Iveco Daily vs Ford F150

What's the difference?

The Iveco Daily van’s light-truck genetics mean it’s not as immediately familiar to the end-user as some of the competition. It’s a fair climb to get inside, for instance, and once you’re there, the cabin lacks the ambience of a more passenger-oriented machine. Its wheelbase and external dimensions, too, mean it requires plenty of parking skill and real estate, and the dynamics are surefooted but hardly athletic.

Of course, fleet managers won’t care too much about any of that, and the flip-side is those truck underpinnings point to a low maintenance, high-mileage lifespan with good warranty as a promise of less time lost in the service bay when the van could be on the road earning its keep.

Right at the moment, the Daily van appears to be forming some kind of bridge between the car and truck world in terms of safety equipment and driver assistance gear, too. And that’s got to be a good thing.

But equally, it remains a pretty specialised piece of equipment that won’t work for everybody, nor does it have a lot of cross-over appeal between the car and truck worlds. None of which, of course, will prevent it being a valuable tool of the trade in the right hands.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Ford F-150 Platinum SWB is good but not great.

It has plenty of standard features onboard and some handy touches, it’s nice to drive on-road, and is adequately capable off-road but it lacks the overall plushness its price-tag promises.

The F-150’s smaller sibling, the Ranger Super Duty, does all of this F Truck’s jobs better, has more general appeal and all-round driveability, and it costs much less than the F-150.

Yet I can still see the appeal of the Ford F-150 Platinum SWB. As a potential purchase, it might make a lot more sense to you than me.

One thing Iveco is very up front about is that its vans are truck-based. To some sectors of the market this is no problem whatsoever, but it means that stylistically, the end product is not likely to be as fashionable looking as some of the competition. That big, bluff front, for instance, while maybe looking a bit heavy-handed to some, will conjure up just the right amount of brute force for others.

There is also evidence Iveco doesn’t mind if the exterior appearance fails to hide how the machine works. That perhaps why the wheel arch flares are obvious and the track for the sliding door is proudly on display rather than hidden.

Even inside, the bare cargo-bay walls tell their own utilitarian story, but when you get down to actually lashing down heavy loads, that truck heritage is very much in evidence with a non-nonsense layout and presentation.

The Ford F-150 Platinum SWB is 5908mm long (with a 3697mm wheelbase), 2089mm wide (excluding mirrors) and 1995mm high. It has a listed kerb weight of 2611kg.

It’s a chunky but stretched US-style ute with ample presence, but manages to look like it’s not trying too hard.

It doesn’t hurt this ute’s cause that its appearance now encompasses model year 2024 updates from the US, which include a facelifted exterior with a new front bumper, grille and headlights, as well as a new rear bumper, tail-lights, and gloss-black alloy wheels.

The wheel-and-tyre package (20-inch alloys and 275/60R20 Hankook Dynapro AT2 all-terrains) suit its style, but aren’t particularly great for off-roading – more about that later.

Inside, it’s a cool and practical space with leather-accented seats – those are underdone in terms of feeling posh – and there’s an overall roominess that’s difficult not to like.

In terms of design, this F-150 holds its own, inside and out, against the likes of the Ram, Silverado, and Tundra.

Even within the framework of vans that are agile enough to park relatively simply, can be driven on a normal car license and are priced within reach of even recreational users, there’s still a lot going on. Think optional payloads, wheelbases and cargo volumes, just for starters.

So let’s start with the Daily 42S. Available with either a 3520mm or 4100mm wheelbase, the 42S can cope with a payload of 1872kg or 1741kg, respectively. Towing capacity is 3500kg. It stands more than 2.7 metres tall and seats three.

The 50C is the next step up the size ladder and, like the 42S, can be had with either a 3520mm or 4100mm wheelbase. But from there, the 50C just gets bigger with a choice of three overall lengths (up to almost 7.7 metres) and two distinct roof heights. Payload varies from a high of 1942kg to 1752kg and, like the 42S it also seats three and can tow 3500kg.

Iveco has stuck with single rear wheels (rather than a dual-wheel rear axle) for the 42S variant as this minimises the internal space taken up by the rear wheel arches and ensures that the van in any configuration will still swallow a standard pallet between those arches. The 50C, meanwhile, with its greater payload potential, features dual rear wheels. The other reason for the dual wheels is that the 50C can be ordered with an upscaled GVM of 5.2 tonnes, versus the standard vehicle’s 4.5 tonnes. At that point, though, the driver requires an endorsed license to stay legal.

