Was looking for a turbo diesel and was wondering witch engine is best or the most popular engine to get in the ford truck was looking some where around the 2000 year mark. any info would be nice thanks. also how do they compare to cummins and duramax to.

 

If you want one somewhere around 2000, it will have the 7.3 liter engine. Many people say that was Ford's most reliable diesel engine. The duramax around at that time was the LB7 which was known for injector failures. Dodge had the 5.9 cummins 24v which was a good engine but personally I think Fords are much nicer trucks than Dodge.

 

I agree i think ford look a lot better thanks for the quick response . how is it on mpgs i did some searching got a ton of different answers...

 

Welcome to FTE.

The MPG will depend on what truck you get with the gearing you want. Come down a little further on the forum list to the '99 to '03 7.3 forum and do some reading and ask any question you want. The 7.3 is the engine of choice for me.

 

thanks i will do that

 

hey guys i was also wondering the 6.0 or 7.3 what one is better for mods or say getting in to the truck pull comp.

 

for a daily driver? 7.3
for a pulling truck where you constantly have the engine apart? 6.0

my 02 7.3 4X4 with auto trans and 4.10 gears get around 15 mpg on the road, and around 11-12 in town, but i run it hard.

 

agree on the daily... 7.3...

 

Theirs no doubt the 7.3 was the most reliable engine. But finding one with low miliage is going to be a problem. The 6.0, 6.4, and 6.7 are all complicated engines that need a lot of maintence. But they all produce a ton of power. I have had my 2004 6.0 for five years and it has been in the shop just once under warrenty. I love the truck but when pulling my fifth-wheel on long trips I always worry. With the expensive maintence and the cost of diesel nowdays they are probably more expensive to run that a gaser. But a diesel is like a sports car some are willing to pay more to own them.

 

We have a 7.3 15 passenger 1 ton van in our fleet and is super reliable. Gets low 20's mpg on long distance.

 

go with a 7.3 and don't look back

 

so your 04 has had a small problem in a few years and my early 03 6.o has only had an icp go south in 199450 miles ,gets 17.90 on the road and 15.60 in town and runs rings around a 7.3 powerwise.is not the truck to buy?i've had an 1983 idi that was sluggissh,but reliable,a 1988 extra cab 4x4 that i used for 497,000 miles till cavatation got me.then i had a 97 powerstroke with 202,000 miles on her that i had to sell because the guy offered me stupid money.after the sale i went to my brothers used car lot on a day when the temp was -22 and the only vehical that started,was my present ,early 03 6.0.it was a fleet truck that was let go when she had reached the warranty limit of 100.000.miles,best truck i've ever had.i think most of the 6.0s that were chipped had problems but stock and maintained are a good truck.only thing relaced was an icp sensor and an alternator.

 

Actually the problem wasn't too small. It required new head gaskets, turbo, oil cooler, and a few other things. Total was about $5,000.00. I paid about $800.00 of that to get arp studs. The rest was covered under warrenty. Partly my fault through. I have a turbo boost gauge and it was boosting to over 30. I believe the former owner was shutting the truck down with the turbo too hot and it coked the turbo resulting in the overboosting and head gaskets failing I should have took it in when this started. I do agree with you that with good maintence and not getting a tuner that these are great trucks. Many owners are well over 200,000 miles with few problems. I now run synthetic oil and a diesel additive for piece of mind.

 

I don't believe in of itself a tuner is the evil thing that most people proclaim that it is.

Also, the 6.0 isn't an evil engine like a lot of people proclaim either. However, you do have to to know a little bit more about this engine than you did with the 7.3s Turbo DI and earlier. A lot of people don't like that, for whatever reason good or bad, however, that is the case. A 6.0 isn't like the earlier diesels and people didn't or don't want to get that.

Now a lot of people will shoot off warranty claim numbers and say lookie here about how bad the 6.0 is. Big problem with that is that people were getting a lot of claims through that they shouldn't have and at this time there is no way to be able to sort through and say this claim is crap while this one is kosher. Compound that with the fact that some owners didn't even realize what they did was wrong (or didn't want to admit to it) for the longevity of the engine and just blamed Ford. Which was pretty easy given that we also had new diesel technology in the mix as well (EGR system while not new in of itself, it was new to diesels). Now on Ford's end, there were some repeat repairs that didn't have to happen if the techs were more knowledgeable from the get go. Not knowing about the connection between the oil cooler and the EGR cooler for one (and biggest) error on their side. Also if you look at the later years (and especially with the 2008 and 2009 E-Series vans with the 6.0), they had very little warranty claims. Numbers can be misleading without the context behind them.

I could go on and on on this subject.