A friend recently told me that Ford owned the Cummins engine company... Anyone able to confirm that? And if they do own them, why do they use the powerstroke engines instead of the Cummins? I don't know much about Cummins, but I do know they generally get longer life than the powerstrokes do...

 

Your friend is wrong.

 

That's what I figured...

 

Chris is correct. At one point Ford owned like 10% of cummins stock. As far as I know, that is gone now.
So I guess at one point ford owned a fuel line fitting on every cummins made!

 

Not the first time I have heard this myth floated, not sure where it is coming from. Even had Dodge guys swear by it. You can buy into Cummins any time you want, symbol is CMI

 

The underlying premise is false, even if Ford had a large stake in CMI. Did GM only use Detroit diesel engines in everything before Detroit/Allison was spun off? Maybe in the very beginning, but not for decades. In heavy duty trucks, you build it with the engine the customer specifies, not necessarily your own. In the medium duty world, Ford still gave you a choice of engines from Ford and others.

 

at one time ford had bought around 5% or so of cummins stock. but sold it back around 1997. so to answer your question, no ford does not own cummins, and never did own cummins.

 

Interestingly, rustyrelic has a Ford badged Cummins swapped into his old fire truck. There is a Ford badge in the I6 engine!

 

What may have people confused is the Ford Blue Diamond Trucks.
They are the F-650 and F-750 trucks that use Cummins engines.
I drive one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_F-650

 

Didn't know Navistar was in on the 650 and 750, also heard Cat was going to discontinue engine for trucks like that after all the EPA BS as of late.

 

In the next few years you are going to see a lot more CNG/LNG (NOT LPG/propane-butane, a different animal) trucks in this class as the pain of $4+ diesel sinks in for local fleets.