Wow, I did take your advice and went over there and looked. What a can of worms that turned out to be. I've only read two threads so far, about five pages, but I haven't seen a consensus reached as to what ill effect ULSD may have on pre-2007 motors. It does seem to be that when ULSD was first introduced, there was a lot of problems with injectors. (Please note that I know VERY LITTLE about diesels.) My buddy with the '02 that had the motor replaced swears that there were 26 diesel trucks in the same shop where he had his work done. Not really sure what the significance of that really is. After all, it IS a diesel shop. Business was good I guess.

 

The 5.4L isn't really a lower base price (it is, but not significantly so). The 5.4L costs $600 less than the 6.8L. I don't really consider that a lower base price, especially since that's retail and no one pays retail. The 6.8L really costs closer to $400 - $500 as an option. What I'm getting at is the 5.4L costs about the same as the 6.8L so no one ist really saving any money by getting the 5.4L. The 5.4L is a great engine for the SD, especially a regular or super cab which weighs a little less. It's also a great engine for someone more concerned with payload than high-end towing. If you're buying a truck to haul your weekend garbage, plow snow, pull a small(er) trailer, then the 5.4L foots the bill nicely. If you want to tow on the higher end of the spectrum, or want the highest payload capacity, the 6.8L V10 foots the bill. If you don't want gas, the diesel is the option to get. It doesn't have the payload of the gas engines, but it has the towing capacity of the bigger gas engine, 6.8L, and more so if you get the lower gears.

So, Ford pretty much covers all the bases by offering a diesel and two gas engines.

 

Here is the problem with people that claim ULSD fuel causing problems(atleast more often then not this is a problem). This is their logic: "I started using ULSD fuel then I had (insert whatever problem here), so therefore, the ULSD caused (insert problem)." Now could ULSD have caused that problem, maybe, but is what they have as "proof" show that it actually did cause that problem....no it doesn't. This is the same issue that I have with people saying their tuners caused engine problems, they use the same level of "proof" to show that whatever tuner caused the problem. In other words, it's anecdotal evidence at best.

 

But lack of other explanations.... Meaning, if your truck runs fine, then something changes, i.e., fuel, it is most likely the explanation. If ten things changed, then yeah, it's probably one of those ten things.

 

Yes and no. It depends on if you've looked at other things first and then by process of elimination determined it, but by itself just the timing of it all then no, because something else that you haven't thought of that could have happened might have happened. Something might have changed that you didn't realize changed could have affected it. Even if you happened to get a bad batch of fuel that caused it to go bad, it doesn't mean that all ULSD causes problems and that was a case in which fuel was a cause, but not because in of itself it was ULSD. Might have had water contamination, or a few other things that could have caused the fuel to go bad that people might not have been able to figure out that's what I'm trying to get at. Just because you don't realize that a change did happen, doesn't mean that there wasn't a change.

 

One thing I read that was interesting... one guy said that the ULSD was leaching all the sulfur out that had built up around his o-rings (at the injectors I assumed) and was causing them to leak. That kind of put me in mind of the problems we had with our older motorcycles after leaded fuel was no longer available and we had to go to additives.

 

My personal opinion, based on absolutely no facts or knowledge whatsoever, is that ULSD is not detrimental to older motors.

 

I have a 01 5.4 superduty with 175000 miles. It was a company truck and worked hard enough to destroy the pickup box and front seat(now replaced). If you saw how nice it drives, how smooth it runs, and how well it pulls a trailer , without any oil shrinkage you would be a believer.

 

OK, good to hear. I sure can get the gassers a lot cheaper than the diesels around here. Which means that for the same money I can get a later model 5.4, such as the one described at the beginning of this thread. An '06 SD with extended cab for $7500 -- does that sound like a good deal? It does to me.

I might have to reconsider my plans...

Update: The listing is gone from craigslist. Ya have to believe it sold pretty quick.