here is my take on the two, granted its late, i have had a few, so here it goes. I work at a busy east bay dealership with a agressive fleet repair shop. If I was to talk about the diesel aka 6.4 I would say seriously look at your options, in that the v-10 is a torquey engine, not long on horsepower... now when looking at your needs, is pulling your needs or haulin *** down the freway? What i see with the 6.4's is that there are MANY issues connected with them... most of all the amount of qualified techs that work or are willing to work on them. THE 6.4s BREAK DOWN, frequently, what i see is that when they do they are expensive. as opposed to the gas counterpart. Dont get me wrong the gas engines break down... but no where close to the same, at least what I see. Traditionally diesel engines were designed to be "strong" and take what you dished out to them, now NOT SO MUCH. HOWEVER I have noticed there is a big group of guys out there that love putting a lot of $$$ in to there vehicle to eliminate some the of the normal problems connected with the stock truck. As for what one member said about the 7.3's I believe he was misguided, the 7.3 diesel engine IS designed to go 500k miles yet if ANY MAN believes a engine can go 300k miles without a problem is sadly mistaken, i have said once an will say it again, that if it has "tit's or tires YOU will have problems with them" FORD does have problems, and yes there are resolves to those problems, however the 6.4's need to be left to people that can afford to deal with them. Good luck with your decision.

 

It looks to me that a big ole gas engine will work for you. But if you want a diesel, and you are looking at the 6.4L diesel, and I wanted it, then go for it. Yes, as it has always been, diesel is more expensive to service and maintain. I do not necessarily buy all the , doom and gloom, of the 6.4l. To me its just like everything else, the 1% that have issues tend to get all the attention. We dwell on the few that have issues. How many have not had issues? I hate to say it, there are probably more that have not had issues than have had issues. I have one, 65000 on it now and the issues I have had have been the DPF clogged and a new PCM and a new fan clutch. All covered by Ford and after 36k on the speedo. I sympathize with the ones that have had major issues. I really do, and its good to know that it "could happen" to me.

 

That would be me. So what exactly are you saying? It can go a long way but can break down? Seems like that's what I was trying to say...

 

perhaps it is the way i read how it was writtin, i know them to to be the bulding blocks of the Super Duty line up. yet as i see it not many people acruatly describe just what that engine is capable of, most comunications are only described as "they too break down" instead of articulating the initial design... Last night when i sent what i did I was trying to be clear how bad a design the 6.4's really are and the contrast between them. When a non-technical person is reading a message they dont know that you are short versing the common understanding of the 7.3 they see that you are saying they are a flawed design too. I too am guilty of not offering my knowalage base everytime i comunicate to the public, that i have taken for granted that when talking to men espesially i assume they know what i am talking about rather than breakin it down for them.
That is why i often hold back talking to people, as the breaking it down part for them is time consuming, and most people expect to hear from technical people is blah, blah, blah! hope you wer not too offended when i said what i did but quite frankly i dont look at the author as much as i do the content.

 

Nah, you didn't offend me any! I just think we were making the same point, that's all! I don't think either one is a necessarily flawed design, just that the newer 6.4L is much more intricate and therefore there are more things that can go wrong.

The 7.3L is a technological dinosaur compared to the 6.4L, and this simplicity allowed it to be refined to the point where failures were much less common and repairs were cheaper. I like the 7.3L engine, and I'd like to own one at some point, but at this point the newest of them are over eight years old, and they can still break down!

 

Thanks for the debate, its educational. Seems there are a ton of 08-10 psd on the market, i have found 2 v10s and a suffivient amount of 5.4s. Drove a 5.4 crew cab yesterday with an 8 ft bed and seemed sluggish at first but more responsive once moving, and that was empty towing nothing. Trying to look into the certified ford program where they powertrain warranty to 100k miles. Will keep up search. Makes me wonder if people arent selling there v10s or that many more psds were made these years. Pretty much lowering the 5.4 to the bottom of the list, but could alwsys regear. Dont really want to open pandoras box with superchargers for the 100 ft lbs extra torque, rather jist keep search up for v10. Thanks again for insight.

Eric

 

I believe at one point around 75% of Super Duty pickups were sold with diesel engines. Not sure about the exact numbers, but I know that most are PSDs. The second engine by volume is the 5.4L, and third was the V10.

You seem disappointed with the performance of the 5.4L, this would probably get worse when you put your trailer behind it. It's a perfectly capable engine that'll last forever, but many of us want more power than that in a truck as heavy as these.

What did you think about that '09 V10?

 

Actually i enjoyed the v10, it it the nicest of the trucks i have looked at in regards to bells and whistles. Its also tends to be the more expensive of all of them, actually less than 2k dollar difference between the 09 v10 and 2010 diesel both with less than 20k miles. Just trying to make decision once and not over analyze at same time, so far the 09 is in first place and the way im leaning.

 

Well finally pulled the trigger. Bought the 08 250 Lariat (30k miles) thats in my avatar. Drove a ton of them and decided on this one. Its a 5.4 with a 6.5 bed and what ford was calling the offroad package which is geared differently? Felt quicker on accelerations than the previous 5.4 I drove with the 8 foot bed. My local dealership certified it so I am good for 100k miles on the powertrain warranty. I seriously considered the 09 v10 but that worked out to be about 8k more than the 27.4k I paid and couldnt justify the money. The only option the 09 had this didnt was the 10 and the back up camera. Didnt seem worth it to me. Anyway this photo is from today loading up 75 trees (Still have hundreds more to go) to avoid the hurricane coming. Thanks again for the help and the diesel will be the next model I buy, hopefully a 2032 model when I trade this one in. Thanks again for the advice.

eric

 

Sounds like you got a great truck that will last you a long time. Congratulations!

 

Those 5.4's are work horses. I think it will serve you well.

 

Congrats on the new truck. Revisiting the reliability topic... It is kind of funny how the 6.0 has been referred to as the problem child but yet in 2006 according to wikipedia the 6.0 had the lowest number of warranty claims of any ford vehicle. Huh?

I purchased a 2010 6.4 and have been nothing but thrilled. I have a friend that has had a fair share of problems with his 08' and no doubt have read on these forums about others misfortunes. As much as these forums help and have great information I also think they tend to portray a few owners problems in capital letters. I have yet to have 1 complaint in over a year of ownership with my 6.4.

I had a 5.4 in a 09' f150 FX4 which I really enjoyed had a couple of minor cosmetic problems (brake light was leaking water and roof liner kept falling down) but mechanically was sound. Just underpowered so I upgraded to the 6.4!!