I agree with all your statements, but I'd love to understand the reasoning behind the detune and if the trans shift points are different also. So far no good answers from ford.

As to why an F550 for my load, here it is. I wanted an 350 with 3.73's for good milage. No one would put the custom bodyon an F350. They all said it would be too heavy regardless if it was a 2x or 4x. I have to keep the gross wt under 14K due to problems with my municipality, so lighter was better and it was going to double as a DD for me. I ordered an 11' utility with a sliding roof so that I had room for tools and extra pacefor my personal stuff when I go on trips. I think the dealers all thoughtI was going to use the truck heavie than I said. Sort of cn't blame them after reading the loads many put on their F250's andF350's and what they tow with them. S that ment the F350 was out unless I did the work myself. Can't do it due to space and time.

That meant a F450, F550 or bigger. The bigger tucks were out due to the problem with the municipality. i was told the only difference between the F350,450,550 was suspension and gears. Gears wouldn't matter due to the larger tires if I got the 4.30's rather than the 4.88's. Fuel economy was important so I ordered the 4.30's, Ended up waiting to get an 08 with the 6.4 instead of an 07 with the 6.0 or 6.4 because of the rears. Since the F450-F550 were supposed to be the same as the F350 an get similar milage with the same weight and fastest rears it came down to costs. The best price was $4k less for a F550 from the body company than anyone elses F450. the body company wa $1K more for the F450 because they order F550's bulk. Heck the F550 was still 2K less than any regular dealers F350 with the same options. As everything was SUPOSED to be equal it seemed stupid not to save $4K and get the heavier built truck.

If I had known there would be so many problems, I would have risked the issues with the municiplity and gotten a "new" 02 F650 and shortend the fram and adde the extra options that were not on the truck. I could have saved $20K on the chassis, still had a heavier truck, a better motor with the 7.3, and still got the milage I have now. At best I might have had to find somewhere eles to park the truck than at my house. Heck I could have got an old 6 wheel MACK or a 2 1/2 tom 10wheel army truck and gotten the same milage as my 08.


BTW my guess as to how much the tools would weigh in the body was off by 200lbs. I guessed 1K, it scalled at 1.2K. The other day I volenteered to haul some block just to see how bad the milage gets if I actually used the truck with weight. I guesses 4K of block, it scalled 3.5K, so I kinda knew what I was talking about when I said how heavy the truck would be. Oh and I don't tow anything.


I'd love to as I have not been able to get any good answers to any of my questions. Fords customer service number is a joke. I talked to no less than 4 people on each call, worst 9 people, none can do crap. 6 seperate calls, I would get "disconected" or go try the websites they suggested and get nothing. They just send you to someone else who cant do anything. They have no access to any technical or trouble related info according to them. They sent me a build sheet thats just my window sticker on yellow paper, not what I asked for, which was what parts make up my truck so I can identify the rear so I can regear. I have yet to see a builder manual after asking everyone I can ask, the web site suggested ar all adds for the trucks F250-350 nothing on the F450-F550's. they say if you need tech info or to access some one higheryou need to go thru the dealer, the dealers either say they can do nothing or send you to cust service. Its a big circle.

Anyone know how to go farther up the food chain on your own? At this point I'd just like to vent at the powers that be about the dealers crappy help if nothing else.

Sorry if I went into a bit of a rant.

 

Don't worry about the rant. Look at the bright side. You found FTE. Look at the axle tag on the rear diff then compare it to the workshop manual. You can find instructions on the removal and re-installation (but not a swap) there. Here's the link 2008 Workshop Manual

Look under 05 Driveline.

 

how long does it take you to remove the cab now, since I assume you've had some practice?[/quote]Just to stop the question before its asked, Ford has developed procedures for doing almost everything without cab removal. Is it easier with the cab off..........yes! And to answer your question, half a day is a good estimate. Meaning, that some guys are faster than others. Unexpected failures can extend the time as well. The body bolts are heavily coated with locktite, so the possibility of the cage nut spinning (requiring extra work) is there.

 

Your buddy has an 80K loaded Kenworth that gets 10 mpg?

 

I run a 600HP Peterbilt that gets 5 MPG at 120K pounds gross. Pretty good bang for the buck.

#1

 

The Kwooper is 3-4 years old I believe, and gets mid to high 9's on average. I get 8 at best, usually mid 7's. I am not sure what gears/ trans he has in the truck. I know he regeared when he had the rears grenade at 20K under waranty but don't know if he stayd stock. I do know th truck will run faster than most I have seen.

Our '73 R model MACK gets about 7-8 ish.

 

As I said..I had black tail pipes. Soot in the tail pipe means a defective DPF...My symptoms were ..Long and frequent regens, Low power, low MPG. Replaced the DPF and not a problem since.

 

from the sounds of your troubles id better get mine looked at im throwing coal in every gear but the power lose and low mpg's im not noticing damn no more coal

 

thanks to everybody that posted info here. i printed out soot in the tailpipe and defective dpf informantion from 3 forums and gave at least 30 pages to my service advisor.

my service advisor said that his techs called some sort of hotline and he told me that some soot in the tailpipe was normal. i told him that MY TAILPIPES looked like they had been sprayed with black paint all over the inside......and they need to find the CAUSE of this......

my truck is gonna remain at the dealership for the rest of the day for some tests and they will call me tommorrow with the results. at least they are are gonna check the dpf (i hope). i'll post the results when i get them. thanks again everybody.......

66

 

Well the DPF isn't 100% efficient so maybe after a lot of miles, and a few years, you'd see a little bit of black in the tailpipes, but not much at all.

Did you ever see any soot come out of the exhaust during heavy acceleration?

 

My DPF was replaced at @4K miles. It now has 13.5K miles and the tail pipe is clean as a whistle..not a trace of soot..nothing... My finger comes out maybe dirty but not soot dirty.

 

well, i just brought my truck home after a day and a half stay at the dealership. my service advisor told me that the techs called ford's hotline, performed diagnostics as per symptom chart 8 in pced. all my truck's tests were good even with tailpipes that look like the insides have been spraypainted black.........................

time will tell.

thanks for everybody's input,

66

 

Looks like this could potentially be another 6.0. Instead of fixing it like they should, they just let the customer keep going until it goes to a complete failure.

 

Fix What? Soot in the tailpipe DOES NOT mean theres something wrong. Smoke out of the tailpipe means theres something wrong. Theres been a lot of dealers that have had the cost of dpfs charged back to them for replacing them unnecessarily. When you replace something under warranty, you have to send it back to ford for their engineers to inspect. Again, if it aint smoking, it aint broke! If we started that, we'd have "my buddies truck gets 15 mpg, mine gets 14, I demand you fix it!". If it doesn't show insufficient backpressure, if it doesnt show fuel leaks, if the oil level is ok, if its running ok with plenty of power.......What do you fix? Do you randomly start changing parts?

 

This was the reason for my earlier questions. These emissions systems are too new for many of us "shade trees" to understand, but we've all read how the tail pipe is supposed to stay clean on the 6.4. If nothing is broke, why is the tailpipe black?

In all fairness, manufacturers (not just Ford) have made mistakes before. That's the reason we have recalls. Perhaps something is going on that Ford (or Chevy, or Dodge) hasn't figured out how to properly diagnose yet.

As for the original poster. I would closely monitor performance and mileage issues. If you have none, or the mileage goes up, I'd leave it as is. If the computers can't find anything wrong, and there are no performance or MPG issues, just keep an eye on things. If you start to notice any issues, it's time for another trip to the dealer. Also watching what's going on here at FTE will keep you up to date on what others are finding about any issues they may have.