The cabin is a master-class in finding a storage space for everything, with no less than three cubbies per door, storage bins on the dash-top and above the sun-visors, half a dozen cubbies in the dash fascia, a single glove box and a huge storage area under the flip-up cushions of the passenger’s bench seat. In standard trim, the Iveco vans seat three with a two-person bench and a single driver’s seat. That, however, doesn’t mean the vehicle has a walk-through function, and the solid cargo barrier keeps the cabin permanently separate from the cargo bay.

Access to the cargo area is via twin barn doors at the rear which open back on to the sides of the vehicle for easier fork-lift loading. There’s a single sliding side door as standard on the kerb-side, but you can option a second sliding door on the other side. There are also no less than 10 tie-down points (five per side) and they’re solid and mounted on the floor for maximum usefulness. Three LED lights illuminate the cargo area.

All in all, the Ford F-150 Platinum’s cabin is a highly practical space.

The 12-way power-adjustable, heated and ventilated front seats (with a handy massage function and memory) recline to a fully flat position and the fold-down centre console work table is a nice touch as is the auto shifter, which stows away flush at the push of a nearby button.

Even though I prefer a vertically oriented screen nowadays, the F-150’s horizontal 12.0-inch LCD touchscreen is easy to use and offers clear, crisp colours so my old codger eyes can cope with the vast array of information and controls depicted onscreen.

The rest of the cabin is as roomy and as practical as can be expected in a dual-cab ute of this size. There are storage spaces and cupholders aplenty, as well as smart device charging points front and rear.

The 60/40 split rear seat even has a shallow lockable under-seat storage.

This F-150’s tub is 1700mm long, 1650mm wide, 543mm deep and measures 1285mm between the wheel arches so it will fit an Aussie pallet or a truckload of your camping equipment.

The tub has a tri-fold hard tonneau cover and the load space has a 12-volt outlet, load box lights, a durable-looking spray-in tub liner, as well as fixed tie-down points at each corner and four sidewall-mounted tie-down points as part of Ford’s BoxLink tie-down system.

The powered tailgate can be opened the usual boring drop-down way or you can use the 'Pro Access Swing Door' of the tailgate to open a side-hinged section as you would a door.

Bonus points for the raised ruler markings on the tailgate’s inner wall and the two G-clamp fitting positions at each side of the tailgate’s top edge.

The F-150 has a keyless entry system with a keypad on the exterior of the front passenger door. Punch in your permanent access code and – bingo – you’re in.

As practical as any of its rivals, the F-150 stays in the race here.

The new Ford F-150 Platinum SWB and long-wheelbase (LWB) body styles are priced from $163,950 (excluding on-road costs), making this top-spec F truck the most expensive yet.

In fact, it comes in at pricier than rivals Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado, but not as much of a hit to the bank account as the Toyota Tundra is.

Also, the “new” F-150s now on offer in Australia are actually the model year 2024 versions of this vehicle.

Standard features onboard the Platinum include a 12.0-inch LCD portrait touchscreen, 12.0-inch digital instrument cluster, a 14-speaker Bang & Olufsen audio system, folding gear shifter, fold-out centre console, leather upholstery, 12-way power-adjustable heated and ventilated front seats (with memory and massage functions), and heated outboard rear seats.

It also gets power side steps, 20-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights and tail-lights, panoramic glass sunroof, spray-in bed-liner and a powered tailgate with a manual swing-door section.

Exterior paint choices include Agate Black, Iconic Silver, Rapid Red, Carbonised Grey, Star White, and Antimatter Blue.

This F-150 matches its rivals, such as the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, and even the more expensive Toyota Tundra, in terms of standard features.

While vans might be getting ever closer to passenger cars in the way they drive (stay with us) in engineering terms, there’s still a bit of 'us and them' going on. That means you kind of have to throw away a fair bit of what you thought you knew about how motor vehicles work, but it also means the Iveco is fit for purpose in a world where big loads and lots of kilometres are the norm.

Power in either the 42S or the 50C comes from a 3.0-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-diesel engine. It doesn’t sound too different from what you’d find in a dual-cab ute, but the engine uses some pretty heavy-duty tech, making it closer to a truck engine than a typical light commercial’s, including an impressive service regime. Although capacity remains the same, the Iveco’s unit is available in two tunes, both erring on the side of torque over outright power.

The 42S gets a 132kW and 430Nm version of the engine, while the 50C can be optioned up to the second-tier tune with 155kW and 470Nm. It’s not just an electronic tweak, either, and while the engine’s fundamentals remain, there are changes to the turbocharger and camshaft as well as the engine management.

Standard transmission is a ZF-made eight-speed conventional automatic and there’s electric power-steering as a nod to the chase for maximum efficiency which is perhaps even more important in the Daily’s European home market than it might sometimes be here.

