I think the diesel being more expensive to maintain argument is just something started by people who don't know the first thing about them and needed some excuse not to like them. I did a comparison about 50 pages back and showed the price for maintaining both of them and the v10(or 5.4) was more expensive on a part by part basis. Water pumps, starters, alternators, etc, were all higher for the v10 than for my 7.3.

V10 requires coolant change every 150k miles and a diesel can go 600k miles, so less coolant and less time spent working on it. The v10 takes less oil, but it's more expensive per quart so it isn't as bad as people make it out to be. The v10 needs coil packs and spark plugs, the diesel doesn't. So less money and time spent doing work there.

Pull a head on a v10 and then a 7.3 and tell me who spends more time taking off parts and who spends more money on gaskets to put it back together. Pulling a head on my 5.4 requires me to pull the entire top half of the engine off (intake, fuel injection parts, throttle linkage, intake and gaskets, ignition parts, etc) and my 7.3 can come off by removing the valve cover and unhooking one hose.

Having a 5.4, 5.0 and 7.3 truck sitting in my driveway my 7.3 has been the cheapest to maintain and easiest to work on out of the three of them.

 

Really, Josh? My experience has been the exact opposite!

In the 23,000 miles I had my F150 I paid a combined total of around $150 for those 23,000 miles. This included oil changes at around $15 each, as well as the free tire rotations I gave myself.

In the 9,000 miles I've had my PSD truck, I've paid somewhere around $170 thus far. This includes one VERY expensive synthetic oil change which was necessary due to cold starts below 20 degrees that are necessary in Ohio in winter time. This also includes a $52 set of fuel filters.

Labor was free because I always do my own maintenance. 5-quart jugs of MC cost the same $12 for either PSD or gas trucks. However there is NO circumstance where the V8 or V10 gas trucks require $5-a-quart synthetic oil, whereas my expensive PSD requires it in the winter time.

This thing is FRIGGIN' EXPENSIVE to operate!

 

No, I can't do that.

300 is about all I can get out of a tank with 1/4 left.

 

As far as the normal maintenance parts(starters, alternators, etc) everything on my 5.4(same as v10) costs more than my 7.3. I haven't had to replace them, but I just looked up the prices. I use mc conventional oil year round and it gets down to 0 degrees here in the winter. An oil change for my 7.3 costs me about $35 and for my 5.4 about $25. I make up that $10 difference in about half a tank of gas.

A lot of diesel guys like to change their fuel filters with every oil change and a lot of gassers use that against us for "maintenance costs", but that is just wasteful. The box for the fuel filter and my diesel tech book both recommend 60k mile filter changes, not the 5k mile changes like most people do. So those extra costs are their own fault, not the trucks.

My 5.4 hasn't had any work done to the engine because it only has 35k miles on it, but my 5.0 has 215k and my 7.3 has 212k. My 7.3 has needed new glow plugs at 200k miles and one valve retainer. Total of about $70 spent on it and it has been put through h*ll. My 5.0 has been babied and has needed new plugs, coil, plug wires, fuel pressure regulator, throttle position sensor, intake manifold gaskets, two starters, O2 sensors, EGR, PCV filters, and countless other things I can't think of right off.

 

Speaking of mpg's, that's another place my 7.3 saves me a lot of money over my gassers. I like how gassers point to my $15-20 more expensive oil change every 5k miles but forget how much they spend on gas in that same time. My 5.0 and 5.4 get 15 mpg's and my 7.3 gets 21 mpg's. In 5k miles I will use 333 gallons of gas and 238 gallons of diesel. Using the prices from today ($2.48 gas and $2.64 diesel) I will spend $628.32 in diesel and $825.84 in gas per oil change. Spend $200 extra in gas to avoid $20 extra in oil changes.......

 

How much does one 7.3 Injector cost again? What about that High Pressure Oil Pump too? CPS? UVC Harness? How about that glowplug controller that seems to love to burnout on California 7.3s? Those intake and boost tubes/boots that get oil impregnated and fail? Seen quite a few fried IDMs as well.

Whats going to happen once the parts supply for 7.3s starts to dry up?

