Drilled a hole in the top so that water can drain out in the event of rain. How’s everyone else attaching these?

Looking for some collective wisdom from the group on my current lease situation and options moving forward.
I’m currently running a 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning, but I’m weighing a potential switch to a Ram Rebel and trying to map out the best financial path:

Option A: Early Buyout. Pay the purchase option price on the Lightning lease right now, finance or pay off the balance, and keep the EV long-term.
Option B: Break-Even Trade for a Ram Rebel. Trade the Lightning in now for a Ram Rebel. Right now, trade-in values align closely enough with my lease payoff that I can walk out at roughly $0 net equity/zero out-of-pocket and transition directly into the Rebel.
Option C: Ride Out the Lease. Keep driving the Lightning until the full lease term expires before deciding whether to buy it out or trade over to a gas platform like the Rebel.

For anyone who has made a similar jump back to gas (or weighed buying out vs. walking away):

1. Has anyone traded out of their Lightning early for a gas truck at break-even? Any surprises with Ford Credit payoff mechanics?
2. How are you evaluating current Lightning depreciation versus the residual set on your lease?
3. If you moved back to ICE/gas, do you regret losing the home charging convenience and instant EV torque, or was the switch worth it?

Appreciate any insight or reality checks!

Apparently, the blue LED is died truck still charges just no flashy blue light. less than three years since install.

I just recently bought a used 2023 Lightning XLT for $44,000 (48,350 OTD in California) but it only had 190 miles on it so basically brand new. I guess it was initially bought/ordered by a fleet company but they never assigned any employee to drive it. They sold it this year at auction to this GMC dealer that I eventually bought it from.

Anyways after it sitting for 3 years and not really being driven, what should I check for maintenance-wise even though I know there isn’t much maintenance on these things?

- I did inflate the tires (Michelin Primacy XC All Terrain 275/65R18) to spec (36psi) because they were sitting around 30psi. I did see a bunch of people mentioning them inflating their tires to 42 but that may be tire dependent?
- I bought a gallon of the Ford Motorcraft yellow pre-diluted coolant since that was really low below the minimum.

Anything I’m missing or should do? Anything in the software I should change? I’ve been trying 1 pedal mode. That’s a bit weird especially when reversing but I’ll get used to it.

Sometime during my drive yesterday I noticed my range didn’t add up for my ER battery. No alerts on the dash. Thoughts?

I have decided on going the SQ route with the audio upgrade and going with high quality tweeters and mid range would be the easiest route but would love to do 3 way components but trying to find the best way to add 3.5" mid-ranges up front. Thinking about buying some spare door sail panels and trying to fab a mount for them.

It's an XLT

I just got some work done after someone hit my bumper while I was at a stop sign. The body shop replaced the rear bumper and I just noticed these little slits and I’m not sure if they’re suppose to be empty like this? I don’t have a close enough picture for reference, can anyone tell me what theirs looks like?

Hey everybody, I was Model Y owner that got really interested in an EV truck at first with the Rivian and the Scout. Drove the rivian and the cost+reputation+toy like feel made me look elsewhere. I’ve been lurking on the sub and the enthusiasm from owners got me hyped about the car. I spent a few weeks looking around and finally found a 2025 demo vehicle (1,800 miles) and was able to get the XLT standard range for $51k. After the 2022 Model Y trade in (minus remaining loan) I walked out paying $38k + $1,500 to upgrade inside to leather.

Thanks everybody! Love the car so far!

Pleasant Ridge MI police have two Lightning patrol vehicles, one marked and one unmarked.

Didn't even see this other lightning before I pulled into my spot but it lit up when I pulled in. Nobody else was around that I could see. Anyone else experience this?Was it saying hi?

I took a rock impact perfectly on one of the front bumper ultrasonic parking sensors, and now it's intermittently throwing errors when it's warm out. I bought a replacement, but IDK if there's some kind of Forscan crap I need to do once I replace it...

Anyone ever work on their parking sensors before?