However, it’s when you get to the suspension that the Daily reveals its brawny design ethos. Front suspension on the 42S is by double wishbones and torsion bars which sounds odd, but is pretty familiar in the trucking world. The 50C uses the same arrangement.

At the rear, the 42S gets a simple twin-leaf parabolic spring at each outer end of the axle, while the 50C has the same with optional air suspension and an optional driver-controlled locking differential.

All versions of the Daily also use the time-honoured (in the trucking industry) body-on-ladder-chassis construction method.

The Ford F-150 Platinum has a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 engine producing 298kW at 6000rpm and 678Nm at 3100rpm, and that’s matched to a 10-speed torque converter automatic transmission.

The base-spec XLT gets part-time 4WD but the Lariat and Platinum grades get Ford’s more advanced full-time 4WD system. This setup has selectable two-wheel drive (2H), four-wheel drive high-range (4H), four-wheel drive low-range (4L) and four-wheel drive automatic (4A = 4Auto) that sends drive to the front and rear axles as needed, and which can be safely used on high-traction surfaces, such as bitumen.

The Platinum has a variety of selectable drive modes – including Normal, Eco, Sport, Tow/Haul, Slippery, and Off-Road – and an electronic locking rear diff.

This is a proven engine-and-auto pairing and is more than a match for any of the F-150’s rivals’ powertrains.

Fuel consumption of commercial vehicles can vary enormously depending on where they’re driven and how they’re used and loaded. As a commercial vehicle, there are no official fuel consumption claims made by Iveco according to any standard test procedure.

Our experience with this vehicle in the past, however, suggests that between nine and 10 litres per 100km is a good indication of overall consumption. Obviously, hitching a 3.5-tonne trailer to the vehicle and loading it fully will have a big effect on that number.

With the standard 70-litre tank, the Daily should be able to cover near enough to 700km between fills, while the optional 100 tank should take it closer to 1000km.

Don’t forget, either, that the new Daily requires AdBlue which is carried in a 20-litre reservoir on the vehicle, and that the cost of filling this needs to be added to overall running costs.

Official fuel consumption is listed as 13.4L/100km (combined).

On test I recorded 14.1L/100km, but that figure included a solid half-day of off-roading.

Based on my on-test figures, a full tank (136 litres) of unleaded petrol in this F-150 will get you a driving range of about 965km.

For a big ute, it exhibits reasonable fuel usage.

The first impression – once you’ve managed to climb inside the cabin (a manoeuvre that requires the in-built step) is of a magnificent view ahead and to the sides. You sit high and mighty and the vast glass area means you always feel like the king of the road. The steering wheel is relatively flat compared with a passenger vehicle, but the column features tilt and reach adjustment, so you can soon get comfortable.

The engine feels a bit grumbly and coarse compared with the dual-cab utes with which many of us are more familiar. It’s not harsh, though, and soon has the Iveco accelerating, if not swiftly, then certainly with some authority and a feeling it would take something pretty solid to slow it down.

The eight-speed transmission is calibrated – perhaps deliberately – to feel a little like the robotised manuals of some bigger trucks, and as such, can feel a little stilted in the way it ever so slightly hesitates between shifts.

The brake pedal is also placed too far to the right for comfortable left-foot braking and there’s no driver’s dead-pedal or foot-rest, suggesting that overseas crash testing may have dictated its deletion and the location of the brake pedal. That said, the Daily was originally designed as left-hand-drive, so perhaps the switch from left to right has imposed some of those compromises.

The other complaint is in the form of the new-for-2026 gear selector. It uses the now common separate Park button, but until Park is engaged, the button is not illuminated or identified in any way and simply looks like another piece of black plastic on the shifter. Once you know where it is, you’re fine, but until then…

The electric power-steering poses no challenges and, in fact, is kind of a metaphor for the whole experience. It’s easy and tactile to operate and takes no time at all to feel comfortable. That’s assuming that you can learn to trust your exterior mirrors and the rear-view camera, because with the standard cargo barrier installed and the lack of an interior mirror, there’s more or less zero rear vision.

From the get-go, this short-wheelbase F-150 is a smooth driving ute on road.

And the V6 offers a welcome low-level rumble as a soundtrack to your driving experience. Nice.

It’s a big vehicle with a steel ladder-frame chassis and a lengthy wheelbase, but it suits our conditions, especially with Aussie-tuned steering, impressive on-road ride and handling and its new continuously controlled adaptive dampers setup works in conjunction with the Terrain Management System and is claimed “to enhance vehicle control on every surface”, according to Ford Australia.

This system does iron out much of the jarring sharpness often felt in test vehicles along chopped-up back-country roads on the way to my unofficial 4WD proving ground.

