Just to let you know where Ford stands on the issue. IF the high pressure system fails, they WILL do an extensive examination of the fuel, if they find ANY evidence of there having been water in the system, that will automatically void any warranty work. When the HPFP went on my '15 they took about 40 fuel samples from various places in the system, and they found NO evidence pf there EVER having been ANY water in the system, so then they warrantied it! It was must one of those random failures. Now with that being said, it is not very often that A complete system fails without there being some contamination of the fuel.
But Ford is not the only one. The other two will not warranty for contaminated fuel either. And with these high pressure common rail fuel systems, contamination will kill any of them. The pumps run around 30,000 psi, and run metal to metal with extremely close tolerances. They are not like the old systems that ran 3 or 4 thousand psi and a lot looser tolerances.

Another question to you. Is the station selling bio diesel? Bio will hold more water than straight petro fuel. I will not run bio in my rig, period. Even tho Ford says we can run up to 20% bio.
I know, all this sucks, but it is part of running an oil burner!
Best of luck to you, and just be sure to keep her dry as you can! The small amount of water that you saw when you drained may be the only time you ever see it..........hopefully!

 

Thanks for giving me those details, glad yours was taken care of. When Ford examines for water, they cannot possibly be making a warranty ruling based upon the presence of water in the fuel tank or even up to the DFCM - because if there is no evidence of water upstream of the DFCM, then water cannot be the cause, correct?

I understand Ford's position - if water ruined the pump or injectors, then it was not material or workmanship failure and therefore not their problem. I get that. But they also need to be reasonable when the customer is doing everything in good faith to operate their vehicle in the manner in which Ford intended, to include proper fuels. If bad fuel is common enough to cause a failure more than once in a blue moon, Ford needs to engineer a system which protects their engine and their customer from this problem happening to them.

I'm going to be careful, no doubt. But my understanding is that only when the WIF light triggers is there any possibility of water making it up to the engine. And even then, water may not destroy the pump or injectors. I've heard the Bosch CP4.2 is a little on the "easy to destroy" side...

 

Another thing, as you asked in an earlier post about "all" fuel having some water in it.......what is the station doing to mitigate it on their end. If they have a high quality filtration/ water separation system or just the bare minimum........ generaly the high volume truck stops will be moving enough fuel to keep condensation from being a problem, and they generally are using a pretty good filtration system. It is for this reason that most on here try to buy from those places.

 

If ford find water in your tank they will void your warranty. The water separator is imperfect and will pass water. At best it is small amounts of water. Some people extra water filtration on different lift pumps.


Donovan

 

I used to drain monthly but have only done so a few times this year.


I have only had a few bubbles and that was a few weeks ago after five years of nothing that I can remember. I think it was from sideways rain from the remnants of hurricane Patricia where it rained here for six days in a row and needed fuel. I filled up yesterday in more sideways rain as it has been raining since Saturday. The pumps at Sams are under cover but were still dripping wet and the nozzle was wet, which I wipe off before shoving it in my truck.


However, this last batch of off road diesel I put into my JD tractor has had a few ounces of water. I have drained a shocking amount of water out of the separator on that thing the last two times I've run it. I will no longer be getting off road diesel from that station, which has been fine in the past. This is my first direct experience with fuel that contains water.