Hello everyone,
I have a 2005 6.0L powerstroke. I was having hard starts in the morning with alot of white smoke. So, took it to dealer to check glow plugs and relay. After telling the tech what was going on he suggested to reprogram the PCM, TCM, and FICM. I was told there was a "hard start" update and it would take about 24hrs for everything to adjust. About 5 miles from dealer I noticed a huge cloud of "white smoke" coming out of the exhaust. It reacted like my egr was clogged. I had to feather the gas pedal to move. 3 days latter, drove to work fine and when I pulled in the drive way another huge cloud of "white smoke." Obviously its running lean. It does clear up after I press the gas for awhile. Is it ok to drive with this condition? I changed out the fuel filters about 4 months ago. Do I have to change those filters again because they could be crystalized? The dealer put the latest and greatest into the truck and I get stuck with fogging truck and repair bills. I didn't have these symptoms this bad until they did the reprogram. I'm sort of lost and don't know where to start diagnosing this problem. Thanks in advance.

 

would like info on this one myself. experienced similar for first time last night. got on it pretty hard to pass someone only for short distance, came to a stop acted like it was loading up puffed white smoke for a few seconds and cleared out.??

 

Have you tried to see what the odor of the smoke was?? Fuel or coolant?

Could be more than one thing going on. Failed EGR cooler and pumping a lot of coolant into the cylinders OR combustion leaking into the fuel rail (failed copper washer on injector) or failing FICM or all of the above.

Park the truck nose down over night then pull the EGR valve to see if you have any coolant inside the intake.

Pull the secondary fuel filter cover (under the hood), the fuel pump fuse, and the FICM fuse. Have someone crank the truck over and watch for bubbles inside the filter housing. If you see bubbles you have combustion gas leaking into the fuel rail (injector washer).

Check the FICM voltage--there is a test procedure in the tech folder at the beginning of this forum. The tech that reprogrammed your truck should have been able to tell if you had a bad FICM and/or GPCM if he really looked.

 

Thanks for ur quick responses. Do you diesel friends have any suggestions for a EGR cooler? If so, which brands and part numbers for this 6.0L. Thanks

 

If you plan on keeping the egr system I would go with the bullet proof EGR cooler

 

UPDATE: took to dealer today. They discovered that its the Oil Cooler that is bad. I guess its leaking into the EGR and causing all of the white smoke. They cleaned the EGR and pressure tested the oil cooler and it failed. They want $1,400 to do this reapir. I guess its a 10 + hr. job. Is there an aftermarket oil cooler that is better than factory? Also, is that the normal cost for this kind of job. Not feeling to happy right now. Thankx

 

Put a coolant filter on after the repair. Should help keep you new oil cooler nice and open.

 

The coolant passages in the oil cooler plug up causing the EGR cooler to starve for coolant and the "welds" fail in the cooling tubes. The EGR cooler leaks coolant into the pistons and turns to steam, thus the white smoke. Considering the price of the oil cooler repair kit and time to do the job that's perfectly fair. The bulletproof EGR cooler is a LOT better piece than the factory cooler but there is no better substitute for the oil cooler than the factory cooler UNLESS you go with the complete bulletproof system which is about $2200, and you'd still be out labor. FWIW--you can find the oil cooler kit for about $200 and buy the bulletproof EGR cooler and do the job yourself if you're at all mechanically incined. It's NOT that hard. I would do a coolant flush BEFORE changing the oil cooler because if you do it after you have the potential for plugging the new oil cooler.

 

My local Dealer also quoted $1400 to replace the oil cooler,
my EGR cooler is still okay (apparently, no coolant lost in 2k miles).
I'm considering the bulletproof oil/egr kits.

 

Take that $1400, invest it in the bulletproof kit and do it yourself. If your EGR cooler is still good then it will BE good for a long time to come.