Substandard tarping and the loaner truck

I ran out of time today and the probability of me getting the metal up before I leave this weekend for Krass' has now hit 0, so I went up and did a rather shoddy tarp job.  I just hope that the rain and storms don't bring a lot of wind.  It shouldn't pool too much despite not being taught because of the rafters and furring strips, but I am concerned about it blowing off.




While my truck continues to drain my wallet, I got a chance to test drive two different models of new pickups.  I had a white 2015 F 250 while I was at work, and got a 2015 GMC3500 loaner.

All in all, if I were to buy one, I would have to play with the Ford a little bit more, but it would be the front runner.  The ford was less comfortable, but I didn't mess with the seat or any settings (it was the mechanics personal vehicle), but it ran much nicer, it shifted both smoother and more decisively and at what felt like the right times, and had much better visibility, whereas the GMC was a bit lethargic shifting, leading to a bit more jerking, and the GMC had much higher shift points which didn't help its cause either.  The ford had vastly superior mirrors, and the gauges were much more readable.  I also found its little display in the dash to be much more useful and better designed.  One thing I didn't like was the weird turn signal system they have, it isn't push it down and when you make the turn it will pop the stick back to normal, you push it down and it registers, and the stick immediately goes back to the neutral spot.  It would definitely take some getting used to.

The short version is that the Ford was designed better, ran nicer, but the GMC was "familiar" and a bit more comfortable.

I only have pictures of the GMC.  The profile of the truck.


The front end.  The top of the hood was at about chest height.


The interior.


The gauge cluster. I found it very hard to read, because the cluster is nearly vertical, and you sit very upright in the truck, which means you are looking at the gauges at a very bizarre and unnatural angle.


The console area.  I haven't played with this, but the controls looked reasonable.


They don't give you space behind the seats anymore.



Part of the visibility problem with the GMC was the weird interior design.  I had plenty of headroom, but the windshields (both the front and the back) were waay too small.  You can see in the second one that the rear windshield is less than a foot tall.  The same problem existed in the front.  If I were another few inches taller, my eye level would be above the windshield.  As it was, the visibility out the front was noticeably poor.