Hey cool site!! Maybe someone out there can help me out. I purchased a brand new Ford F-250 last February,my very first diesel p/u. It has a 6.0 Powerstroke diesel in it. Last week I went out for lunch and was cruising home when bam...check engine light comes on. There was no change in performance, i.e smoking, missing etc. Got home checked all the fluids, everything looks good and it only had about 1500 miles on a fresh service, so I rushed down to the dealer. They questioned where I bought fuel, how I put it in i.e was the truck running and was it a good grade of fuel, I reassured them that I always shut it down before re-fueling and always bought fuel from the local truckstop where they cycle through alot of fuel, so a clogged filter was probly not the culprit. Long story short I got it back a few hours later sans the check engine light on and was told the computer needed to be updated on a regular basis....never heard of such a thing. 300 miles later, today, coming home from lunch..you guessed it another check engine light. My question is has anyone ever encountered this before? BTW it only has 11,210 miles on it as of tonight. I just don't feel like I'm getting an honest answer from the dealer, and at $46,000 it would seem like it would have gone a little longer before all the headache of running to the shop for nagging issues.

 

The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Dealer said there was a TSB about to much sulfer build up on the fuel sender. They cleared the code and told me to use a cheveron fuel cleaner and fill up with fresh fuel. I use stanadyne on every fill up so I was a bit surprised. I think it was a case of bad fuel. When I went by the station to talk to them they had their tanks dug up. So they probably had a problem. No problem since I switched fuel stations.

 

Welcome to the site, and welcome to the world of Super Duty diesels.
The beauty of the check engine light is that it gives you a visual indication that something is not right, and it also leaves a record of what was wrong. Did the dealer give you an indication of which code tripped the light? This would be a valuable piece of info.
Sometimes a "re-flash" or upgrade to the old puter is required, but it is not a normal part of ownership, or required on a "regular' basis.
You have a nice truck, one that will take good care of you for many miles. You should be aware of anything the dealer does, and should keep a good record in the event of a re-occurance when the truck is out of warranty.

 

Thanks for the quick reply!! The truckstop I have been fueling at is named Loves and they have the ULSD fuel. I'll make sure to mention that to the dealer though. It just seems like they would be a little more up front with the diagnosis with this especially cause I own a tractor-trailer with a Caterpillar engine. I've been around big-bore diesels my whole life but this the first "small" one I've ever had the pleasure in dealing with. I'm not a soccer mom drifting in with a truckload of groceries, so the whole "it just needs to be re-programmed every so often" left me pretty frustrated. Thanks Again!

 

Hey thought you guys might want an update. Just got off the phone with the dealer and they said something with the EGR valve wasn't functioning properly, so they had to disassemble it and clean it. The details are kind of sketchy at this point but I'll know more when I go pick her up in a little while. Guess I'm just excited to get my baby back!!!!