F-150s are imported to Australia from the USA as left-hand-drive vehicles and reengineered to right-hand drive by Melbourne-based RMA Automotive, at the company’s production facility in Melbourne.

The utes undergo a comprehensive transformation – including changes to steering, driver displays, air-con, as well as software upgrades, to name but a few – aimed at making them capable of excelling in Aussie conditions.

And it does excel.

This F-150 is well controlled with a planted feel on sealed surfaces, the steering has a nice weight to it in all conditions, acceleration is smooth, and the 10-speed auto delivers clever management of this big ute.

It’s very quiet and comfortable in the cabin. You can just barely register the low-level rumble of the twin-turbocharged V6 as you truck along stretches of highway and rural back roads.

On-road, the F-150 is a near-perfect open-road touring vehicle. The bonus is, as a Platinum driver, you have access to a suite of driver-assist tech which includes modes aimed at making the task of 4WDing (Off-Road) and towing (Tow/Haul) safer, more controlled and, consequently, more enjoyable than it otherwise may be.

Much better suited to towing and hauling than 4WDing, the F-150 still makes a good fist of it, but it does have off-road limitations.

It has to be driven with consideration, and you have to understand and appreciate the off-road parameters in which this F-150 performs best. If you drive anything more severe than light-to-medium-duty off-roading, then you risk damage.

Otherwise, visibility is great, the driving position is commanding, steering at low speeds is well-weighted and precise, and throttle response is impressive.

Again, this is a big ute so it has off-road angles you’d expect for a vehicle this large: the approach angle is listed as 24.5 degrees, departure angle is 25.3 and ramp-over is 20 degrees.

Ground clearance is listed as 239mm and wading depth is 700mm. Bash plates do offer the front differential, transfer case and fuel tank some protection though.

The tyres – Hankook Dynapro AT2 all-terrains (275/60R20) – aren’t well suited to 4WDing, but more aggressive all-terrain tyres on an 18-inch rim and an aftermarket suspension lift would go some of the way to help sort out the F-150’s off-road issues with its less-than-ideal showroom-standard rubber, only adequate ground clearance and off-road angles.

For such a big ute, payload is an underwhelming 704kg. For reference, the Ram 1500 (878kg) and Chevrolet Silverado (757kg) offer more, and even mainstream dual-cab utes, such as the Ford Ranger – 966kg (kerb weight)/1010kg (min kerb weight) – offer better payloads.

If you’re looking for a decent towing platform, it’s likely an F Series is already on your shopping list. This F-150’s maximum unbraked towing capacity is 750kg and 4500kg (braked), Gross Vehicle Mass is 3315kg and Gross Combined Mass is 7365kg.

This F-150 remains on par with rivals in the 4WD stakes.

The Ford F-150 has not been fully tested by ANCAP, but the safety watchdog did award it a Platinum collision avoidance score of 81 per cent in 2025. This rating applies only to Lariat and Platinum grades, not the XLT.

Standard safety gear includes six airbags, front and rear parking sensors, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane-keep assist, traffic sign recognition, a surround-view camera, auto emergency braking (AEB), adaptive cruise control and trailer sway control.

There are top-tether child-seat attachment points in the rear seat but no ISOFIX points.

In safety terms, the F-150 has a stack of gear onboard which keeps it competitive against rivals.

Because they’re truck-based, the Iveco vans have meaningful service intervals as a way of keeping down-time to a minimum. In the case of the 42S and 50C models, that translates to a whopping two years or 50,000km between services, whichever comes first. We understand that relies on a particular type of engine oil being used, but even so, it’s a mighty long way between drinks.

Iveco has traditionally offered service plans of up to five years, and that will continue, but we haven’t been given pricing for that at this stage.

The standard Iveco warranty applies to these models, and that gets you six years and 250,000km worth of cover. An extended driveline warranty of up to six years and 600,000km is also offered. Again, pricing for that has not been announced.

It’s also worth noting that the Iveco van engines have been Euro 6 compliant since 2015. The facelift ushers in further changes based on regulations. That means they now need AdBlue which needs to be factored in as a running cost. But because they’re designed for a European audience where emissions are arguably a much bigger issue than here, the AdBlue technology is very advanced and rules out the need for a Diesel Particulate Filter in the exhaust system; something that will appeal to a lot of would-be owners.

The F-150 has a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty and that’s pretty much standard for vehicles in the Aussie market.

Servicing is scheduled for every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs soonest and the F-150’s 12 months of free roadside assistance is extended when those schedules are followed.

Ford’s five-year pre-paid service package for this vehicle costs $1968, working at an average cost of $393.60 per service.

Ford Australia has about 180 dealerships.

In ownership terms, the F-150 remains competitive against its full-sized rivals.