- Last year, Ford issued a stop-sale on F-150s in Australia for nine months.
- Pickup has had a defective steering rack and non-compliant exterior lights.
- Ford sold fewer than 800 examples of the full-size F-150 locally in 2025.
Ford offers the F-150 in Australia for a few years now, and while it’s the most popular pickup truck in America, it’s so far failed to make a significant impression in Australia. This is due in part to its high cost, but also to a slew of annoying issues that have made it quite troublesome.
As Ford only builds the F-150 in left-hand drive, Ford joined forces with Thai company RMA to set up a local factory in Australia, where the pickup is converted to right-hand drive. Ford has a poor reputation for quality, particularly over the past few years, so some of the F-150’s issues can be traced back to its American manufacturing hubs.
Read: Chinese Brand Says American Pickups Will Soon Go Down Under
However, issues were discovered from the conversion process as well, including a defective steering rack, non-compliant exterior lights, and fuel lines, prompting several recalls and eroding confidence in the model. At one stage, the company even issued a nine-month stop-sale and now says it’s getting on top of these concerns.
With the updated model, key hardware has been reworked, including a substantially redesigned steering rack and intermediate shaft, while Australian-market trucks now use headlamp units sourced directly from the original supplier rather than modified existing US-spec parts.
Ford Admits Missteps
“We acknowledge that there have been some teething problems in the first few years of this [F-150] program,” program director of Ford’s International Markets Group, Iain Jones, said. “Quality and safety are non-negotiable at Ford, and that’s why we took voluntary actions last year to look after our customers. Ford Australia and global product development engineers have collaborated with RMA to ensure full standards of quality are at the centre of every process that we’ve gone through.”
Australia’s F-150 is now based on the facelifted 2026 model in the US, which itself should have fewer issues. In addition, Car Sales reports that changes were made to RMA’s production line, with more quality-assurance gates installed to ensure problems are quickly identified.
Other updates extend to less visible areas, including revised electrical architecture and wiring looms aimed at improving long-term durability and system security.
Local prices for the F-150 start at AU$115,000 ($80,200) for the entry-level XLT and can rise to as much as AU$164,000 ($114,400) for the flagship F-150 Platinum in short and long-wheelbase guises. All models are sold with Ford’s 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6 and 10-speed automatic transmission.
Last year, Ford sold just 792 examples of the F-150 in Australia, trailing the Toyota Tundra with 837 sales, the Chevrolet Silverado with 2,209, and the Ram 1500 with 2,674 sales.
