Ford F-350 vs Mercedes-Benz X350

What's the difference?

If you’ve got something really heavy to tow and you have the budget to do it in grand style and with minimal effort, then a Super Duty could be just what you’re looking for. Its gargantuan proportions make it impractical for daily driving in Australian city and suburban traffic, but as a heavy-duty tow vehicle, particularly for long-haul open highway work, you’ll feel like king of the road.

Vehicle supplied by Harrison F-Trucks.

The V6 X-Class is nice enough to drive on-road and it’s effective enough off-road, but it’s let down by its less-than-impressive interior and those elements combined certainly do not justify such a high price-tag.

Sure, its safety gear is top-notch but the X-Class, even in this V6 guise, feels like a lacklustre attempt at ute greatness, rather than a real effort. 

Right now, if you’re in the market for a super-comfortable and capable V6 ute with real class and German precision, check out a top-spec V6 Amarok – and save about $25,000 while you’re at it.

Needless to say, the MY18 F350 Super Duty 4x4 is a monster, even in this SWB specification. The massive 4059mm wheelbase is 839mm longer than a Ranger Wildtrak, which is also dwarfed by the Super Duty’s 6350mm overall length (961mm longer). The F-Series’ 2032mm width is 182mm wider than the Ranger, and its 2065mm height is 217mm taller. It's like a Ranger that's been fed heaps of fertiliser.

Underneath is the kind of heavy-metal hardware needed to justify a Super Duty badge. Ford claims its massive fully-boxed steel ladder-frame chassis is up to 24 times stiffer than the previous generation, along with improved corrosion resistance. The cargo tub is made from military-grade aluminium with the dual benefits of less weight and no rust. A tough spray-on cargo tub liner boosts dent and weather protection.

Live axles are used at both ends, suspended on huge leaf spring packs at the rear and softer-riding coils up front. Steering and four-wheel disc braking are both power-assisted, of course, and there’s a choice of trailer-towing hitches available.

As you would expect, cabin space for both front and rear occupants is palatial, with even tall adults feeling dwarfed by its enormous dimensions. Rear passenger leg and shoulder room even for tall adults is limousine-grade, although headroom is reduced (but still adequate) due to the lower roof lining surrounding the full-length sunroof.

The overall fit and finish of the dashboard, following Harrison’s local RHD conversion process, displays quality workmanship. However, some DNA from its Kentucky birthplace remains in the control screen’s software, which, for example, displays 911 Assist instead of 000, and a left-side driver’s seat icon for the massage control. We also noticed that the AM radio station display only moves in 10kHz increments without the ability to tune between them (too bad if you like talkback).

There’s also no driver’s left footrest and the parking brake pedal seems overly high, requiring the raising of your left knee above steering-wheel height to get your boot on it.

From the outside, the X-Class looks pretty impressive – it’s chunky and blocky and has a real tough-truck presence.

As mentioned, a fair few of the cool exterior touches are actually paid-for options, and our tester was loaded with these extras and, as a result, looked like a work-or-play ready luxury workhorse.

So, it looks pretty good but, as always, looks can be deceiving and the interior is a very different story.

Our F-350 test vehicle with its F-250 downgrade results in a 700kg decrease in both payload and tow ratings. In other words, based on Harrison’s figures, in full F-350 specification it has a 1700kg payload capacity and 9700kg GCM, which means it can legally tow up to 4510kg of braked trailer with a full payload or up to 6210kg without. In our F-250 form it offers a 1000kg payload with 9000kg GCM, and can legally tow up to 3810kg of braked trailer with a full payload, or 4810kg without.

The huge cargo tub has a load floor length of 2080mm and width of 1700mm, with 1283mm between the wheel arches allowing ample room for a standard 1160mm-square Aussie pallet. There’s a total of eight tie-down points, overhead and internal lighting plus key fob operation of the tailgate, which houses a handy fold-out step and grab handle for easy cargo tub access.

The sumptuous cabin has plenty of storage options, including a single glovebox, and a bottle holder and two storage bins in each front door. The centre console has an open storage cubby at the front, another open storage bin and two bottle holders in the centre, a cavernous box behind that with a padded lid which doubles as a comfortable armrest, and two more bottle/cup holders at the back.

