Blackhat, I tried to rep you again, but must "spread some around" before doing so again. You are a walking book of knowledge.

 

I have an 04 F350 with the superchips programmer 5 inch exhaust andvolant air intake and i was blowing coolant out the degas bottle on a trip to utah not pulling anything.Dealer replaced egr cooler and oil cooler 3 months later i am finding a little dried coolant on the bottle and my friend said the heads have only 5 bolts and it is a poor design my dealer in vegas said they would put in the arps at my expense but no more warranty.

 

Well the 6.0L diesel has 15 head bolts for each head. When running after market chips and tuners you always run the risk of the head bolts stretching and causing the gaskets to leak. If you want to continue to use them I would definitly go the ARP head studs.

 

I was told by my service manager that with or without the tuner the bolts and gaskets are failing on the 6.o He told me to take out the tuner and bring it in.They replaced the egr cooler and the oil cooler and said it was holding good pressure on the degas bottle and the headgaskets were probably compromised a little bit but ford would not touch them at this time.

 

There have been some posts here in this forum where some of the people with head gasket problems have had studs put in by the dealer but I think in all cases the owners of those trucks paid for the head studs themselves. The dealer does not have to do this and it is more of a favor than anything else. I do not understand if he replaced the egr and oil cooler and knows about the heads then why will he not fix them.

 

well I have a stock 05 with with 42000 miles pull boat, snowmoblies, travel trailer no head gasket problems what so ever. The only thing it has been to the dealer is warranty work pulls way better than my old 7.3 just hope it lasts as long

 

For every one that fails un modded there are a thousand that never even burp or miss a beat

 

I would like to see if there is a pattern on head gasket failure with programmers or tuners. I read some people use modules or tuners and never have problems and some stock have problems. I guess it is how much you raise the EGT temp and Boost that has more to do with the problem than anything. I just wanted to be able to put a finger on the gasket problem. Not enough evidence to stop me from purchasing a tuner or module.

 

I guess i will keep the tuner in it and drive it . I do not drive this truck hard at all compared to some of the horror stories i have heard about some people and their trucks.This truck is only pulling a 20 foot open quad trailer on occasion.If it does blow coolant again i would rather it be before the 5 yr warranty is up. I would then put in the studs and forget the warranty.

 

Which dealer in Vegas? Have you tried Ford Country in the Henderson Auto Show Mall. They would have replaced mine with ARP head studs when they replaced my gaskets. They didn't mention anything about dropping the warranty.

 

Team-Ford told me i might have to pay for teardown cost since i was honest and told them about my tuner. I ended up taking it to truck parts on lossee road.

 

I'm kinda in the same boat and have reached the same conclusions you have. Which one ya gonna buy? I think an EGT sensor and gauge is a must have if your gonna run a tuner. Mine already has a boost gauge.

 

i have an '03 excursion 6.0 w/ 65k on it no problems. i bought it used w/ 32k but nothing came up in the oasis report.

i just sent an email to matt at spartan to talk about the SCT tuners.

 

HG's, EGR Cooler, EGR, 35,100 mi. Fuel sending unit 36 K. Front drive shaft slip joint boot 36,800. Another fuel sending unit, instrument cluster, and powerbooster (brakes) 37,600. Cracked Y pipe (tomorrow) 40k. I bought the truck with 34,800 miles on it. I bought the Ford extended warrenty to 75K, 0 deductable. Wasn't cheap, but I think it has paid for itself. The truck came with a predator tuner. I use the tuner as a code reader (it's a really good code reader). I looked at the predator website and the threads on FTE and decided that this was too dangerous to use. I just ordered an SCT x3 from Matt. I want the control over the shift points, the torque converter lock ups, the "turbo brake" simulator using the variable vanes to backpressure the engine for braking without installing a mechanical brake interests me and even will adjust the throttle throw (pedel sensitivity). For me the flexibility is worth the buck. My dealer would have put in the ARP (I asked). I listened to what he said about the factory spec torque problems and the upgraded HG. I didn't do the ARP. I kick myself every time I think about it.... Shoulda done the ARPS. He did say that if I had anymore HG issues, we could do them next time. (I have a GREAT service manager). That's it. All under warranty except the boot. Don't know why, but, the front boot turned very hard and packed itself to the front. No real tear, but,cracled. NO FLEX at all. Service rep said he had no explanation. Looked like it was heated. Slip joint was perfect so something happened to the boot. I thought about asking the first owner. Anyway, shop tomorrow for the y pipe.

 

Holy moly, thats a lot of stuff going wrong for a truck with so few miles. Wonder if it dosent have a diferent speedo in it? I think on a used vehicle that the warranty purchase is a good idea.