Let me preface this by saying I don't drive my truck much in the winter, I use a little car to beat in the snow and SALT, only driving the truck every couple of weeks to run a tank of fuel through it and keep me happy. Anyway, took a little road trip with it in our last cold spell. The evening before, I drove 6 miles to a truck stop to fuel up, temps around -20 deg. F. Left a heated garage! Shut off truck to fuel up, and truck oil temp was at 148 degrees. Started truck about 5 minutes later, oil was 136 degrees F. Drove return trip home, 6 miles, and temp hit approx. 165 degrees F. Return trip included about 4 miles of highway at 55-60 mph.

The next day I again leave from heated garage and outside temp is about -20 to -30deg. F. The first 5 miles at speeds 0-50 mph , and next 20 miles on Interstate highway speeds of 65 mph+. Not until approx. the 25 mile point did my oil temps hit the 197/198 operating temp. Remainder of the trip, truck stayed in the 197/198 range. On the return trip, outside temps were still a ways below zero, but the truck actually heated up to the 202/204 degree range. I am not concerned about those temps, just the fact the truck would not heat up to begin with, and it stayed at the 197/198 temp. on the trip over, but on the trip back, I started getting higher temps.

Not sure what modern marvel of a T-stat is in this truck, but in older technology I would suspect a T-stat failure.

Has anyone else watched there oil temps on a cold start up to see how long it took warm up? What were your observations?

 

Sounds normal to me. At those temps if you park idling for five minutes you can watch your temperature gage drop, radiator is dissipating heat faster than the truck generates it.

 

The problem is, every other vehicle I have ever had would be at temp before the first 3-4 miles. Even my other 6.0 engines woul heat up faster although I never new actual temp. The temp that is being recorded I believe is the oil temp. not coolant. Temp will drop, but should get to operating temp before there is much affect from radiator cooling. 25+ miles (20-30 minutes) seems like a long time to get to temp.

 

Winter fronts are needed to warm up any faster, oil temp included. Ford plans for the worst, and it takes a lot to keep 400hp cool pulling 20,000lbs up the Eisenhower pass in record heat.

 

Your 6.0 had dummy temp. gauges and if you were going by them you were wrong. Under normal ambient temps it takes a diesel, 6.0 included, app. 20 highway miles to totally heat saturate. Your present temps actually look quite good considering ambients and length of trips.

 

Yeah I was gonna say with those temps a Winter Front is needed to keep the engine warm. I can attest to the part about the temp going down in idle, when it was 7 and 9 degrees, I have a 13 mile highway 65+ to work. When I got to work, I usually idle for about 2-3 minutes to let the turbo wind down and just let the inside get a little warm before I turn it off. I don't know what actual temperature it moved to, but my air went from hot to lukewarm QUICK, and like you I thought something was wrong until I spoke to the SMT at my local dealership who explained what they did above. They need something to cool that beast under the hood!

 

I assume you have all the emissions equipment? I noticed the warm up times for my truck are a lot longer now with my EGR deleted. My 20-25min drive to work only gets the coolant up to 160deg in the morning, and that is with 50deg ambient temps.

 

Everything stated above is true. My 6.0 did warm up faster, but it heated up (over heated) much faster under load as well. The 6.7 primary cooling system is larger than the 6.0 was, but a large percentage of the cooling duties are no longer the responsibility of the primary radiator. EGR and transmission cooling duties are now handled by the secondary radiator. The oil cooler is also located down low on the side of the oil pan so it actually gets some air cooling effect and doesn't get heat soaked by the top of the engine like the 6.0 system.

I can tell you that at 0F with >90% of my radiator covered, it still takes me upwards of 15 miles to reach full range EOT and ECT. The transmission takes much longer distances to even come close to full temp. If I let the truck idle to warm up for 5-10 minutes, I can get to 130F in about 3-4 miles, but it still takes a long time to reach full temp. Obviously the harder you are working it, the faster it will warm up. I don't get to work it too hard on my normal commute so it is rare that I ever see 180F after my 9 mile commute. You have to remember that this engine is more efficient that previous Powerstroke platforms. More efficient means less fuel burned which equals less heat for the same amount of work.

What you are reporting sounds perfectly normal. There have been several threads addressing this same issue and the general consensus still remains the same. It takes a long time to heat a 6.7 up! As for the thermostats (yes there are two in each system for a total of 4), I don't recall hearing any confirmed thermostat failures either high or low temp and we definitely aren't seeing any widespread problems.

 

Normal for these motors...anything 08 and up due to the extra cooling capacity.

 

I guess, this really confirms my use of a commuter for short trips. Heat is the enemy when as someone said pulling some pass with 20k behind you, but it is also what makes a diesel so efficient. All kinds of problems if they don't get to operating temps.

Thanks for those that provided actual experience and input. And yes, I am completely stock, and will remain that way.

 

I agree. I don't have the problem of really low temps, or that white stuff that lands on the ground like a lot of you do, so I try to only commute in the truck once a week, rest of the time on my 250cc enduro bike (which takes about 90 seconds to get to operating temp!). A small engined vehicle with an aluminum block is much quicker at getting to temp. With commuting, my truck only gets 13-13.5mpg, deleted. While some of that is due to stop-start, most of it is because of it never getting to operating temp.

 

FWIW
The winter front definately helps.
My truck is deleted.
Trip to work is 1 mile in town (a couple of lights) then 6 miles at 60 MPH, then another mile in town. At 0F and below I am up to temp (195 coolant / 190 oil) by the time I hit town (6 miles on the highway).
Usually start getting some heat in the cab at the 2 or 3 mile mark (about 130 coolant temp by then).

 

Even in the warmer temps, my truck won't hit operating temps until approx. 7-8 miles have gone by, 4 of them at 60 mph. I don't like to put the truck through to much torture, i.e. driving 60 mph on a cold engine, but I wouldn't be able to drive it if I didn't. My routine when I drive the truck is start it up and pull it out of the garage. Then, drive about 1/4 mile to get morning paper and bring back to house for wife, then drive another 3/4 mile @ 25-30 mph to secondary highway. Then drive 60 mph to first stop, approx. 3.5 miles. Then proceed to drive 35-45 mph next 6 miles to work. Usually in warm weather, truck is up to temp around 3/4 way there. However, the truck heater is providing warm air withing sight of my home, even in the cold temps. I believe this truck must have some type of supplemental electric heat in the air stream. Not sure about that, just that coming out of the warm garage, truck never seems cold.