My 03 V10 makes a lot of noise on cold starts, which goes away as it warms ups.
I'm guessing it's piston slap, are these engines known for this?
I thought only GM had this problem (hehe).
I guess it's ok as long as it's not the bottom end.

 

What brand/weight oil are you using and what brand oil FILTER are you using?

 

I'm using Castrol 5/50 synthetic, with a Ford filter.

 

Tony please tell us that you are not using Castrol 5/50 and then asking why your motor makes noise at cold start.

You motor is designed with very long and narrow oil passages and lifts the oil pretty high .... the oil is also sprayed on several surfaces by metered jets.....it is designed to use MC 5W20 semi synthetic or similar

 

Yeah, it may well have been 5/20 synthetic. the last couple have been done at the dealer.
But even with the 5/50, the oil doesn't thicken up untill it gets warm.
Has anybody experienced a piston noise in these engines before?

 

I had the same thing with the 01 250 that I just traded in. Had 89,000 mi. The local dealer told me that it was piston slap, and it is normal.

 

what year did that change? i just DOUBLE checked my owners manual, and it says Motocraft 5w-30. mine is a 2000. i knew i hadn't been buying 5w-20 but i thought i better get my i's crossed and my t's dotted for the next one! hahahaha

 

Tony

Yes on some V10s piston slap is noticeable and usually not a serious problem

Your notions on multi viscosity oils is not correct

Ford did originally spec the 99-2001 v10s at 5W30 semi synth and around mid 01 decided to standardize to the 5W20 spec...comon wisdom suggests either of the 5W20 or 5W30 multi grade is fine as long as it complies with the Ford SC/API spec

V10 onwers here report good results with the MC products and some times notice the full synthetics tend to use more between changes...

OIL for the V10 is a greatly and heatedly debated topic here but I dare say we all agree that 40 or 50 weight stuff is not a good idea

All lubricants flow slower when cold and faster when heated...tis a fact

multi viscosity oils have cold FLOW properties of lighter weight oils and the shear and strength at normal operating temperature of the higher weight.. but they do not magically transform and become thicker as they heat up.

 

Fredvon4, thank-you for clarifying the oil viscosity fundamentals for me.
As I said earlier I believe it was 5/20 or possibly 5/30 Castrol Synthetic last change and whatever the dealership uses the time before (when they stipped out my drain plug).
Anyway when you refer to MC I'm guessing you mean Motocraft?
I guess I have one of the slappers which I'll just have to live with.
If it were bottom end I believe it would make more noise as it warmed up?
Thanks everybody for the information/

 

Tony

The interesting thing here is that by mid 2002 we stopped hearing too many reports of the piston slap that was prevalent in the 99-2000 Model year motors.

Ford never really did say what they did to reduce or eliminate it... Several of us suspect they tightened up the Quality Control process at the assembly plant and paid closer attention to fitting the right pistons or ensuring that all the stock dimension pistons did not have a wide range of +/- variance before being rejected.

To tell you the truth, if it is piston slap, your's is the first I remember being reported on a 03 version.

Most owners who complain about it never did report back with engine failure complaints...so it may be a stretch that here on these type forums we can safely say it is not a future problem...just not enough info.

I was part owner in a "services" company that had a small fleet of V10 powered trucks. One of them made a lot of noise when cold... Under warranty still, so I insisted our dealer find the problem and fix it. Turned out to be a combination of loose exhaust shields and some broken exhaust studs.

As to the oil... I am a Castrol GTX fan and usually loyal to that brand. When I got my first modern Ford SuperDuty, I found the MotorCraft 5W20 to be a good quality oil and the price is hard to beat. Especially because I am **** about clean oil and change every 90 days regardless of mileage... (I usually get over 300K miles out of all my personal vehicles with zero internal engine maintenance problems)

If you are sure that you are in the 5W20 or 5W30 spec I doubt the noise is oil related... On the other hand, I know for a fact that a co-worker's SuperDuty 5.4L V8 was making a racket on startup because he was a straight 30W Penzoil and true blue STP additive freak. The thick lubes don't flow fast right at start up. Once I got him back to 5W30 multi viscosity his motor quieted down a lot (at start up).