Hilarious but understandable.

 

My pulse would quicken when I took it through the carwash! Luckily, the time it died inside, it was in a small town where I know the police chief. He was nice enough to come and push-bumper me into a parking spot outside the wash.

 

Well, I can speak from having had quite a few 6.0Ls, and from putting quite a few miles on them, and from being a doofus...so far, doofus is the only one complaining. The trucks have pulled their weight, providing great value for money spent. Maybe I've been lucky - it's certainly not that I did any due diligence; I just roll the dice on auction trucks - but it's all been standard problems for me, like those Mark describes, bolt on parts, injectors, oil coolers, etc. Never had a head gasket fail, and I'm always pulling a trailer.

But, I drive slow, and don't overload/overstress anything. Let the truck work at its own pace.

 

No doubt a bit of luck, because some owners hammer their trucks and overheat them, etc. Serious problems are known to happen! Compliments to you for learning and applying things commonly discussed though!

That said, you absolutely MUST be thorough, and even then, as noted above - the 6.0L can even bite the knowledgeable owner.

 

Prolly wishful thinking on my part, but I think of these engines as very durable within the sweet spot of their performance range, and surprisingly durable outside that sweet spot, until they're not. They run great until they don't.

So great, so much of an upgrade in performance over the 7.3, that guys went crazy, ran these engines out of their sweet spot a lot, and a lot of them blew. But, as a dice roller looking at trucks, that means as long as it hasn't blown yet, there's a great chance that you can prevent that from happening and get many more miles out of the engine as long as you now stay within its sweet spot and provide proper maintenance. Granted, you can expect to have those common failure points, but all engines have those. IMHO, as long as the truck has good compression/smooth crank and runs with no blowback, it's worth money.

Of course, I am talking about dragging the bottom of the barrel, paying as little as possible. From a dollar standpoint, the combination of these engines having a bad rep, being old, but being durable if not exploded, means they are ripe for the picking in auctions. Perfect for bottom-dwellers looking for a good work truck. Buy them cheap, use them up, throw them away.

 

On that subject, I've just about decided to keep my 450. It has a smooth crank, no blowback, hasn't blown up. I'm not going to drive it around the country any more, just keep it for a daily work truck and to pull my bigger equipment trailer when I need to go rescue one of my other vehicles. I think it will last me many more years using it that way. I still have to confirm it doesn't need gaskets, figure out what all the gunk was in the degas bottle when I got it back from the thieves. I figure to replace the oil cooler anyway at 300k. If the gaskets blew, I guess I'd sell.

 

Well, this thread cleaned up nice.

 

My final word is this: I didn't necessarily post the thread out of irritation. It was more to let you all know that I'd no longer be posting questions on the diesel forum, and that it wasn't because my 6.0 was running like a Swiss watch. I've always enjoyed the responses from everyone on the problems I've encountered with it. Thanks for the 6.0 memories.

 

I'm with Cornstar6207 - I've had a lot of great use out of my truck, and lots of great miles out of it while I had it.
I'll be lurking around still, mostly in the old 7.3L section and hopefully soon in the 6.7L club. Until then, thanks to all the users who have helped answer questions and provide feedback.

 

Good luck with the new one!

 

Good luck! They're all just machines, that break. Dollars and cents.

 

The Ford 6.0 trucks are the best deal going in diesels period.
Buy them dead.
New heads, gaskets, studs, cam , lifters, oil cooler, HPOP run them.

You can be under 10K in a great truck.

 

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Although I'd tell you there are trucks out there that don't need gaskets, etc.