I can't see the pic.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. You know with rentals you never know, but with just 40 k I would assume the truck was in pretty good shape. It was a dump truck, so cleanest wasn't the priority, but no SES or CEL lights (although it had other lights coming and I repaired limit switch on the bed myself).
Than comparing to other reviews my own 7.3 is performing better than average, so maybe comparing engine assembled on Friday before long weekend and one made on Wednesday is not fair to start with?

 

Once again you intrigued me. This time I set up an experment. My baby brother, brother in law, loaded up hay and did some racing. My brother has a 93 f150 w/ a 300 inline 6 manual. My brother was driving my father in law's 02 2500 w/ a manual. I think it has a 350 in it. Every time I was heavierm to be far I pulled my tag along. 20'. They pulled 16' tag alongs. I pulled 4 rolls. I pulled rolls they pulled 3 rolls. Not 1 single time did they get out in front of me in the 1st half mile I guess. My brother passed me cause I wouldn't go over 55mph. We pulled 6 loads each. Lined up 6 times and it ended up the same every time. Well after playing most of the day I still had to get 20 rolls to another field. Called my buddy and he brought his 3v v10. We where pulling. Goosenecks. I loaded myself w/ 12 rolls and him 8. He has the TS auto also. From a dead stop I pulled away from him what seemed like75-100' then he would catch up and pull away.hen we would hit some hills and it would him. Talking on the cb he said he was tring to push up the hill. Had his foot on the floor, but it would,nt stay at 5k. Rpms kept knocking down to 4k-4200. Now I believe him cause he has straight pipes and he was sounding off. I'm keeping my 6.0 cause nothing today outpulled me. Now empty the 2500 and the v10 where some speed demons. I actually drove 65 today trying to keep up with them. Which I could'nt. Its just like this. The PSD is putting a lot of force out. Yea gearing helps them low tq pounds to get a load moving when with out the gearing they might not. If I did the math right between 4:10 -4:30 is a 9.5% differnce. I haven't seen that differnce over come 100lbs of tq yet.we're talking 200-300 diffenrce from v8s and v6s. Come on. I'm not going to tell you my truck can out pull anybody but nobody is gonna out pull me. Well I haven't seen the 6.7 yet.
I still have my 85 f150 and had a 91, 93 all w/ the 5.0. I can tell you. If you go around WOT most of the time your going to be turning wrenchs. I love the 302 in the mustangs and just for hauling in pickups. I don't find them all that good good for towing. Thems don't have the brakes them frame braces and the AOD sucks. I'm keeping my PSD. You can have it when God comes and get me or it falls apart. Whick ever comes 1st.

 

Not to bring this back from the dead, but I don't think you and I have the same definition of short trips here. I had a 7.3 that did nothing but tow and it was fine only traveling 5,000-7,000 year because each trip was 100's of miles. I'm talking about my 4 mile commute to work in traffic were the truck would never get above 30 mph. In this type of work the diesel just doesn't work that well because the engine never gets to proper operating temperature. In addition to that, PSD's don't get that much better mpg in this situation, 2 mpg better on more costly fuel. My V10 got 10-11 and my friends 6.4 got 12-13 mpg, he actually spent more on fuel than I did. On the once every other month occasion that I hauled, sure his 6.4 would have gotten much better mpg than my V10, but that's once every 8 weeks. SO for the small commute I did, the cost of the PSD didn't make since.

 

4 mile commutes aren't good for any engine. Even a gas engine won't get warm enough to prevent sludging, burn off moisture, etc. Having said that...if you search you'll find lots of people claiming they drive their diesel (new ones with DPF) 3-4 miles every day as a commuter and had no issues in 2-3 years of this.

Should you buy a diesel and use it as a city commuter? Probably not, but who am I to tell you what you should do? Seems a lot of folks do and don't seem to have any problem with it. I can't tell you the number of people who told me I couldn't safely tow a fifth wheel with my F150. None of them had any experience with it, but man...did they have opinions! We towed like that for 3 years without incident.

I'd love to see some actual evidence like someone who has had issues that they feel are directly related to short trips so that we might have better insight on this. I suspect the people who do it without issue far outweigh the others. Another problem created by too much pontification from behind a keyboard!

 

The problem gets magnified if driving in sub zero conditions and driving around town. My 6.0 used to have problems with the EGR valve and turbo veins getting gummed up if I didn't take it out on the highway once in a while to burn it out.

 

the 1st gear advantage is done once the manual shifts, so by 55 mph it's all over.

Try this, take off with your truck in 4x4 low. That will make your first gear similar to a first gear in a manual. Then go back to 4x4 high range and see the difference. Agian, this only applies to 1st gear. The 2nd gear of the manual is about the same as 1st gear in the 5 speed torqueshift.

If you want something that will out pull your PSD at the start, get a PSD with a manual.

But IMO, very few people need this much force to get moving.

 

I agree that commute is not good for any engine. So that means your engine is more likely to break down when driving short trips like that. So tell me, which one will cost more to fix?

But my truck (when I had it) did mostly city commuting and only hauled once in a while.

The whole thing was kind of an experiment for me. I used to have a 7.3 crew cab DRW for towing and a half ton for daily driving. When the time came to replace the 7.3, I decided to replace both trucks for one since I towed even less now then I used to. I just couldn't see keeping a truck around just to drive 1k miles a year (used to tow over 10k a year). The V10 worked for this. Certainly was not the ideal engine for towing IMO, but it could maintain the speed limit through the mountains with a 12k lb trailer which was all I needed.

Now that I've sold the truck and trailer, I'm going to look for a smaller tow behind trailer instead of a gooseneck and get a bigger SUV to tow it.

 

Back in Ohio we would get those conditions, but the 7.3 was never taken out during that time, that was what the half ton gasser was for. The 7.3 set inside quietly sleeping during the winter, besides, DRW + 2x4 + snow = death.

 

Not really, The company used to work for had to rent trucks on occasion and those rental trucks where often reprogrammed with lower power to help preserve the parts. Not sure if that was the case here though...

 

Yea, they do that to try and keep the trucks from being ripped up as bad.

Just search youtube " rental car abuse " and you will understand why.

 

Tja...Guilty as charged. I abused rental Ford Focus 1.9cdi to 213 kph in Alps.
Than coming back to the rented F550, I would assume reprogramming to lower HP would bring fuel savings, while I haven't seen such a low mpg on truck since I retired my 73 Chevy with 440 in it.
It was almost as bad as V10

 

When i said i abused my vehicles now you know what i mean. I bought my truck new in 07 from left over stock and first thing i did was hook up to that trailer. I buy a truck to use not show off but i do like all the goodies though. Just got back from pricing an 2011 f 450 king ranch. By the time i got done with options the price tag was 68475. I am debating on buying that one or finding a program one with a few thousand miles for less money.

 

pease explain the part highlighted in red and bold.

440?

 

Oh I understand. I have and have had manuals. We make sure our mustangs have sticks.
My buddy last thought about it and came to light what some has been saying about traction force. I've been known it but don't comment on it cause I know to many factors factor besides gearing etc. Well my buddy calls me up at 6am and says he understands what they are saying and wants to try it out. He had the bright idea of hooking up disc to our truck. I have 2 12' disc harrows. So this is what we done we hook 1 top each truck set the blades straight lefted the tires out we went. Sure enough Kevin dusted me. 5 out of 5 pulls. We set the !lades 1 notch and I got him 2 out of 5 runs. BTW a run is 150'. Then we set it to all the to agressive cut. He couild'nt keep from spinning. Oh we have the same tires. I only spinned 1ce I got to cocky. We're actually thinking about starting our own redneck truck pull.