Once you learn when your truck is in regen you will notice the subtle changes in it's mannerisms. I'm afraid a 10 mile trip down the freeway won't do it for you. It will tow >>no doubt about it, the truck is it's best in stock form when it's towing. I'm sure with your early involvement in the learning process of the truck you'll figure out how to keep it happy. Keep on reading, that's the trick.

 

Wow! Okay, now I'm really confused. Apparently, from what I've been told: 1.) I won't notice regen because I don't drive it on the highway enough to have it regen? 2.) driving it 100 miles a week (10 miles each way x 5=100) on the highway isn't enough to make it regen. 3.) delete the dpf and possibly void my warranty, because it will run better AND it's better for the truck. 4.) leave it stock in order to get the maximum towing benefits?
I'm not trying to be difficult or anything, but I'm a little bummed knowing that someone just told me I'm going to damage my truck because its not on the highway enough.
Here's my reason for not immediately doing a dpf delete.
1.) want to be able to pass smog (but I know I can get around this by removing it every two years when I need to smog it).
2.) do not want to void my warranty.
3.) don't want black smoke billowing out my exhaust whenever I put my foot into it.
4.) afraid that when I do tow and go up hills that smoke will pour out of my exhaust as I'm climbing a hill.

But in the other hand if I don't delete the dpf, I'm going to ruin my truck because I'm not driving it on the highway enough?
Am I getting this wrong?

 

No, welcome to the world of the modern diesel pickup. let me see if i can help a little.

You can tell your truck is "CLEANING EXHAUST FILTER" because it will say so in the little message center. Right above the steering colume. however, the message is fleeting, it only last a few seconds. When the truck first came out it stayed on until cleaning was complete but they changed it in later software. as you get to know the truck you will get a feel for it. you lose a little power, it sounds kind of tinny and some have smoke. if you miss the message but suspect it is cleaning push the middle button in the message center then the top one and the message center will roll through several checks and the last one will say "CLEANING EXHAUST FILTER". If it doesn't then it is not cleaning. You can keep doing that and checking, if it has started and then you no longer get the cleaning message it has completed, or abandoned the attempt. You can abort the cleaning by stopping and putting the tranny in park. Also, it should not start or complete a cleaning if you are ideling or driving slowly, I think it's something like 35 MPH.

You will not ruin the truck by driving short distances but you will create a situation where the truck will not complete a cleaning, after several of those it will give you a message "DRIVE TO CLEAN EXHAUST". You should do so and keep checking the message center to be sure it's happening and that it completes. How long it takes and how far you will have to drive varies, but you pretty much have to do it.

there is no question a tuner will void your warranty. Some guys have local dealers who work with them but most dealers won't. So, if you delete you're on your own and that can be an expensive proposition with these trucks.

While you will not ruin the truck on short runs I would think that a long term pattern of short runs and aborted cleanings would contribute to long term damage to the engine. Given everything I've heard about CA I'm guessing it is a Bio-diesel state. If so, that adds to your problems. Biodiesel is a vile substance (my opinion) that does damage to our engines because it contributes to oil dilution and growth even more than dino diesel. The dino diesel will to some extent 'boil" out of the oil. The bio diesel will not. you may find that in the EPA report on biodiesel in modern engines. It is posted under my signature on this forum. Back about 2 years ago. And if the bio-diesel is rated anything over B5 (5% soy beans or whatever the heck they use this week) our trucks are not rated to use anything over B5 (see your owners manual). Neither Ford nor the bio-diesel industry office will speak with us about that.

You need to know that before all the government assistance with these trucks Ford diesels were expected to run without many problems to the 300 to 400,000 mile mark and more. So the trem "long term damage" is relative. If you will be happy with a 100,000 to 150,000 mile truck then I think you will probably get it without changing much of what you are doing. These trucks are old enough now that they are showing up for sale with that and more mileage and appear to be stock. So don't let all this stuff worry you. just get on the forum and read and learn. Oh yeah, one way to know when the truck goes into cleaning is a tuner, most of the non-delete (street) tuners will tell you that. Hope this helps.

added on edit. Oh yeah, if you find you are experiencing dilution and growth with your oil try my little maintenance plan. It's about 2 pages back on this thread and it did help my truck.

 

Stanley, I can't thank you enough for that well thought out, and quite helpful advise. I now know what exactly to look for when it comes to regen. I have been reading up on the Banks 6-gun systems and although they do not delete the dpf, they seem to improve performance and decrease back pressure. Also, since they are carb certified I won't need to worry about smog checks. Plus the tuner will probably help me out too (I'm assuming I can remove it if I need to take it in for warranty work).
Once again, thank you so much.
Dave

 

Hi Dave
I hope I did not alarm you. Stanley gave you excellent info and advice. The truck is new to you. Enjoy it! Drive it and use it the way you intended to. Read your owners manual and any diesel supplement manual too. Get to know your truck. This site has a lot of info also. It may take a month or a year for you to decide what you want to do with the truck pertaining to modifications. Make these informed decisions as they apply to your personal situation and what suits you the best. It will be difficult to make that decision when you don't know your truck and the effect of your use on this truck. Everybody can offer advice or even share their own experiences but ultimately, it's your truck and you know how it will be used. So, use it...a month, a year... Then decide what is best for you and your truck. Regardless of what you decide, you are going to love this truck, especially when you hook up your trailer. They are good.

