Hi guys brand new member here! First off let me start off by saying that I am a GM type of guy , my personal vehicle Is a 2013 GMC Sierra that I've had since new. For work I drive a 2013 F550, and I absolutely love it! It's a good rig, comfortable, just really don't like the sync. I got the truck with 25,000 miles on it, been driving it for about a year and a half. The truck really has opened up my mind to ford. I'm not a troll and I'm not a ford basher!!! After about a year and a half my f550 has about 83,000 miles. At about 72,000 miles engine oil was found in the trucks coolant, it never over heated or left me stranded. I decided not to drive it after the oil was discovered in the coolant, sent it to the dealership. After many tests by the tech at the dealership it was discovered (or decided ) that the block was cracked. Dealership installed a short block under warranty, as well as the egr cooler , service advisor said that it seemed as if ford knew something, they didn't , head gasket as well as the egr cooler were ruled out, I'm not sure if an actual crack in the block was ever pin pointed. My company nor myself did not pay a dime as it was all charged to warranty, I am concerned as I depend on the truck as if it were my own, it stays at home with me when we aren't working, I am responsible for the maintenance when it's due (not financially). I still really like my f550 despite the cracked block soon as I got back from the dealership it got all six new tires, just got service today. What do you all think is this a known problem?

 

I can't remember many posts, if any about these blocks cracking over the past six years. This certainly isn't a big issue.

 

Maybe a bad casting? That's what dealership said, never dealt with a cracked blocked, and it is a huge dealership. I don't really dog on the truck at times it does idle about 2/3 of the day, could it have happened because of all the idle time it sees? Everyone I've spoken to about it asked me if it over heated, it did not.

 

First I've read about it here.
The only catastrophic and/or complete engine replacement I've seen repeated is early production (2010 production specifically) is dropped exhaust valves. There are some who say glow plugs doing the same, and I'm not going to say it's never happened, but Ford's diagnostic procedure was to pull the glow plugs and if a broken one was found to replace engine. This lead to people saying a glow plug failed and took out the motor but was really just a convenient place to look for damage caused by the exhaust valve.

 

I have not see these so my guess would be a casting defect.


I'd drive the thing and do your pm checks daily as you are suppose to.

 

First I've heard of a cracked block but anything is possible. With well over 500,000 of these made I'm thinking it is an anomoly and wouldn't worry too much about it happening again.

 

Excessive idle time may play a role if cylinders are washing down... Maybe...

 

X2

In the old days it was not rare to buy a new car and have a cracked block before you hit the curb and it was a wise idea to change the oil filer at 100, 300, 750 miles and oil and filter at 1000. First oil filter would give you a handful of sand and metal shavings.

But those days are long gone and as time has gone by so has the chances of getting a cracked block.

Cracks generally occurred in the cyl walls or more common a leaking or blown head gasket.

In order to get oil in your coolant fluid the must be a connection to an oil runner. This generally occurs when the coolant cools down and creates a vacuum pulling in some oil. If you have coolant leaking into cyl you may see some white smoke coming out of your tail pipe.

If the engine heads have been tampered with they might not have been torqued properly or to the proper torque ft lbs and or retorqued after time or miles if that was in the specs.

Any chance that your 550 which idles a lot every got hot??? That is a sure way to develop a issue in the block or heads/gaskets.

Its possible it got too hot and then you jumped in and drove off which brought the temp back down quickly.

DO you have a fast idle switch?

 

We also have to remember that the F550 has a different setup than our F250/F350. Lower power and a different turbo...

I haven't heard of any cracked blocks. Of course we all have heard of catastrophic motor failures and hard to always pinpoint whether it was a valve or other failure after it grenades. And even these failures are not prolific across the fleet. (or we would certainly know about them)

 

I don't know that I've ever heard of a diesel having a cracked block actually.
Part of the reason diesel engines last so long is because of how solid they are due to the higher compression they see compared to gas engines

 

No it doesn't have a fast idle switch but it does have a pto, that when engaged causes it to idle at a higher rpm.

 

It happens. Some of the variations of the GM 6.5 were notorious for developing cracks.

 

Don't forget about the Cummins 53 block also.

 

Prob what occurred was there was a void in the engine block somewhere and over time and miles the void opened up a fracture and it ended up in an oil runner. This is RARE especially today.




FYI

Old timer TIP: (probably no longer applicable) We call our contacts over at the junk yards and ask them to set aside engines with more than 100,000 miles on them (small block chevy) and on occasion we would find a jewel with over 200,000 miles on the engine. Grab them and have the magna-fluxed. Back in those days having internal voids was far from rare due to sand shifting, engine pour being to hard or fast, cooling to quick etc. So engines beyond 100k mi rarely had any internal voids making for a stronger block to build a racing engine. Also those blocks had settled in and had not torqued out of spec so we could do an crank bore alignment, and cyl bore alignment and those engines would produce some serious HP and stay together.

 

Weren't they considered 'well seasoned' blocks?