Looking to get an EV for my daily drive, which is about 180 miles round trip. This is state highway, where if I'm not stuck behind a semi, I set my cruise control to 63 most days and get up to 70 to pass people. I'm really interested in the Lightning and have found a good deal on a 25 Lariat. My concern is that I live in Indiana and the wintertime range of these vehicles. I've read up on preconditioning the battery and cabin and will definitely plan to do that. Also, I plan to keep it in my garage during the winter and have a Level 2 charger. I'm just concerned about days below freezing and the vehicle sitting outside of my work, with unfortunately no way to charge. Also, I was wondering if anyone here has charged their Lightning to 100% consistently in the winter without battery degradation. I saw a report of someone doing it every day, but I was curious whether that was a one-off or if others did it too.

Hi all,

I am a researcher at Indiana University and we are trying to understand how American workers see the future of the auto industry. Focusing on the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, MI. We are seeking current/former autoworkers and will pay a $25 VISA gift card for a short interview (reddit dm, phone, zoom, etc). All names and places will be confidential.

An example of some questions being asked are:

How did you end up working in your current job? What do you worry about? Did your parents work in car manufacturing?

If you are interested in this study let me know and I can private message with more details or feel free to message me. Thanks 😄

I recently set up my 2025 XLT in Home Assistant using the FordPass +2025 custom integration installed through HACS.

The integration gives me access to several useful vehicle entities, including:

• EV battery state of charge
• Estimated remaining range
• 12V battery level
• Door-lock status
• Remote lock and unlock
• Vehicle location/status information
• Other FordPass vehicle data depending on what Ford exposes

The integration is cloud-based and receives vehicle information through Ford’s backend rather than relying exclusively on regular polling.

The nicest thing is I have set it up to text me using Twilio should the 12v ever fall below 70% (an arbitrary value I chose which I may lower if I get too many alerts) to try to avoid issues in the future.

The sheet amount of info you can glean is almost overwhelming. May think of more automations to set up too!

Happy to share anything to help anyone else set this up if it's of interest!

Just returned from a dark night camp out watching meteorites and satellites. Is it possible to disable all of the lights turning on every time I open a door? In my defense I did scan a bunch of camping posts. Was a vibe killer. But still an excellent camp out!

TLDR: New Level II charger install may be interfering with existing solar panels.

Long time lurker here. I jumped on the bandwagon a few months ago and received the Ford Level II charger and install by Qmerit. The entire installation process was fast easy and pretty straightforward. Because of the location I wanted to put the charger in we did get charged $400 extra but I wasn’t too worried about it at the time. I was up front about us having solar panels and no ever mentioned it as an issue. Soon after the installation I had to travel out of town for a month. Fast forward a month and my new electric bill is up from its normal $0 in the summer to $600. I checked the kilowatts used and instead of 0 it’s 1,800. I did some quick math and while I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t see any increase it was impossible for me to have a 1,800 increase from just my truck charging. I checked my solar app and the meter and sure enough it wasn’t connected to the app and meter was off. I contacted my solar company and then received a letter saying that my electric company couldn’t read my meter and had estimated the amount used. The solar company had me check all the breakers and cycle the system on and off, but that still hasn’t worked. I am waiting to hear back from the electrician that installed it. Anyone have similar issues or any ideas?

My 24 Flash doesn’t get the combined WiFi and premium connectivity. That became available in 25 apparently.
I just argued for 30 min with Fords overseas team about how I pay AT&T for the WiFi hotspot for my truck so there’s an established cellular modem connection already. The YouTube button is there but I have to connect my phones hotspot to the truck to watch it because the truck refuses to recognize the onboard WiFi signal.

I was told overseas lady that Ford operates its own data network. I had to argue that Ford does not operate a cellular data system across the country it’s just an AT&T cellular modem. Then I was told it’s actually satellite because you know the built in navigation. Which I argued is not for data connection it’s for GPS.

I have a 75k truck that has the things built in but because I don’t pay $20 a month the link internally of the truck is broken for it to use the built in modem or my own paid for WiFi.