 

I'm glad Stanley chimed in, I couldn't for the life of me remember how to get the message center to tell me how to display if it's in regen or not and was in the act of looking it up when the wife distracted me and I never got to finish my thought process.
One thing I will add is I work 13 miles from work, by the time the truck is warm enough to go into regen, lets say for discussion it's 5 miles that only left me with 7 or 8 miles to finish a regen and that's not enough. Many a time I drove past my work exit and home exit to finish a regen. So your wife's 10 mile drive on the freeway really won't help. I think the rest Stanly covered, and any questions on the banks tuner will have to be answered by Senix or one of the other guys who run them. Don't be flustered and I'm sorry if I kind of left you in a lurch, I really didn't mean too.

 

Yes, Ca does have biodiesel, but that most definitely is not what I put in my truck. Most of the gas stations around here call it "diesel #2."

 

RU sure? I thought diesel # 2 was winter blend. But I never ever go where it's cold when it's cold so I could also be wrong. If it's bio the pump should be have a lable like B5. I think that's a federal requirment. The states ( mostly the corn belt) where it is state law to pump only 20% have some funkey way of dsoing it, I think it's like B 11+ or something like that.

 

Hmmm...well now you have me thinking. I guess I'm going to have to take a ride to the gas station and look. I never noticed anything about biodiesel, but now you have me concerned. I'll repost after I go take a look.

 

DF 1 is winter. DF 2 is summer....to the best of my knowlege.

DF 2 is probably bio but not posted, ask them.

 

Okay, this is the pump that I get my gas at. Went in and asked the clerk, but as usuall, she had no clue. She called the supplier and let me talk directly with them and they assured me that there is no Biodiesel mixed in with diesel #2, not b5, or any other amount. However, the truck is designed to run on B5 (5% mixture of biodiesel), but not any more than that.

 

OK, so I had it backwards, no 1 is winter, no 2 is summer. in my defense I have to say that I have never been anywhere in either diesel where I needed winter blend. And no bio there. I think that's a good thing.

I called Loves (a chain of truck stops) once and talked to the manager and ask if he was selling bio. I was trying to track down the source of my 6% dilution. He gave me a straight answer: "we take whatever is the lowest cost to us. If the rebate for selling bio is in full effect we sell bio, if not we sell dino" I was kind of suprised at that answer and forgot to ask if the pumps had bio stickers. I'm still thinking that they must put a sticker on to sell bio but I don't guess it works the other way, take the sticker off to sell dino.

 

Lol! Good story. Yeah, I do know that there are a few select places that do sell biodiesel, and all of those places clearly advertise that they are selling biodiesel.
At least I know now.

 

I'll chime in here. I'm in San Jose. My usual commute consists of 7miles residential roads taking the kids to school and then a 15mile freeway trek up 101 to work which can be slow going. It's about a 30-45minute commute. The evening route is the same reversed. I'm driving empty most of the time in these conditions.

I regen on average every 225-275miles in these conditions. If I'm on a family trip up to Reno fully loaded with stuff in the back, I'll regen around 300-330miles. Regens runs about 12-15miles on straight freeway only after coolant is >160F. If I'm lucky, regen finishes about a block away from work. It'll go for over 45min in stop-and-go traffic and drain your tank. Regens are more frequent in cold weather.

The regen message is very easy to miss since it flashes for about 1-2 seconds and never comes back unless you press setup-info and let it scroll to the end.

It takes about 5 minutes to heat up before any good happens. A trick I've learned is, if you know you can let regen run for a least 10minutes, let it burn as long as you can. Otherwise shut it down by throwing it into park or neutral. . It'll try restarting again later. Obviously you can't do this indefinitely. All of the fuel spent heating the DPF up is wasted if it doesn't get at least 800-900F where soot starts burning on its own. The optimum temperature for soot burn is up at 1100-1200...the only time I've seen this is on freeway.

My truck does feel constipated under load when it's due for regen I guess due to the DPF backpressure, so I try to plan long freeway shots or find excuses for a weekend lunch way out Half Moon Bay with the wife. Invariably, it won't always regen when expected and start just as I pull into my driveway on the way back.

Such a PITA...

BTW, I've never seen any smog police here in the Bay Area as long as I've been here since 1972 and I do see an occasional fellow 6.4 who's tuned... We short on cops in general due to budget cuts.

I've looked at tuners in detail. I don't see how I'd get any ROI on fuel savings anytime soon. Buy it for power, not fuel savings. Regens account for about 6% of my fuel consumption. Except for the Banks and DPF-R, there are quite a few complaints about shift quality since the shift strategies are replaced. However, the power gains are crazy