2026 Ford F-350 Tremor Review

The fact that Ford sells an F-350 Super Duty with the Tremor off-roading package makes very little sense. And taking just about the biggest pickup truck for sale in America on a tough trail makes even less sense — especially on an F-350 that also features the King Ranch package and the enormous Godzilla V8 engine.

Combined, the price tag for this F-350 just barely cracks into six figures, at $100,630 as tested. That figure might pale in comparison to a Raptor R or Ram TRX these days, in fairness. But the pricing and size make the Tremor package seem to cater mostly to mall crawlers.

Plus, opting for the Power Stroke turbodiesel would then add another 10 grand, for better towing capacity and unbelievable torque. Though it’s easy to argue for that additional spend, given the current price spikes for both gasoline and fuel.

Then again, I recently discovered just how great the Godzilla runs across a week of daily driving around Los Angeles. In reality, I wanted to see if I ever adjusted to the sheer size, so one foggy morning, I also hit my usual desert route to test whether that enormous footprint actually works for any real four-wheeling. To my surprise, the F-350 got the job done quite handily.

In short: Big, huge, large, luxurious, and capable. This F-350 King Ranch with the Godzilla V8 and Tremor packages truly ticks all the boxes. It’s the peak of pickup truck luxury, with a beastly engine and all the off-roading goodies. Perhaps I should have expected this truck to make life easy, but the level of off-road capability definitely surprised me. Just don’t hope to crack double digits in fuel economy too often.

2026 Ford F-350 Tremor Review

My loaner truck arrived looking good in a Marsh Grey paint job over the King Ranch’s Java leather. In typical fashion, the grille and tailgate have a bit more chrome than I prefer, given the Tremor package’s off-roady aesthetic. And those off-road details result in cartoonish size and presence, with knobby 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac tires, the winch up front, and automatically retracting running boards that I came to absolutely love.

But will anyone actually take a truck this big and expensive up any serious trails? I wanted to find out. Driving to the desert from Los Angeles, the extent to which Ford tries to make these big trucks easy to live with stood out. The chassis rides very flat, with minimal body roll despite the height and weight. Steering the F-350 also requires minimal effort and surprising precision (for a solid-axle truck, anyway).

The suspension’s body-roll reduction does result in some choppy action over chunky freeway sections. Bouncing over the infamous washboards of the 405, headed north, left me wishing for some more cushion.

Plus, due to the Tremor bumpers and Warn winch, this six-figure truck does not have BlueCruise hands-free driving. So unlike the Chevrolet Silverado High Country that I recently spent 2,200 miles testing, I drove this Ford hands-on the whole time.

A Luxurious Ride Out to the Trail

Luckily, the King Ranch opulence oozes out of every pore of that cowboy-themed upholstery. I kept my ventilated seats blasting, of course. And though not quite as good as GMC’s excellent massagers, this truck’s slower and softer system kept my blood flowing better than nothing. Even the Bang & Olufsen sound system was pretty solid, mostly thanks to a huge central dash speaker.

The rest of the interior epitomizes King Ranch. The two-tone Java leather with contrast stitching. Plenty of knurled metal. Even a ranch house etched into the passenger dash.

Within the cavernous center console, I found a winch controller. This reassured me, given the potential for a flat tire while off-roading something so big. What exactly I’d connect the 12,000-pound Warn winch to, without just pulling that something to the truck, vexed me a bit.

When I reached Rowher Flat and started to air down, I discovered the tires had been inflated to 78 psi. Somebody probably read the max or towing pressure incorrectly and went whole hog. I spent a fair amount of time dropping down to 30 psi with my Over-Sand deflators. Going lower might risk a pinch flat, sidewall tear, or full-on de-bead. All of which I wanted to avoid.

Testing an Enormous Truck Off-Road

Headed up the hill, on a graded road at first, the suspension worked much better with the tire pressure dropped. Sure, this is no Raptor, and the truck weighs well over 7,000 pounds.

Slow and steady became the name of the game. The rear tires trammeled a bit more than expected in 2-Hi, so I spun the drive mode dial over to “Off-Road,” which automatically switched the transfer case to 4-Hi.

The gatekeeper at the bottom of Rowher’s hardest climb looked less difficult than usual on this day. I thought recent storms might have caused deeper ruts and elephant tracks. So I just used the gear selector stalk’s +/- buttons to lock the 10-speed gearbox in first, and simply marched right up the hill. The articulation of the solid axles worked well enough to prevent much tire slip, even on some sandy surfaces.

Some rockier sections forced me to pick a better line next. Mostly because I worried about stressing those tires too much on sharp edges. Still, I never felt the need to switch in 4-Lo because the Godzilla V8 delivered so much torque. Plus, the 10-speed auto’s lower gears stay nice and short for acceleration.

Confidence Built Quite Quickly

Further up the hill, I started choosing harder and harder lines. The amount this F-350 just kept climbing without fuss blew my mind. The potential benefits of a longer wheelbase typically depend on terrain.

For this truck and trail, especially with the 35s and suspension lift preventing any concern for using the skid plates, the longer wheelbase definitely helped. Only a few deep ruts near the top of the hill forced me to flip on the rear locker a couple of times. Then, the tires hooked up, and we hiked right out again.

I’d picked the YouTuber line by that point anyhow. And on one section where the incline steepened, and sand turned to slight mud, I experienced a bit of sliding. But I never needed to reverse downhill and restart a section. All despite only skipping the absolute hardest challenge on the hill because it looked too narrow, and I wanted to avoid scratching up that nice paint job.

At no point did I drive fast, and the F-350 never rode particularly smoothly. But this enormous beast got the job done without any serious problems. Once I got back to asphalt, I aired back up to a more reasonable 60 psi for the drive home. This helped a fair amount with on-road compliance, though the worst parts of the 405 south still caused plenty of bouncing.

I spent the rest of my week in the F-350 purposefully running errands in the truck. And in reality, the ride height boggled my mind more than the length or width. Only a few moments of dealing with small grocery store lots and parallel street parking presented any challenges. Thankfully, all the camera angles on the 12-inch center touchscreen made it even easier for me to navigate city life.

2026 F-350 Tremor Review: Conclusions

Obviously, the clear tradeoff of an F-350 with a suspension lift and 35-inch tires is its hulking size. But my main gripe for this truck, perhaps even more obviously, was the atrocious fuel economy. Over the course of my week, the computer claimed an average of just 9.7 mpg. It showed a slightly better lifetime fuel economy of 11.5 mpg. Those are both pretty close to Raptor R supercharged V8 status.

Especially these days, that kind of consumption adds up fast. With a 34-gallon fuel tank, I never needed to fill up. Whew! On a full tank, though, this truck can barely crest 300 miles — not ideal for long road trips. Now just imagine having to fill up the even bigger 48-gallon tank available with the 8-foot bed!

The fact that this Tremor came with the 6.75-foot bed probably helped with my urban driving. But if I bought one of these trucks myself, I want the full 8-foot bed and the 6.7L Power Stroke diesel engine. The Power Stroke adds another $10,495, too, so I’d probably skip the King Ranch and just go for Tremor goodies. Even if the Godzilla does work smoothly and sounds awesome.

Really, just about everything about this F-350 Tremor was surprisingly awesome. In my experience, Ford can be very hit-or-miss with specific models and trim packages. But for the money, this is the kind of truck Ford needs to do right — and it definitely did.