Ford has an answer to the Power Wagon

Durb wrote:
After you add in the 40mm of lift, the bed rails will be at 62 inches before you factor in the 35 inch tires. I doubt you will see many fifth wheel haulers order the option. I'm 6 ft.tall, 62 inches comes to my mouth. Doubt that I could even see the entire bed without the tailgate down. Not for me, it makes a pretty decent truck 99% useless.

3/4 ton trucks aren't for trailer towing anyway. The power wagon has always suffered from low payload with a 300 pound winch setup up front. The payload rating on the Power Wagon was lower than many 1/2 ton trucks when it first came out.

RCMAN46 wrote:

Try going down and more import have to back down a very very steep hill that is loose sand or dirt. If your differential is locked steering becomes difficult if not impossible.

This is why the Jeep Rubicon comes with selective locking differentials.

I have hydraulic assist steering and I have never found steering to even be difficult, and certainly not impossible. If I could shut off either locker, it'd be the rear one, because it's the rear that wants to push. The front tires are turned; they do fine without any differentiation, especially on soft surfaces. On ice or snow it'd be a different story. On the trail, an automatic locker is fine.

Jeep Rubicons come with selectable lockers because they are expected to deal with harsh weather and auto lockers can be scary on ice. It has nothing to do with off road ability; either type of locker works just fine off road.

Flashman wrote:

Correct - if you think selectable lockers are not the way to go you don't go off road much. Have front and rear ARBs on my Jeep and love them.

I'm not sure why I can't resist responding to this ad hominem nonsense, but my axles have had auto lockers in them for 16 years. In that time, there have been precisely zero times when I have wanted the complexity of a selectable locker. I have wheeled some very tough trails, probably the toughest trails in North America on which a full bodied machine will fit. I'm not saying I've never taken a bypass, but when I did, it had nothing to do with the locker behavior. I've also idled over ledges on which the fancy Jeep Rubicons broke axleshafts, so I certainly wasn't babying it.

I even have onboard air and I just set up a new set of ring and pinions this year, so other than cost, there really would have been no additional work to get the axles set up with selectable lockers. I don't think they offer any performance gain for the trail so I do not have them. If I was going to buy lockers for my pickup, I would buy selectables just to save on tire wear and for ice and snow. Outside of that circumstance, my view is anyone who tells you auto lockers are no good for the trail, quite honestly, doesn't know what he's talking about.