Those in the rear seat also get a fold-down centre armrest with two pop-out cup holders and each rear door has a bottle holder and two storage bins. There are also flexible storage pockets on the rear of both front seats and the 60/40-split rear seat base cushions swing up through 90 degrees and lock into position, revealing a huge full-width storage area underneath.

I’m not a snob about interiors but if I spent almost $90 grand on a ute I’d expect it to have a very high level of fit and finish inside, plenty of storage options and an overall premium feeling inside.

That’s sorely lacking in here.

From the many hard-plastic surfaces, fake leather, brushed-aluminium sections and sort of half-hearted attempts at three-pointed star styling – such as the vents – no part of the interior looks or feels anything like the premium quality you’d expect to find in a Mercedes-Benz.

As for equipment inside, you get the 7.0-inch floating touchscreen and a few other bits and pieces but there are some glaring omissions: you don’t get a reach-adjustable steering wheel, heated seats, or real leather (our tester has the optional black leather seats fitted at a cost of $1750), you don’t get much in the way of storage anywhere, and you don’t get Apple CarPlay or Android Auto – you don’t even get a driver-side grab handle. All of those sort of mod cons, you get in a ute that costs much less than this X-Class. 

Room and comfort inside is adequate but a long way from unreal for something so pricey.

Driving position is nice, with plenty of vision all-round, but everyone's seats could do with a bit more cushioning and length in the base.

In the grand tradition of all utes, the rear seat is really the realm of young children and, at a stretch, smaller adults, especially for longer trips in the saddle. 

Storage is minimal in the back seat – you don’t even get a drop-down arm-rest with cup-holder.

The 350d Power ($79,415 plus on-road costs*) is the top-spec variant in a two-variant V6 X-Class range; the other variant is the Progressive, which starts from $73,270 plus on-road costs.

Our tester has a 3.0-litre six-cylinder diesel engine a seven-speed automatic transmission and permanent all-wheel drive system – all from Benz. All of those certainly make a refreshing change from the Navara-based four-cylinder model that preceded this X-Class. (Price as tested is $88,618, including GST plus on-roads.)

Standard gear includes steering-wheel paddle shifters, 19-inch alloy wheels (our tester had the optional 18-inch rim design, part of the $1990 Style Pack), body-coloured exterior parts with chrome accents, fog-lamps, dusk-sensing LED High Performance headlamps, ARTICO/DINAMICA seat upholstery, ARTICO dash and door sill covering with contrast stitching, Electric front seats with lumbar support, front foot-well, vanity and door illumination lamps, dashboard trim in aluminium and black roof liner and more.

Safety gear includes seven airbags, AEB, tyre-pressure-monitoring system, Active Lane Keeping Assist, Hill Start Assist, 360 degree surround-view camera, i-Size child seat anchorages and more.

The roof rails and side steps add to the X-Class’s commanding appearance, but those are part of the optional $1990 Style Pack, they are not standard.

The silver styling bar ($1551) and the tray liner ($899) also look cool– but they’re optional extras.

The F350 Super Duty is powered by Ford’s common rail 6.7-litre Power Stroke V8 turbo diesel, which, with four valves per cylinder and variable vane turbocharger, punches out 335kW at 2800rpm and a massive 1267Nm of torque at only 1800rpm.

The SelectShift six-speed automatic transmission is also designed and built by Ford. Its triple-plate, two-stage torque converter offers full lock-up capability as low as 900rpm, and there’s a dedicated tow/haul mode which avoids unwanted shifts on climbs and provides powerful engine braking on descents.

The exhaust brake can also be manually selected. The 4x4 system is part-time dual-range, with auto-locking front hubs and shift-on-the-fly engagement.

The V6 350d Power V6 has a Benz-built 3.0-litre diesel engine (190kW at 3400rpm and 550Nm at 1400rpm-3200rpm), matched to a Benz-built seven-speed auto. It’s a mostly smooth combination and any perceived throttle or turbo lag can be swiftly overcome through switching to one of the more sporty of the five driving modes – one of which is actually called Sport – and making judicious use of the steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters. The other driving modes are Comfort, Eco, Manual and Off Road and all are designed to adjust throttle input, gear changes and shift times to suit the terrain.