 

The same as with every thing else in this world. What happens when the parts for other engines dry up? As long as there is a demand, a supply will be available. When the demand dries up, so will the supply. Until then, rock-n-roll!

 

I can get a set of top of the line injectors for around $1,200. One cheap advance auto parts injector for the v10 is $60. So $600 for your cheap injectors and $1,200 for my nice ones.

Glow plug relay is about $30 and glow plugs are $60. How much are your plugs and coils? Coil at advance is $45 and you need 10 of them. So I may spend $600 more than you on injectors, but you are going to spend $450 more than me on coils.

Let's look at them over the life of a vehicle. I drive about 50,000 miles per year and let's say the life of the vehicle is 500,000 miles(I will still be on my stock injectors by then, but how many times will you have changed plugs and coils?). 50,000/21 mpg's=2,381 gallons of fuel per year for me. 50,000/12 mpgs=4,167 gallons of gas if I had a v10. 2,381 gallons of diesel x $2.64=$6,286 per year in fuel costs for my 7.3. 4,167 gallons of gas x $2.48=$10,334 per year in fuel costs for the v10. Over the 10 year life(500,000 miles) I will spend $62,860 in fuel for my 7.3. If I had a v10 I would spend $103,340 in gas. It's been a while since I had a math class, but to me it doesn't add up to spend $41,000 extra in gas to save $600 on a set of injectors. I could buy a new truck with your added fuel costs alone.

I save over $4,000 per year by going with a diesel. I could buy a new set of injectors, turbo, boots, glow plugs, glow plug relay and cam sensor EVERY SINGLE YEAR and still come out ahead of the v10 in cost to operate even if nothing ever went wrong on the v10.

 

This is good stuff, Josh! Never did a maintenance cost comparison with a 7.3 owner!

So, for my 6.4 the severe service maintenance schedule requires changing the fuel filters every 10,000 miles and changing the engine oil every 5,000 miles.

The absolute cheapest I've been able to find fuel filters for is $52 shipped for the two of them. The local dealer wants $72 and the local parts store wants $120!

The cheapest FL-2016 oil filter I can find is around $17 at wal-mart, and the 5-quart jugs of MC 15W40 are around $12. So every 5,000 miles my oil change will cost somewhere around $53 using conventional oil.

For cold weather operation it requires 5W40 oil, which is considerably more expensive. Cheapest I can find is Rotella Synthetic which is $19.50 per gallon. This is $78 for oil plus the $17 for the filter. Repeat every 5,000 miles whenever temps may get below 20 degrees!

And on top of this I'm lucky to see 15 MPG! In any kind of mixed city/highway driving I may see between 12-14, and nothing but city driving would leave me around 10. This is with PS Diesel Kleen additive to improve the cetane rating!

 

I think your fuel filters will end up being like the 6.0 oil filters. Remember when the 6.0 first came out and oil filters were over $60 and no one carried them but the dealer? Now you can go to wal mart and get one for $10. Your fuel filters will probably go down quite a bit once the 6.7 hits the market. The fuel filter for my 7.3 is $25 at Napa. Ford recommends 10k mile severe duty changes for mine too. They also recommend that you only use motorcraft filters. If you are selling a part, of course you are going to tell people they need to change it more often and use only theirs. All my tech books say go with 60k and I haven't had the first problem with that interval. That's with the majority of my miles in the oil fields and towing too.

My oil change is less than yours even though we use the same oil because my filter is a lot cheaper(just give it time, yours will go down too). I use 14 quarts at about $2.00 per quart plus an $8 oil filter. So my oil change ends up being $36. Our wal mart carries the 5 quart mc jugs for $10.25. It used to be $9.00 until a few months ago, but I think they raised it because I would buy them out every time I would go in there lol.

The mpg's on the 6.0 and 6.4 suck from the factory, but there are lots of guys on here that have done mods and are getting close to 20 mpg's out of them too. That doesn't help you while you have a warranty, but once the warranty runs out there is at least something you can do to improve your mileage. There's nothing I can do to help my 5.4(or a v10) get better mileage.

 

Really? I have 3,800 miles on my truck and I get 9.5 mpg city driving in the summer and 8.5 mpg city in the winter time.

