While some owner’s manuals will honestly get lost over time, others can be misrepresented to mislead buyers.
This can extend beyond trying to hide service records and accident history to the actual owner’s manual fraud. While the majority of vendors are honest, there are a few bad apples out there who may go to any means necessary to conceal the true history of a vehicle.
Knowing the specific construction of a vehicle, such as year, engine size, rear end, and transmission are extremely important considerations when dealing with vehicles, and you can never be too careful when buying or selling an F150.
How to know what engine, rear end and transmission is in an F150
However, if your user’s manual is missing, or you suspect that the user’s manual is fraudulent or has been tampered with as a means of making the vehicle look newer than it actually is, then the specifications of your F150 can be verified by cross-referencing these identifying codes. Of course, a lot of this same information can be found in the user’s manual of your F150.
These codes are used by the auto industry to distinguish vehicles, with the characters in each code containing special information about the vehicle. How do you know the year, engine, engine size, rear end, and transmission of an F150? The specifications for your F150 are contained in various identifying codes located on the truck. After seeing a candy apple red F150 that is in your price range and meets all of the specifications you are looking for how sure can you be on what the sellers says the engine size, rear end, and transmission is in this particular model? According to Bill/Numberdummy, that code will be six digits long with the first two being the district sales office code.If you’re in the market for a used Ford F150 and have seen several options to buy, you need to be certain you’re getting what you’re paying for. including domestic/foreign/limited production, there would be an additional code shown. As shown below, Ford said that for a regular-production vehicle there would be a two-digit code indicating which district sales office ordered it. Now, let's talk about what that space on the certification label was actually used for. (See in General Information in the 1981 Light Truck Facts Organizer and of the 1994 edition of the MPC.)Įssentially there are 7 Ford publications - the yearly factory shop manuals - that say DSO is District Sales Office, and 8 publications that say it is Domestic Special Order - the yearly light truck organizers plus the one master parts catalog.Īnd these two uses of the term DSO continued well into the 90's, as shown by the pictures from the 1994 Taurus and 1995 Continental factory shop manuals. Domestic Special Order: The dealer facts books, aka Light Truck Facts Organizers, as well as the 1980 - 89 master parts catalog define DSO as being Domestic Special Order.And, you'll see it in the next picture, which is from a 1986 FSM. You'll see that on the first picture in the gallery at the bottom of this page, and that's from page 10-00-16 in 1981. District Sales Office: The factory shop manuals for the Bullnose era show DSO as being "district sales office".
And while I'm no expert, I do believe the best source on the subject is Ford's publications. There are many opinions about what "DSO" means on a Ford vehicle's certification label. Entrant #25: Bruce moose4x4's 1996 BroncoĮntrant #27: Troy/66gtk's 1983 F150 XL SWB 4x2Įntrant #30: Mehmetcelikel's Brownie DuallyĮntrant #31: Kristopherdb's 1985 Flairside 4x4Įntrant #35: Dan aka dblohowiak's 1986 F250HDĮntrant #38: Jonathan's 1986 F350 short bed crew cab IDIĮntrant #51: Ken & Kathy's 1985 Flareside