This X-Class has Benz’s 4Matic full-time 4WD system with 4MAT (40:60 torque split for daily driving), 4H (the X-Class’s high range, with 30:70 torque split for looser surfaces) and 4L (aka low range with a 50:50 torque split to suit low-speed 4WDing). The driver uses a simple dial – unfortunately tucked away low down, almost hidden, on the centre console – to switch between these modes.

Flick through a Super Duty sales brochure and you won’t find any reference to fuel economy ratings. However, for what it’s worth we crunched some figures at the end of our relatively short 200km test based on trip meter and fuel bowser readings, resulting in a reasonable 15.8L/100km.

That’s not far away from the dash read-out at 14.2, so with its big 130-litre fuel tank you could expect a driving range of around 820km.

Fuel consumption is listed as 8.8L/100km (combined). 

We recorded 10.9L/100km on test and that included plenty of low-speed 4WDing. 

The V6 X-Class has a 80-litre fuel tank. 

You sit up nice and high in very comfortable seats, with a commanding view of surrounding traffic and the road ahead. We quickly adapted to the width and height of the Super Duty, but the major issue in city and suburban driving was its oil-tanker length, which required later turn-in on tight corners to provide kerbside clearance. We also needed to check that there was ample reversing room when choosing a space in a parking lot, to ensure we didn’t get wedged when trying to leave.

With the big turbo diesel V8’s 1267Nm of torque being tapped at only 1800rpm, it provides spirited getaways from traffic lights, and easily keeps up with normal city and suburban traffic flow with your big toe barely touching the accelerator pedal.

The ride quality without a load is quite good on smooth surfaces, with its massive 3.5 tonne kerb weight feeling like the tyres are leaving indents in the bitumen. However, over rougher roads and larger obstacles like speeds humps, it starts to bounce around more and can feel quite ponderous at times. However, this is to be expected in an empty vehicle with such high payload and tow ratings.

The steering is surprisingly direct and firm in feel. It’s also quite linear in turning weight regardless of road speed, without the more noticeable changes evident in its little brother Ranger, which is very light at parking speeds but gets noticeably firmer as speeds increase.

Braking is reasonably responsive but like other giant US pick-ups we’ve tested, you have to get them quite hot to make them really bite. That’s because their pad compounds tend to be on the hard side, given they have to cope with the high temperatures generated by heavy-duty towing.

The engine exhaust brake is surprisingly quiet and very effective at slowing the vehicle, aided by more aggressive downshifts in the six-speed auto.

Well, this is where the news gets a little bit better.

The V6 is a much better fit for the X-Class than the four-cylinder and it works well with the seven-speed auto, punching the more-than-2190kg ute along – although there is, at times, a substantial delay between foot down and go-time but, as mentioned earlier, that can be overcome by switching to Sport and using the paddle shifters.

It does sit nicely on the road, and ride and handling are generally okay with the X-Class only infrequently revealing some of the skips and jitters you’d expect of an unladen ute.

The coil-spring suspension tends to yield a spongy, comfortable ride rather than the too-firm ride of a ute, especially those of the leaf-spring variety, with nothing onboard.

Steering is pretty sharp and, despite its bulk, the X-Class is reasonably easy to manoeuvre for its size on- and off-road. It has a 12.8m turning circle.

A big plus in the X-Class’s favour is its class-leading suite of active safety tech including AEB, lane keeping assist, as well as that 360-degree view camera and more.

It has seven airbags, and a five-star ANCAP rating.

Harrison F Trucks provides a four-year/130,000km warranty, which it claims is the same as the Ford warranty with standard exclusions. Harrison also provides four-year premium roadside assistance.

Scheduled servicing is 12 months/10,000km with costs ranging between $495 and $1400.

Harrison says servicing can be done at any certified service department in Australia, with direct communication with Harrison’s service manager if required for diagnostics and advice.

A three-year/200,00km warranty applies to this ute. Service intervals are up to one year/20,000km.