Thanks BigF350 and I am happy to see that even Ford considers the Cummins more valuable than a 6.0. Give me a good strong 7.3 anyday and I am also old school "no replacement for displacement" Take care, Wrench.

 

just an update to this.
my dad did buy the f550 with the 3v V10 w/488 gears & it seems to be holding up to the grueling abuse.
i will try to let you know in about a year how its doing when its got 100,000miles on it.
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Badd GT, Thanks for the update and I am glad your new V10 is doing well for your Dad.

Hauling portable toilets around characteristically sounds like work more suited for the 6.0 PSD but the V10 brings a lot more class to this type of work I am sure. Wrench.

 

A V10 will outlast a diesel anyday under the following conditions:

1) Pulling that load somewhere, and having to shutdown the motor right away - turbo is still spinning, no oil feed, turbo will eat itself pretty quick.

2) Long periods of idling without a "high idle" (not sure about the newer 6.0's they may high-idle when they need to by themselves).

3) Cold weather startups. If you are going to consistently start this truck in temps below freezing, you either need a block-heater for your diesel (and leave it plugged in using electricity=money) or you need a gasser. The diesel won't last long with lots of cold-starts without a block heater.

If you are going to see any of these three conditions, the V10 will last longer than the diesel.

I have nothing against the 6.0, never drove one, never owned one. I went gas for the reasons above, and some personal things I don't like about diesel (smell, soot, etc). If I was going to have a diesel, it'd have to be a non-electronics one because I like that it runs without any outside intervention. Other than that, there's no obvious advantage to me except maybe more torque. But you can always drop the gas motor down another gear, rev it out to 4000-4500RPM and get more torque to the ground anyway.

But yeah, sounds like you need a F-450/550.

 

Out of curiousity, why did you guys recommend the 4.88s over the 5.38s? I would think that the 5.38s would help the truck work less, even though it may eat away at the MPGs at highway speeds

 

Krewat, I like this post so much I had to quote it just to see it again.
You are so right on with this post that I can see why you are a Postmaster while I am only a Guru. After 11 years of babysitting a Diesel Turbo I still find myself pulling into a rest area after a long pull and sitting there letting the truck idle...............and idle................and idle.

Then all of the sudden the lights pop on in my head !!!! Hey I don't have a Turbo to fry, I can turn off this beautiful sweet V10 even after working it hard. It just doesn't seem right . How can something do everything so well and not require all the extra care, extra oil, extra filters, and extra time.

Life is about choices, it's about time I made the right one in truck engines!

 

What's even funnier is what do you do, idle it to let the turbo cool down and get the "wet loading" or whatever they call it, or shut it down sooner and run the risk of the turbo being too hot?

G Lube, the lower the gear ratio (higher numerically), the less the engine and tranny are going to work to moved a certain load. Might get higher temps in the rear gear unit (or not), but that's certainly not a good enough reason NOT to do it. Also, there's not always a direct correlation between MPG and rear-gear with the Ford modulars. Sometimes, when you get to a high enough load, the lower rear-gear will help accelerate the load faster, thereby using less gas overall ... and even on the highway, the air resistance, tire rolling-resistance, anything, can make a lower rear gear give you BETTER mpg's. What size rear tires are on those things (either diameter or circumference).

 

around here, it used to be ALL the F450's and F550's used in construction/landscaping/etc were diesels.

But in the past 2 years I've noticed more and more and more with V10 ensignias on the fenders. After talking to a couple guys who run them their opinion was the gas engine was MUCH cheaper, mileage was similar, maintenance was less and here's the part that surprised me; they said the trucks wore out before the engines did, so why spend the money for a diesel ?

With the weight your dad is hauling your truck bodies/brakes.tranny's/etc will be due for replacement before you'll replace a V10 or a smoker.

So I do not agree with the diesel engine option. I'd bet two equal trucks hauling equal loads over equal years would prove out the V10 as the better economic choice.

 

The thing I assume you are referring too is "wet stacking" - which you shouldn't get during idling during cool down.
Wet stacking occurs when the engine when the engine is not making sufficient heat, and is idling for maybe an hour or two.
If you need to cool down the turbo the engine already has to be warm, and under 99.99% of conditions a 3 minute cool down period is sufficient - certainly not enough time to cause wet stacking

But you are correct, in an ideal world you wouldn't need to worry about either issue... Diesel maintenance/operation is bit more "finnicky" than gas engine mainenance/operation.

 

That's the term...

Read the last line of my signature

 

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH,,,,or maybe run the risk of having somebody go medieval upside your head with a tire iron ?

Last night, I'm at my 12 yr old daughter's soccer practice, state championship play-offs start Sat. I'm not real happy about missing the Rose Bowl in front of my 5.1 surround sound, 58" TV, but, it's a dad thing. So I have TV in the van, and I'm sitting there watching the bowl game, relatively happy. When some IDIOT in a Dodge (how they named THIS truck 'Dodge' I will never be able to figure out. This sumbatch never 'dodged' a thing in it's life. Every body panel was dented/rusted/ primered) diesel roars in next to me, and sits there idling. Then revving the crap out of that POS every couple minutes, I'm guessing his horn was busted too. After 5 minutes he must have thought his kids team had had enough practice and the door swings open. I thought "oh thank you, he's gonna turn it off". But NO, he let her run while he walked out on the field and stood there for 20 minutes while that HOS idled noisily and spew nasty fumes into my pristine living room on wheels.

It wasn't cold, he was on the soccer field for a good 20 minutes, the guy was a MORON.

OK, sorry guys, I vented, I feel better now

 

he's happy about cheaper oil changes & the fact that gas is a little cheaper than diesel here still. the funny thing is he never intentionally let truck idle to cool down the turbo. i mean would haul a 32ft trailer with 16 toilets, 4 toilets on truck 750 gallons of waste with another 200 gallons clean water, full tank of diesel & just pull up & shut it off.

about the modular engine i dont think people have caught on to the fact that the overhead valve train is far superior to the pushrod design for longevity.
they still think gas engines are barely good for 100,000 miles.

 

I've seen plenty of OHC motors last less than 100K miles....

I think it's just that Ford did a GREAT job of not only designing the motor, but keeping quality-control issues out of the equation.

Cracked rod big-ends. Putting them back together, they mate up perfectly. No machining, no egg-shaped big-ends. Does the cross-bolting of the main bearing caps help them get the line-bore more perfect and keep it that way after assembly? Probably.

And they seem to have somehow gotten rid of the variances in crankshaft journals, bearings, etc, I think by automating all that machine work instead of relying on a human ... plus whatever machines they use to do this auto-calibrate each time. But I'm running amuck with theories here.

OHC is a huge advantage in parasitic power loss. Lifters/pushrods/rocker arms flying back and forth takes a lot of power. OHC doesn't have heavy lifters, just "hydraulic lash adjusters" that do not actually move, and of course, no pushrods. The "rocker arm" is a lever with a roller tip on it.

The extra cam sucks some power just to spin it, but they are lighter than the single pushrod-style cam, and the valve springs are much lighter because they don't have to keep the heavy lifters/pushrods from floating off the cam.

So, OHC does do something for longevity, I'm sure, but I really attribute it to a good job by Ford in design and implementation.

 

Can you tell me where this info is from? I'm seeing $2500 rebates in the NE.

Thanks

The rebates are currently
$3000 for gassers
$2000 for diesels
= $1000 difference

 

i think it varies by region