then we hit the desert whoops. None of the wheels ever left the ground, but a rear-seat passenger recounted that she left the seat for a good second before crashing back into the quilted leather bench, a trajectory matched by our phones, keys, water bottles, sunglasses, sunscreen and lip balm. After violently seesawing over a few moguls, I cut our speed down for a comfortable oscillation. No harm, no foul; the truck remained amused and unbruised.
After establishing that the FX4 package is more for ranch utility than Baja blasting, our destination crept into view. It’s known as the Giant Rock, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s exactly what it sounds like: About 20 miles outside of Yucca Valley, a tremendous granite boulder looms over its patch of the Mojave. It’s the largest freestanding boulder in North America and is purported to be the largest in the world, covering some 5,800 square feet of ground and reaching 70 feet tall at its highest point.
How Big Is the Ford F-350 Super Duty?
- Takeaway: Big. With its 8-foot bed, the truck stretches a mighty 22 feet long.
A most fitting venue for the F-350. There’s always a larger truck, but only a handful out-big this 22-foot monster. It’s colossal, and it drives like it, too. I’m accustomed to driving light-duty trucks — F-150s, Chevrolet Silverado 1500s — and while it takes only a moderate spatial warmup period to acclimate to the larger heavy duties, the dually element was a new frontier for me. A night of immediate bumper-to-bumper traffic between L.A. and Joshua Tree was my baptism by fire, and it wasn’t what I’d call fun. Compared with the single-rear-wheel F-350, the dually adds a whopping 16 inches to the rear width for a total of 96 inches; it feels very much like it’s pushing against a standard highway lane’s painted lines.
The first two hours of my drive had my eyes glued to the large tow-ready side mirrors, ensuring those box fenders weren’t dragging an errant Mazda Miata that got sucked into my wash. The second half of the journey found me fretfully occupied by the very real possibility that this truck wouldn’t fit through the Airbnb’s front gate, having remembered the stone walls I’d had to squeeze through when I last arrived in a Subaru Crosstrek.
Much to my extreme relief, the dually fit — barely. It necessitated blocking the somewhat trafficked road for a direct, head-on approach, keeping my or my passenger’s head out the window to eyeball the 2-inch gap between stone and fender. Amusing to my friends, but personally terrifying considering this rig’s $111,000 as-tested price.
How Does the Ford F-350 Dually Drive?
- Takeaway: It’s quicker and more comfortable than you might expect.
Big, big, big — but you wouldn’t know it by the way it hard-charges down a desert highway. The high-output turbo-diesel 6.7-liter V-8 has 500 horsepower and 1,200 pounds-feet of torque on tap, enough to overwhelm those quad rear wheels during a 0-60 mph lunge that feels somewhere in the low-six-second range. That’s quite a freight train, and it makes lurching ahead from a stoplight all that much more satisfying.
Four-figure torque is addictive. I couldn’t stay out of the rumble pedal, so it’s a darn good thing this truck came equipped with a 48-gallon fuel tank, which provides a roughly 850-mile cruising range, depending on use. Over roughly a thousand miles logged between Los Angeles, Joshua Tree, Las Vegas and back to L.A., the F-350 managed a quite impressive 16.4 mpg. Not bad at all.
The Ford Super Duty F-350 Platinum dually is a super-truck. As a machine, it’s no less impressive than a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1; it can tow up to 38,000 pounds, matches some hot hatches between lights and plows through desert two-tracks, all while offering reasonable fuel economy and massaging your rump. Not once did I tap into even 5% of its capability, but the fact that I so thoroughly enjoyed my time with this truck shows that it has to be one of the very best all-around giga-tow rigs a rancher, contractor or insecure city slicker could hope for.
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