hello all...i own a 6.4 that's been back and forth to the dealer for issues with black tail pipes and blowing black smoke. i purchased the truck this past august and within the first month i noticed the the tailpipes were black from soot so i took it back to the dealer and they replaced the dpf because it was cracked. within 2 weeks the tips were black again. i took it to a different dealer and they said it was normal. now i'm noticing black smoke coming out the tail pipes under heavy acceleration. revving it at idle will sometimes produce a small puff of black smoke as well. im also noticing decrease in power and the truck doesn't seem to have the pep it used to.

last week i ordered an exhaust system along with a dpf/cat delete, intake, and spartan's tunes. my question is should i try and get the issue with the truck right now fixed, or just slap everything on when i get it? thanks in advance.

 

Get it fixed first. The DPF is about $2500 just for the part. If you need warranty work or in case the government wants to sniff tailpipes in the future you might need it back to pass emission laws.

 

yes get it fixed. I would assume they gave you a bad DPF so that should be looked at and I am wondering about a stuck EGR?

 

My vote is to get it fixed. You never know when they will come up with a new smog inspection and you will also need it for warranty purposes.

 

Get it fixed so you have a new one to put on in the event of an issue.

 

so i dropped off the truck at a different dealership yesterday. one that supposedly has a lot of experience with diesels. i explained to the service advisor what my concerns were and he went and got the technician to come talk to me. the tech said that if the trucks not throwing any codes than what its doing is most likely normal. he said they would carefully inspect it and see if they could find anything wrong with it.

so i get a call around 4 pm today and the service advisor says my trucks ready for pick-up. he told me the tech hooked the truck up to their diagnostics unit and did a thorough inspection on it and could not find anything wrong with it. he also said that when they pulled up my maintenance records it showed that when i took my truck in for the dpf replacement in septmeber they relflashed the pcm with fords latest update, the one that eliminates regen when parked. i had no idea...anyway the advisor said the tech reflashed the pcm and to drive it for a couple hundred miles and see if i notice a difference.

i went to go pick up the truck and on the way home was trying to feel if there was any differnce. it still felt the same but didnt notice any black smoke. so if the diagnostics come back clean and trouble free, am i ok to install the goodies into my truck??? getting really impatient...haha.

 

My truck has almost 33,000 miles on it and there is not one speck of visible soot inside the exhaust tips. There should be no soot that is the purpose of the DPF (diesel particulate filter) to clean the soot particles from the exhaust.

 

ok so in that case since im deleting the dpf/cat with a straight pipe i should be ok right? why leave it on there if it's not doing it's job anyway. ive had two dealers run diagnostics on the truck already and they both turned no negative reults. my main concern was that there might be something else wrong with it besides the dpf. if the relfash is whats making it run sluggish or blow black smoke wont spartans tunes wipe it out anyway?

 

If you have black soot in your tailpipes your DPF is cracked. There should be nothing black in your tail pipe.

 

only way to inspect DPF is to take it off, cracks from the inside. I have over 5500 on mine, just got off a 1,000 haul of 10,000 lbs of marble and no soot!

 

who cares.. put on your new goodies! your dpf is bad.. but who cares! your deleting it! hook up your spartan and enjoy! spartan will override your crapy ford tunning. none of the current problems will apply with your new tuning and exhaust set up. enjoy!!