I am SO waiting for laminar's response to this! 
Do you expect it to be constructive.....? He'll just come back dribbling his usual crap, completely oblivious to the way everyone else feels about his total lack of any intelligent response.....Same #$%*, different smell..... 
Without his posts in this thread it was all cruising along nicely....
Mick
Man, you really have a crush on me. If you do truly have a problem with me I'd much rather sort it out over PM than have you following me around thread crapping wherever I go. So please, send me a PM and we'll hug it out.
******
Let me clarify what I'm trying to say - anecdotal evidence in support of a larger pattern is useless. It's only useful in countering a definitive statement.
Incorrect:
Anecdotal evidence: My Honda engine lasted 100,000 miles
Conclusion: All Honda engines will last 100,000 miles
Valid:
Definitive statement: All Honda engines fail at 100,000 miles
Anecdotal evidence: My Honda engine lasted past 120,000 miles
This is not up for debate, this is not me being argumentative, this is a fact.
For a statistically relevant sample size, you need a random selection of n=20-30 (at least) before you can start making accurate conclusions.
Now let's look at our particular situation. There is nowhere near 20 responses per truck/model year, and the sampling here is far from random. We can conclude that a statement such as "My parents '05 F150 4.6 has served them very well with no problems at 130k miles" shouldn't be taken into consideration when determining how reliable a vehicle may or may not be. Does that make sense?
Add to this the variance in peoples' perceptions - what's a big deal to one person might not be to another. I have a friend with an '82 F150 who was talking about how great and reliable it's been, all he's done is rebuilt the engine, transmission, replaced a bunch of parts, etc., and he was being serious. To him, none of that was any big deal. To someone else, a broken cupholder could be the end of the world. So having someone say, "I've had my vehicle for X number of miles and it's been great" means very little. Additionally, people often get caught up in brand loyalty, and that also can influence a person's perception of a vehicle's performance and reliability.
As has been mentioned already, a vehicle's reliability is greatly dependent on prior maintenance. Unless someone always took their vehicle somewhere reputable to get serviced and has meticulous records, it's very hard to know how well it was taken care of. I keep a spreadsheet detailing all of the maintenance and work I do on my vehicles, but a buyer can't really know if I actually changed the oil every 2500 miles, or if I just typed that in for fun and let it go 10,000 miles between changes. Buying any vehicle used involves a certain degree of risk that can't be mitigated, especially when you're only given a limited amount of time to look the vehicle over (as appears to be the case in your situation).
Given these assumptions, your best bet toward determining a vehicle's reliability is to find someone that has compiled data from a large number of vehicles.
Consumer Reports is the only publication I'm aware of, there may be more (or better) ones out there. MSN Autos also has some data complied on durability, problematic components, etc. listed by model year.
For example, here's the page on the F150. They make it pretty easy to find specific problems by model year and compare spec across brands.
I'm sorry if my responses came off #$%*-ish, that wasn't my intention. It's hard to convey tone over the web, especially since I rarely use smileys (they're the laugh track of the internet).
I also didn't mean to insinuate that this thread is worthless, though I realize now that's how my first post comes across (hindsight, right?). What I meant to say is worthless is a single persons' perceptions as to a specific vehicle's reliability. Obviously, you can glean a lot about comfort, capability, and performance from reading specific experiences, keeping in mind that people are more likely to be forgiving to "their" brand and that a person's judgement is limited by his or her experience (someone that's never driven an Audi or Mercedes might believe an Impala has a nice interior, for example).
I like his opinions in a way, but I wonder what drives him.
Pursuit of truth and a disdain for misinformation. Unfortunately I'm limited by the fact that the best means of communication that humans have is language.
But if CR was really that bad like you think they are, most likely they would have died long ago.
Two words - Harley Davidson.
I apologize for derailing the thread in this manner, it wasn't my intent to make it spin this far out of control. Please carry on.
