When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Looking to purchase a 2006 Ford F250 6.0 FX4 from a friend of mine with 141000 miles on it. I have known him as long as he has had the truck and he is the second owner. He knew the first owner. The truck is bone stock and has been very well cared for. The only reason he is selling it is he is about to get a company truck. He currently only drives the truck on the weekends as he has a commuter car now. For the last week or so I have been reading about the 6.0 powerstroke and now want to get yalls opinion on my situation. I cant go climb all over the truck and run codes because we now live about 500 miles from each other. Hey
Find out if any of the high pressure oil system upgrades have been done (dummy plugs, STC fitting, standpipes).
I would also find out what repair work has been done in the past. Also you need to know if it still has the Ford Gold coolant in it.
IMO you can't settle on a fair price without "climbing all over it". You have to evaluate the body, undercarriage, brakes, A/C, suspension, steering, etc. You also need to monitor it cold, and then fully warmed up, with a scan tool. You have to at least look at the oil and coolant temperatures. The trim package also makes a difference in the price.
Of course, it all depends on the price. There's a price point where you'd buy without knowing what shape it's in, and there's one where you'd want a 10k mile warranty even after crawling all over it. In general, the 05-07s are better engines than the early models 6.0s. And this one is low mileage, so I would doubt that it has issues with the block. Worst case scenario, IMHO, is it needs headgaskets. All the other likely problems are top of the engine stuff and very much DIY repairs, if you're fairly mechanical. Those parts are not horribly expensive - one-two hundred dollars here and there. The typical failure points are also fairly well known - the guys here typically work their way through them one at a time as their budgets allow.
Since he's your bud and trustworthy, my recommendation is you buy the rubber stopper/hose setup to do the degas bottle bubble test and ship them right to him. Real simple test and he can live stream it for you to watch. That tells you if it has a headgasket or EGR cooler issue. Also get him to record a vid of it cranking - with the key off using the starter wire under the hood. Again, real easy and tells you if there's a bad cylinder. Video the oil fill tube with the cap off while it's running to see how much blowback it's got - tells you if the rings are bad. Finally, you'd need a scan tool - buy/send him a $25 blue tooth OBDII connector and have him download one of the $5 smartphone apps - so he can check the engine oil vs coolant temps after a 5-mile drive at 65mph - you're looking for it to be less than 15 degrees.
All of that will cost you less than $50 and take him less than an hour to perform. You also want to hear it start from being stone cold, but if all the rest checks out, you're prolly good and can do that when you show up. You could get him to stream that as well, but I guess he'd need a second phone because you want to see that the engine is room temp before the crank.
There are threads here describing all those tests.
Well it looks like my buddy may be getting cold feet and is going to want to hang on to it. So my search will continue. I may up my budget a little bit to get in to a 6.7 and what from what I have read I may want to stay away from the 6.4. I am going to purchase a scan tool just incase a nice 2005-2007 pops up. Thanks for the help.
Today i went and looked at a 2005 F350 king ranch with 137000 miles on it that just came available at a local BMW dealership. They are asking $16995 for it. The truck has had the egr deleted and straight piped. The dealership had a local diesel shop come out and instal a tuner to get rid of the check engine light.
When i got there today one of the new salesman went to pull the truck around for me to take it for a test drive and I followed him to witness the cold start. He did not allow the glow plugs to heat up and tried to start the truck right as he got in it. After the second time trying to start it, it cranked up and shot out a puff of white smoke then black smoke then it cleared. After he pulled it around I had him turn it off while I waited on my salesman to come out so we could take it on a test drive. When I started it back up there was no smoke and it started just fine. After the test drive we came back and hooked up a scan tool to look at the EOT and ECT which are in the pictures. The truck drove great, we did a little city driving and then got on a hwy and cruised at 70 for a couple miles.
Seems like it could be a great truck but when i got home and checked out the car fax it scared me a little bit. Its had 5 owners and came out of Oregon originally then to Pennsylvania, south carolina and now georgia.
What do y'all think?
Suspiciously low miles for that many owners. To find one owner that only put that many miles on their truck what do you need but to find five of them that all on the same truck is crazy ridiculous. I would check the hour meter on it first and see if that matches up those miles. Checking the Delta on your oil and coolant has to be done while you're driving not after you stopped and pulled over. That gives it enough time to even out.
The coolant temp is low for having just finished a good drive. Should be high 180s to low 190s. The difference between oil and coolant temps requires coolant to be at normal operating range for it to be relevant... It likely needs a new thermostat. When you go for a drive, make sure it is good and warm before going down the freeway - hope to get on a flat stretch and keep it at 65 or so (Steady) for 10 minutes if you can. If coolant gets up to 190-ish + or - a couple, THEN see what Oil temp is. If you are less than 10 degrees higher than coolant, likely your oil cooler is fine.
Snap some underhood pictures and post them up here -- we have some very keen eyed members that may catch other things just off a visual...
The dealership has agreed to let me drive the truck for a couple of days to see how I like it. Today I warmed in up and drove for about 10-15 mins at 65-70MPH and I took a picture of the temps on the SCT. I also snapped a couple of the engine. Not sure what all to take a picture of. So far it runs good with no smoke. I stopped on it one time from about 50 mph to 75 mph. It sound good and blew out just a little black smoke. Going to have a diesel shop check it out in the morning.
Looks like a dual alternator truck.
Also heres a pic of healthy numbers at idle warmed up (186°f+) for you to compare. This is with an app FORSCAN using an OBDII bluetooth adapter. Well worth the 20 bucks investment. FORSCAN readout
