The truck engines are cast iron with aluminum heads.

 

201k is how long mine lasted before it blew a head gasket. All on mild driving and all Mobil1. Should be back together this weekend and get another 200k. It was spotless inside with crosshatch still visible on the cylinder walls. I assume this was a fluke (one bolt letting go).

George

 

For what it is worth I used to drive for milepost transportation hauling railroad crews all over northern Minnesota and into western north dakota. All of our model year 2000 e-350 11 passenger crew vans had the 5.4 v-8 and ran with no major engine or trans work well past 300,000 miles. One finally puked a head gasket at 396,000 but never did see any of the tyranny's go out. This included lots of idle time and some fairly harsh conditions going in and out of different sidings and railroad yards (they also had quigley 4x4 conversions).

Keep in mind that because of the low pay (I worked it as a second job) most of the people that were driving these were not what you would call quality employees.

Those vans proved the reliability of the new fords for me.

One other thing to mention. When new the manager claimed they were getting about 17 mpg out of them on the freeway, even with well over 300,000 miles on them I was was still regularly getting 15 on the freeway when I didn't have to much of a head wind. This is also at a almost constant state of doing 70+. Not to bad if you ask me.

Oil was changed every 5000 miles and trans fluid was changed every 60,000.

 

so at 106k, mine is still a baby....haha

 

The 4.6 is used in Lincoln Town Cars. to see how many miles the engines go, go to e-bay, look up Lincoln Town Cars and do a sort by highest miles. They are used as Limos and many have from 200K to 500K on them.

 

I paid 10k for my 168k f150 4x4 scab 4.6, now has 189k runs fine.

It is also 1997

 

I have a 98 F150 scab 4x2 w/163k burning antifreeze. Talked w/goodfriend of mine the other day and he said they are seeing alot of these motors where the heads are just rotting through. He said it looks like boric acid was poured on it. Thought I was buying a pretty nice truck[98 f150 scab lariat 150k $7200] but now I thinking its JUNK....

 

Taxis in my town are generally former police (RCMP hiway Interceptors and city police) cars that are retired after many hard miles. Then as a Taxi they continue to get hard miles, running 24/7, lots of idling, etc.

They drive them till they drop. I'm sure cabs would not use them unless they the durabilty was fabulous. I know old, caprice 5.7 liter V8, taxi about 10 years ago used to get about 850,000 km (over 5oo,ooo miles) on them before major engine work. They were old police cars also.

This info comes from Taxi companies in Toronto, in a study about 10 years ago. I would think Crown Vics with 4.6 V8s would have similar durability. When you think about this almost, Diesel like durability, why get a diesel?

 

290 ft pounds of torque with the 4.6.... almost 600 with a deisle haha

 

zman764- note that I said diesel like durability, not diesel like power.

If you want to compare power of a turbo charged diesel to a gasser, then you might want to turbocharge a gas engine , similar in displacement, say the 6.8 V10 vs the 6 liter PSD. Yes I realize the gas v10 had 800 more cc, but if you were to turbocharge the V10, I think the hp/torque output might not be, too different, to the PSD.

 

I bought a 97 f150 supercab 4x4 w/177k on it for $4900, it runs and drives like a new truck. I was concerned about the mileage but, after going on autotrader and seeing the other 4.6 trucks w/280k and 312k. I figured it's mostly how it was taken care of. Knock on wood. I am the second owner and it seemed to be very well maintained. So don't allways let the mileage scare you. Dont forget do radiator flushes, I was allways told if you dont the antifreeze will break down and rot your head gasket.

 

I changed coolant every couple years in mine and the head gasket went regardless. Coolant changes are important but they will not prevent all head gasket failures. One of the main problems is the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of Al heads vs steel blocks. To compensate for the big CTE difference (almost a factor of 2!), a special head gasket is needed. It is two layers of steel with viton on all mating surfaces. Enough cycles and even that will go. If you aren't easily intimidated by the scale of the project, a head gasket job runs $300 DIY, so it is not that big a deal. I guaratee that any fleet or taxicab vehicles with 500k miles most have seen head gasket replacements probably along with valve jobs. Note that getting the right suface roughness of the mating surfaces for the viton material is not trivial. If it is too rough, it will rip the viton, if it is too smooth, the viton will not bond well and slip ...

The inside of my engine was spotless and very nice for 200k miles, so I am certain that the bottom end and even the heads are half a milion mile material. Bottomline however is, that i would NOT buy a 200k mile 4.6. A 150k mile yes, but that's about the limit for me.

George

 

i'm fixing to click off 180,000 doesn't use any oil, change every 3000 with mobil 1 and motorcraft filter, i use it to pull my boat so i dont drive it like my grandmother does. Things i have had to replace are alternator and iac, a water pump and thermostat everything else has been matainance tune ups etc.

 

I still haven't torn into mine yet, I found that if I fill it above the cold fill line it will miss and steam out the exhaust. If its below the line it runs good and no steam. So I"m waiting on a complete failure then I will tear into it.

 

I am a believer that it is also luck of the draw. My brother had a ford ranger that died at adout 250k and the engine blew (with a 6cyl) and the truck was well maintaned. The again I work with a guy who just recently blew his motor on a ford ranger 6cyl (over heated too many times), because of a leaky radiator he was too cheap to fix properly, @ 513k and he halled heavy loads of steel in it all the time. But he did replace the tranny twice in 513k. My brothers truck must have been built on a friday haha. I dont believe there is an answer to how many miles you can get on a vehicle.