you must have gotten one that was made from tuesday thru thursday. and congrats on that.

mine must have been made on a monday or friday. with 87K miles, the wrench light came on and a half dozen error codes came up. its been in the shop for a week and ford does not know when they can get to it (obviously fixing other 6.4 or 6.0 problems). price will probally 4K, 8K, 12K since most 6.4 estimates seem to come in multiples of 4K.

And yes, I change my fluids and filters probally more in the 2500 mile interval .

so my verdict is the 6.4's are unreliable...if you buy one used..its a crap shoot..you dont know if there is engine noise being masked by oil additives or if there was metal in the fuel filters and the filters where changed then the truck was traded in....thus leaving you with a poteintial fuel system bill.

I'm expecting a combination of rockers, intectors, and quite possibly a fuel pump problem (yes my water drain is drained weekly and there is never any water in the drained fuel).

there's never any metal in the oil or the magnetic drain plug or the magnetic metal screen oil filter...so shouldnt get told bad lifter...or junked up cam.

I've read that these are 100K engines...but I'm thinking you can get a good 60K out of them.

time for a reman engine for me.

 

This is tough to gauge, but I can tell you I bought mine 2008 job 1 truck with 44k on it. I had my concerns when I bought it because of all the threads I had read on here. But I took a chance and did it anyway.

Drove it stock towing my 21' Boat and Truck camper in the bed for the last 5 years.

Only repairs was a EGT sensor once and the radiators once. Normal known issues with this truck...

Now a few weeks ago at 105k, I deleted and tuned it. What an amazing difference it has made. No signs of things about to blow up. Yet...

There was a thread on here a while back that had plenty of trucks going over 200k if I remember right. We see so many threads about problems, but nobody comes on here and says "hey my truck ran great yesterday."

 

Great thread! My 2010 F250 has only 80,000 and I have no issues except the "death shake" and fixed it. Still stock, except for shocks, tires, extra stabilizer on front axil and radio with camera.

I only drive 5 miles a day on my truck.. 2 miles from my house to work and only drive maybe 25 - 35 MPH... tow a 19ft. bay boat maybe three times a year. I don't use it for family trips unless towing boat. 12 foot trailer every now and then.


QUESTIONS:
Is there damage to the longevity of the truck with low mile use?
Can I install a SPARTAN chip and not do the DPF Delete?
Should I sell truck to somebody more worthy and get a bicycle?


Thank you

 

My understanding is it is bad to not take these trucks out and stretch their legs on the highway on regular basis. When you go into regen it takes a while to complete.
You can install a Spartan with the DPF on. They have tunes for both situations that come with the programmer.
Exercise is always good, but man you will be in great shape pulling a boat behind a bike!!!!

 

Thank you JcF204 for information... I would rather the Truck get better exercise than selling it!!!!

 

Well I just rolled over 120k and she is still runn'n strong. Biggest problem she has had is a bad trans temp sensor... Maintenance, stock or tow hp tune, and a monitor is really all it takes. The problem though is most people have purchased these trucks used and have no clue how it was treated by the last owner.

Speak what codes popped up? Whats it doing?

Ran across a completely stock, original motor, and well maintained 6.4 about a week ago. 391k miles on the ticker and the only problem the guy had was rad hoses and he is on his second radiator. Was rather impressive...

 

What is this Death Shake and how do you address it. I always thought that it only happens when you change the geometry of the vehicle. Mine has a crazy wobble on the driver side if i hit a rough overpass joint around 70mph. I have to back out of the throttle to let it settle before I can accelerate again...

 

Check trac bar and bushings, obviously you want to check every other front end component for play as well. Jack the front end up and check ball joints and wheel bearings too.

 

235,000 kms on mine, Ive owned it since 130,000 ish, I deleted it right away, I had the death wobble, which was worn out bushings. Ive had a couple of codes thrown that were involved with my tuner, once I got those figured out, nothing. I knew the risk of buying one and deleted it right away, and I know there can be poor engines no matter what you do with them, like the 6.0s, but I have had crazy good luck so far. Truck has tons of power, gets great mileage, has been dead reliable so far.

I probably wont get another one just due to how much I like the 6.7's so far, but I really cannot complain with my 6.4 truck... yet!

 

At 45 MPH I would hit a small bump in the road and the truck would shake like the space shuttle re-interning the earth atmosphere... Ford balanced, rotated tire, changed out shocks and put majical pixie dust on front end for $4,000 and did not get any better. Alinement guy said the BF Goodwench tires I had when worn were famous for the death shake. New tires(Terra Grappler G2) and front end off road stabilizer. Runs great!

 

Hello, first post on the site.

This tread has me worried, concerned, and relieved some what.

Got a southern clean 08 F250 with 210 K on it. Runs great but the EGR seems needed replaced. I was going to put it through a program to improve the mileage which is only at about 12.5 or so ( with the computer saying it is 22 LOL )

So... What are you guys going to tell me.... ??

If I reprogram and dump the EGR and DPF will I be okay ? I know nothing about the history, I am however good on keeping up with maintenance.

Thanks Guys.

