Just was wondering if any hotshot drivers have reached 200k yet on the 7.3L.
And what maintenance they are seeing as mileage goes up.

 

Don't know of any high mileage 7.3's and I've yet to see a hotshot driver run a gas engine. I do know there's been some reported front main seal oil leaks and Chevy LS style lifter failures.

 

There was 1 or 2 that had lifter failure and the one on YouTube was a C&C pickup so a de-rated 7.3. The main seal leak was also a small number. If you look in the 7.3 section on the forum there are maybe 5 or less with issues. Ignore the issues that come in the RVs or Any of the de-rated trucks cause they are not consistent with what Super Duty owners have reported. If you ask some people they will tell you they have a sparkplug issue or a plug wire issue which was mostly on the RVs and it was resolved with a redesigned spark plug wire.

 

Anyone know where to find information supporting the claim that the 7.3L Godzilla (being a motor Ford is using on commercial truck platforms) had to pass a stress test that included 1000 hours of WOT (Wide Open Throttle)...that is 41.7 days at continuous full power! Wow. I'd like to know more about those stress tests. Evidently the 6.2L Boss did not, nor did it have to, pass this stress test due to its intended applications.

 

First I heard about anything like that was right here. There is a YouTube video of Ford doing a torture test on a 3.5l ecoboost 10 years ago. They ran it for 1 hour at wide open throttle with a load simulating 11k lbs up a steeper grade than Pikes peak but not for 41 days straight.

 

I ordered a 20 with 7.3. The front trans seal failed at 4000 miles and the rear 5 days later

 

So excluding lifter failures in a RV application doesn't indicate a problem with the engine?

 

A few months back when I was surfing the Tremor forum there were a couple of reported engine failures with the 7.3.

 

Contractor I am an occasional 1099 employee for has two 2020 F600 dumps with the 7.3L. He has had quite a few issues with the 10R140 but the engines have been ok as far as I know. Last time I was in those trucks they were both a little over 100k miles.

 

There have been a few quality/manufacturing issues but no design issues, meaning if they build it right it's a great engine. The issues I recall were 1. Front cover not being straight resulting in front main seal leaks. 2. There's a gizmo that splashes cooling oil onto the bottom of the pistons and some of those had issues with not being machined right. IIRC anyway. 3. Bad spark plug wires.

All of these occurred in the earliest engines. And Ford was pretty good about fixing peoples trucks.

 

6 bolt main / Steel crank / roller valve train...... It should have run 1000 hrs.

 

I was about to order a 7.3 before circumstances forced an urgent buy leaving me with a 6.7. I scoured the 'net for a couple months and was satisfied that the 7.3 had very few issues and those that did pop up seemed to be minor (plug wires) or mainly on 2020's. ...I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I'll watch this thread in the hopes of seeing some higher mileage examples.

Dave.

 

I also ordered a 7.3 (still waiting) but the lack of serious issues reported as well as so many positive things I've come across, lead me to trust in my decision that this engine should serve me well for a long time. I am curious to see how it holds up compared to my 20 year old 7.3.

 

I have yet to read about any real issues with the 7.3L. What I mean by that is numerous posts about issues.

You'll read about an issue here and there...but nothing that would indicate a true issue. Anything mechanical can fail.
It interesting that some people will read about an issue and then immediately assume all 7.3L must have this issue.

1. Lifter failure in early RV applications. I can find like 3 examples online. Still hard to determine any reliable failure rate by that.
2. Spark plug/coil wires in early 2020 units. DEFINITELY an issue. 'Infant failures' with a brand new product being released. This issue was resolved in early 2020 by a redesigned coil wires.
3. I've read about a couple front main seal leaks...like two. Again, hard to determine failure rate.

By all accounts the 7.3L engine seems to be very robust.

 

I took possession of my 2020 F250 7.3 in February of the same year. I average about 50K miles per year and the odometer clocks in as of today at 133K. While I am not a hotshotter I do pull about 6-10K lbs about 40% of the time. To date my truck has seen zero downtime or been in the shop for anything other than required maintenance.

Having said that I developed the long crank problem at about 50K miles and continues to this day when the engine is hot. Everytime I have taken it to the shop to be repaired the long crank magically goes away. So I just live with it. It doesnt happen on every crank but 60% of the time.

Its a company truck and they like to turn our trucks over every 150K miles or so. Luckily the Ford ordering portal will not be open until November (or so Ive been told by our fleet manager) so I continue to rack up the miles on this one. And that is fine by me. It seems QC is not up to par on newer SD's from being an avid reader of this forum. I have several upgrades that I put on this truck that I paid for and will gladly drive it until its time is up.

I can't say enough good things about it. It has been one of the most trouble free vehicles that I have ever driven. Some of that is probably due to the fact that I take care of vehicles I drive, whether I paid for them or not. I do not take them to quick change oil change places. I use only Mobil 1 synthetic fluids and filters. I strongly follow the maintenance schedule in the owners manual.

Ill get the long crank issue addressed in time. And that time maybe when the fuel pump decides to take a dump on me and get to watch it placed on a Jerr-Dan tow truck to finally get repaired.