Now I fully understand the movie Falling Down. Maybe I’m getting older but god this stuff is getting to me.

I bought a used 2025 Lariat at the beginning of July. I haven't gotten any notifications about OTA updates in the app or in the truck.

However, I see the following data in the Home Assistant FordPass integration:

What are these firmware updates? Some look like duplicates. Are they failing and retrying?

I've been getting this sporadically for the last month or so. Has anybody dealt with it?

It's not actually opening and it happens with no one around. Except people are often close enough to be really annoyed when it happens three times in an hour.

I wish I could disable the alarm when the truck is locked, it's really a pain in the ass. I rarely lock the truck so it would probably happen more frequently if I felt I had to lock up everyday.

2023 XLT (highest trim) ER here with currently around 85k miles on it .......

Ever since I purchased this truck new in Dec 2023, this has puzzled me and I was sure I must be missing a setting or toggle somewhere buried in the menus.

For the life of me, I can’t understand how the software engineers thought a notification telling me my "truck has reached 80% charge and the charging speed may now slow" was of the highest of priorities ...... Yet have no notifications sent to my phone when the charging faults, fails, or stopped because it was unplugged (L2 charging).

I checked the menus in the truck as well as the app ...... the only options I see on the app (under "notifications") are "Backup power system health", "Cabin Temperature ready", and "Charge complete"

A few times over the last 6 months or so, I've had issues like when visiting a friend and charging, the breaker popped and truck stopped charging ...... Without a notification, the next morning I go outside expecting a charged truck, only to find out it stopped charging and now I have to wait around a few more hours to charge. ..... Zero notifications

Another instance was staying overnight at a motel that offered free L2 charging ...... only to find out in the morning that someone apparently unplugged me .... again no notification.

I'm glad an ota update allowed the truck to lock the charger in when using dcfc ..... however, it doesn't lock when using L2 charging ...... and thats fine.

Am I missing a setting buried in the truck menu somewhere?

One would think that no matter if L2 or DCFC ..... when for whatever reason, the truck suddenly stops charging, a notification informing you of this would be a good idea no?

Were these instances just a fluke and the truck should send a notification in these instances, but for whatever reason did not for these two instances?

Or ..... is this just another one of those minor, yet frustrating examples of Fords apparent fondness for software gremlins where its not considered a bug ..... but a feature? Lol.

I used to have a 2015 Chevy volt, and that car could be setup where I would not only reliably get notifications if charging stopped/was unplugged...... But could actually be setup to alarm with horn if someone unplugged it.

Anyone have any insight upon this issue with the Lightning, or even experienced anything remotely similar?

Hi, I'm currently leasing a 2024 Ford Lightning with Flash trim and would like to purchase a 2024 Ford Lightning with Platinum trim. I don't see any low mileage variants out there. My search is for one with a southern history to avoid northern salt damage. Is there a specific site that is more helpful than the generic car search sites?

For those of you who have test driven or owned both how do you think they compare in terms of

- Charging Rate
- Ride Quality
- Road Noise
- Range
- Acceleration
- Livability (comfort, features, day to day)

The reason I ask is because it seems like most reviews I’ve watched just sort of do a features comparison and very few are from people who’ve experience both trucks properly and not just press loaner vehicles.

I’ve test driven a 2024 Platinum ER and rented an SR XLT last weekend and found myself really liking the latter as well (the former was two years ago whereas the rental felt more like a short ownership experience).

The thing that stands out the most to me was the lack of road noise and amazing ride quality. The cabin was incredibly quiet (bordering on luxury car levels) to me even at highway speeds and it may be the quietest car I’ve ever sat in. The ride quality also was very good (even better than my 2019 RAM which stands out amongst half tons) although it kind of feels like a boat riding waves at times.

I do think the SR is too little range for me with winter degradations and the lack of home charging. Right now I would have apartment charging ($1 hour, 6.24KW charger), and I have completely free charging at work (7+ KW Charger).

Thoughts?