 

Yeah, I'm sure you're right that it'll get better with time.

It never really hit me how pricey this thing is to maintain until I remembered how little I put into my F150. That and my last $100 oil change! With any luck that'll be the last one of those I do for a long while!

Can't WAIT for spring to come...and with spring comes cheap oil changes!

Yeah, this is why I seem to be siding with the V10ers in this debate. The MPG gain is minimal and maintenance costs aren't cheap. This thing is EXPENSIVE!

 

In any gas vs diesel debate the cost to maintain/repair part always comes up and it is generally from people who have never owned a diesel and they are just going by what they have heard. The simple fact is that anything NEW costs more to maintain. Compare modular parts to 5.0 parts(or 5.0 fuel injected parts vs 302 carbed parts). That didn't stop any of those on the gasser side of this argument from buying a v10 did it?

Sure, some parts for the v10 cost less than your 6.4, but your 6.4 is the newest diesel out and has only been out for 2 years. The v10 has been around for about 12 years and is on its way out the door for the newest line up, so I would expect the price on its parts to have dropped quite a bit since it was a new engine.

 

You're the exception, not the norm. Most people are lucky to drive 14,000 a year.

You know, I bet all the people that have replaced 7.3 injectors said "I'll be on the same injectors in 500,000 miles"

Also not sure where you're getting V10 injector prices from. Genuine brand new Motorcraft Injectors for a V10 cost $28 a piece from RockAuto. Remanufactured injectors for a 7.3 are $200/piece + core charge from RockAuto.

As far as Sparkplugs go? They're cheap, and if you get decent plugs they should last 60,000 miles or more. For your average person that will mean changing them once every 4 years. Coil packs are hit and miss, some will last the life of the vehicle, some wont.

For getting better mileage out of the 6.0/6.4? That involves breaking federal laws by disabling emissions equipment. I'm sure you could squeeze more MPGs out of a V10 too if you gave it a good tune, cut the cat off, disabled the EGR, put a more free flowing exhaust, put headers on it, etc..

As for my parts drying up comment, in just one year Ford sold 300,000 more modular engines then the 7.3 PSD sold in five years. You still be able to get new Modular parts long after the 7.3 parts supply has dried up. 7.3 parts costs can only go up now anyways, hence my earlier point that you can't even get new 7.3 injectors anymore unless you find some NOS. Hell you can still get new Motorcraft injectors for a 300-6! Those haven't been built since what? 1996?

 

I may be the exception, but I can only argue my side of the argument based on what I actually experience. I have a 5.4, 7.3 and 5.0 sitting in my driveway and I base my arguments off of what each of them would cost me the way I drive them. If I only drove 5 miles to work each day I wouldn't mind having a v10 in my driveway and my argument may be a little different. But for my driving needs, a v10 would cost me a new truck every 10 years just to keep gas in it. Not saying I am right or one is better than the other for everyone, but for me, a v10 costs a heck of a lot more to operate.

I personally know several people with stock 7.3's with over 600k miles on them and still on stock injectors. That may be the exception too, but that's what I am hoping to get out of mine. The less you mod something, the longer it tends to last.

I got my prices from advance auto. Borg warner brand for $45 a piece on the v10 injectors.

In some states, yes. In Tennessee we don't have emissions testing, so I would be able to tweak a 6.0 or 6.4 to get better mileage and not have to worry about it. Federal laws only apply to vehicles as they are sold new. Each state sets its own laws once it becomes a used car. I can buy a used car from a dealer in TN with no cats, headers, etc, but VA requires all cars sold from a dealer pass visual and sniffer emissions tests before they are put on the lot. I can trade in my Mustang in TN and them turn right around the same day and sell it. If I traded it in VA they would have to fix all the emissions stuff before they could sell it. Different states, different laws.

Actually, you can get new 7.3 injectors. I see them on websites every day. They cost quite a bit more than rebuilt ones, but they are still available. I doubt their parts will ever dry up though. I have a 1969 429 and 1969 351 and I can get any part for them I want and they are over 40 years old. As long as people drive them and order parts for them, they will continue to carry them.