 

First let me say welcome, and if you have any concerns or problems with yours, its probably somewhere here in these fourms. Now to see if I can help with your questions, I myself have probably over read all these posts and worry alot myself about my truck, HOWEVER, to date, mine has not given so much as a burp in way of an issue. Mine is a job 3 and now has 172,500 on it now. Did my first oil change after putting only 2500 on it just for the fact of being my first diesel and wanting to learn how to do it, and ya know what? it still ran LOL. No seriously from all my research with previous owners, mechanics and forums out there, I have discovered that Ford doomed this engine right from the start, knowing what the regen cycles will do with the fuel washdown into the oil and saying a 10k oil change interval would be fine. Well from what I am seeing those that followed the manual like they were suppose to were dropping engines like candy. Most who have done a 3k-5k interval still have them around without issues. Some choose to use the synthetic oil and others use regular, I am using the motorcraft 15w40. I have found that EVERYONE here only uses motorcraft filters period, fuel, oil, air. and if you dont mind pre ordering them you can get them from amazon for like half the price.

As far as deleting them, thats more of a personal choice I think. After doing my search on that I chose not to delete mine. Reason is I only drive about 5k pr year and didnt see the justificaton in the cost of it. Also most who have gotten deleted have also said that yes they have more power and the truck woke up but there isnt much if any improvement in the MPG. Right now mine totally stock it getting 12-15 around town and 18 highway and about 12 towing a 7000 camper. Now should you decide to delete make sure you get a tuner that is worth something. You get what you pay for, and also may i caution you on the temptation to play with it. My mechanic as well as others here have said that some guys who dont know what they are doing or are not educated in using a tuner have turned up the HP and then ended up doing damage to their engines. The timing curve on these are extremely tight so if you dont know how to use it right you could do more damage than good. (another reason i chose to stay stock)

All i can recommend is just do some research before you make any choice and do what is best for your application. And it sounds like with the miles you have on yours you may have gotten through most of the bugs. Radiators are a known issue, doing your oil change at 3-5k is a must, fuel at 10k max and using only motorcraft filters is a must. Keep an eye on your oil level, due to the regen cycle, should you start seeing a lot of oil in the crankcase between changes is a huge sign of a problem.

Like with anything else its a gamble when you buy used, and maintance is the key. Breakdowns will be expensive. But with a good eye and knowing what to be aware of you can catch things before they become costly. Sounds like you are already maintance savvy. Not sure what more i can say to help except this in closing,,,, you rarely hear of all the good 6.4s still out there, there are good ones. And from what I have seen in my local area most of the bad ones died before or right at 100k So maybe you and I are among the lucky ones. I love mine, and I have never been a ford fan and its only my second ford in my life.

Good luck my friend, do your research and ask questions, and above all find a good true powerstroke tech to educate you if possible.

 

The above post covers it pretty well.

 

The number one most harmful thing an owner can do to a stock 6.4 is exactly what your driving schedule is.
Low miles driven and low sustained speeds for short periods of time. I guarantee you this will kill a stock 6.4, and this is the root cause of 95% of the engine problems.
The regen cycle can not be completed properly unless the truck is driven over about 45 MPH for at least 20-25 minutes AFTER the regen cycle starts.

6.4 owners who drive more highway and very little in town driving are the ones "typically" that get these engines to live a long happy life assuming that they perform regular maintenance.

Example to validate my point...
A mining company near me purchased a dozen or so 6.4's in 2008 and 2009.
These trucks never or very rarely left the mine site and therefore were never or very rarely driven at highway speeds for extended periods of time.
Almost every one of these trucks had severe engine damage.
I can't provide much more detail than... warranties denied - lawsuit = truck ended up getting deleted & tuned. Problems solved.

Also, my favorite dealer will tell you that the only 6.4's they've ever seen with severe rocker wear and lifter issues all had one thing in common... either stock trucks or spent most of their miles as stock trucks.

My opinion is this.. 6.4's are great engines if deleted very early in their life or spend their lives running down the highway. Daily driving in town is bad news. They also inherently have more blowby than we're all accustomed to and this caused the turbos, intercooler and intake to soot up, then add an egr that adds to the soot and cooks all this soot onto the intake and down into the valves and heads. Also in my opinion, if the egr's are deleted a blow off valve should be installed and set properly. At 40+ lbs of boost when the throttle is chopped off, pressures spike and pulse violently. I have nothing to back up my thinking on this, but I think this could be a major contributor to cracked pistons, blown head gaskets, and other issues.

Bottom line is, I love my 6.4 and I maintain it religiously and have been doing oil samples since the 2nd oil change. I only have 66k miles on my '08 and they have been very hard miles. Mostly towing fairly heavy and I have a lead foot... and yes... tuned 6.4's with good mods are really fast and a crap load of fun to drive... you just have to be willing to buy lots of tires. lol

Don't be afraid of these engines and remember... every mechanical object known to man does and will fail and more importantly the ONLY time someone gets on an online forum and talks crap about an engine is when they are the ones who had one of these mechanical objects fail.. and MOST importantly the WHY it failed could actually be THEIR fault and not the mechanical things fault....

Did I mention I hate the EPA?

Cheers

 

I will point out though that the video where he compares all three was from 2009 when the 6.4 was still relatively new. Video where he bashes it was from last year, a lot changes in 6 years.