Hi everyone, I am having trouble diagnosing the problem with my 2005 F-250 Powerstroke. I bought the truck in September and it drove great with only one concern. The water in fuel indicator kept coming on, but I was pretty diligent about letting it drain. Often there was little or no water. Then in November I was on a short trip and it started blowing white smoke. I thought it might be a head-gasket until I smelled it. It was also running super rough and loud and had low power. I shut it down and restarted it and it drove fine. At that point I brought it into the shop where they cleaned out water/fuel separator which had gunked up and also changed all the filters After that, it ran like a dream for about a week, with no water in fuel indicator coming on. Then out of no-where it conked out in the same way. I didn't want to pay for a tow, so I left the truck and came back the next morning ready to call a buddy if I need him to pull me with a chain. It started right up and ran great, so I just kept on driving it. There was a period here where it would conk out with the same white smoke, but always run fine if I let it sit anywhere from an hour to overnight. But I could see that it was getting worse and eventually I couldn't restart it. I took it back to the shop, suspecting that the ficm was causing intermittent problems from a bad circuit or whatever. I had that replaced and reprogramed and again, the truck drove just fine. I drove it around town as part of my construction business, along with a number of 60 to 100 mile trips. No problems, no fuel in the water. By this time we were getting super cold temperatures and I did notice that it was blowing white smoke pretty severely at start up and even after it was warm. But it would always clear up after about 15 minutes and drive fine. I didn't like this, but it was running well from start up on. And the, as I was heading out of town it happened again, even though it had been warmed up for about half an hour and wasn't blowing any smoke. Whenever it dies, it sort of coughs and chokes. I can sometimes keep it running a bit by putting it in neutral and hitting the accelerator, but only for a while. I will almost always start up again (during this later phase), but only with a lot of starter motor action, but then choke out after about 3 or 4 minutes until it wouldn't start. Does anyone have any ideas? It seems so random and drives great until it doesn't. Thanks for reading all this and thanks in advance for any advice

 

Do you have any tools to look for codes or monitor engine outputs?

 

Unfortunately not. My mechanic doesn’t do a lot of work on diesels but Is a smart guy. Would a good shop have these things?

 

Without anything to read outputs you are handicapping yourself. There are very good inexpensive apps that will do almost everything you need. Then you need a Bluetooth or wifi obd adapter to connect to the vehicle.
Forscan app is good, about $5. Adapters vary but $30 will get a serviceable unit.
If you are going to try and fix it yourself, get these and report back.

 

Thanks. Is this the sort of thing a good shop that doesn't do much with diesels would have or is it something that I might need to tell them about?

 

Most shops will have professional data readers. I hope it would include diesel vehicles.

 

Do you have a smartphone? If so, YOU need the scan tool (ForScan Lite). Installing the full version of ForScan on a laptop is also an alternative.