FACT:

-A lot of bad diesel "stories" never come wrapped with the details. I find it entertaining that one man can go through 3 6.0 powerstrokes putting 300,000+ miles on them with little trouble, and then I come on here and read about someone who's gone through 3 6.0 engines under 50,000. Believe what you will, stories like "My boss had 50 6.0 powerstrokes and every one had HG failure and new turbo's and injectors!" are a joke.
When guys start talking about trucks, a lot of people dismiss problems until they get upset and then they over exaggerate.
Kinda like this girl I know, when she gets a new boyfriend, she gossips and brags to her friends about how great he is and what a giant unit he has. Two weeks later when he dumps her, she laughs at him for what a lousy guy he is and what a small package.


-Diesels come with stories that carry a scary tone. Improper maintenance and racing / tuning can cause expensive damage. Lots of these stories are from tuning and hot rodding. Seeing a post like "Ford has let me down once again", and then in their sig : "Diablo tuner, Stage III kit, Meth injection". Some of these tuners almost double the power, and then stories arise about HG's blown pistons, transmission damage.... The diesel engine is sold in a truck for towing, not a mustang for racing... use at own risk. Probably a big reason for diesels having so many bad stories, is tuners. Imagine if there were a v10 performance kit with a turbocharger that added 250 HP. All of a sudden we'd start seeing nightmare stories about v10's.


-The new diesels using urea are pleasing a larger crowd. At 400 HP and 20 MPG, I think a lot fewer people would feel the need to buy a tuner.

-Ford had a few problems, so did dodge and GM. IMHO ford easily has the toughest truck for years now. Our transmissions are way better than the allison, despite all the sexy propaganda, the last good cummins engines were the 12 V, and even those had issues too. Killer dowel pin anyone? My friend had that problem and it cost 3200$. His brother had the same problem. Nobody seems to remember that, but they will dwell all day about a 6.0 that needs HG's and studs and is 2x the truck. Another friend had a 24v dodge that he put injectors in 3 times before selling it. The duramax engine has had it problems too. Lots of people have had leaking injectors and all kinds of cool phenomenon that start to make a 6.0 PSD look pretty good.


-Ford sells a lot of diesels compared to other brands. Not only that, but ford trucks are very popular as fleet vehicles. All this exposure will get the creative story juice flowing, but does not mean that the truck is crap.

-"There were many running changes to the engine and in the 2006 year model the 6.0 had the lowest rate of warranty claims across the board for Ford Motor Company when compared to all of Ford's GAS (including v10) and diesel engines."

 

Did you buy the truck new? If so, you're one of the lucky ones... search around here on FTE for the "crapola" back in 2000-2003...

 

You make some great points!

 

That's absolutely possible. If you take a very narrow view of something, say one or two samples out of millions, based on personal experience, and apply that across the board, you are bound to come up with a statistical anomaly. Which works both ways.

Of course, there IS the 6.0's reliability history to point to. Believe it, or not.

 

And for the most part, it's just that, history. I have an 04 with the dreaded 03 motor. Ford bent over backwards with hardware and software changes to make them better. The most common problems from the early days(EGR valves, injectors, and turbos) still occur, but not nearly as much as they used to, believe it or not.

 

By the way, I am definitely playing devil's advocate here.

The conversation has definitely been stimulated

 

I bet ULSD has a part in that.

Another big part is the general awareness about newer diesels and their tolerances to fuel and oil...and even operation.

When the 6.0 came out, it was using a lot of new parts and designs that were not in widespread use. Everyone always says "Why did ford stop selling the 7.3?" or "They should put a CAT engine in it!", well, take a 7.3 or cat engine, add an EGR system, VVT, different injectors and fuel system for emissions, and see what you get.

My 1st truck ever was a 7.3 IDI. I ran old fryer oil in it. It got parked at 500,xxx km's because the transmission was toast. Now, I have a 6.4 PSD that is so different it's scary. My IDI kept running after getting ckicken fat and water in the fuel, which would probably cause a complete failure on my 6.4. These engines, all brands, have changed a lot over the last decade. Magically, as all 3 brands started going to newer style injectors, all had fuel problems.

I think ford's biggest mistake is not paying enough attention to how some of these trucks end up getting used. They built them to tow and run hard, and how many people own them because they "like them" or to "tow"= towing a camper once a year and treating it like a corolla the rest of the year. GM knows their customers, the 6.5 was basically a car motor, and the duramax is light, peppy, and able to handle life as a family vehicle a lot better than a ford.

 

Which is? Why I'm asking is because I can read 2 meaning in what your saying.
1) If you can believe that despite a very deadly start the 6.0l over came and become the best engine to date. Or...
2) If you can believe there was slews of trucks by the 1000s maybe being fixed for castrafic failure.

If your meaning the 2nd I don't think there's a person alive that doesn't believe this to be true. That's why so many of us has a $500-$1000 worth of gauges. I don't find anything cool about em. It kinda sucked when I took my truck in when they replaced the oil/egr coolers they asked me what tuner was I running. I told em I didn't. When I picked up my truck they said they knew I had a tuner but they did the work cause the tune had nothing to do with the oil cooler clogging up.
Again I told em it was stock and the manger asked why I had gauges on my pillar.
Simpley put cause the idiot tft on the dash is a joke and the 04 didn't come w/ a boost gauge. At the time the biggest thing mentioned was egts being so destructive so I got an egt gauge. In the last a couple yrs I've read about ect/eot deltas. After finally realizing I'm not going to find isspro anologe gauges to match what I already have I got myself an insight.u
Brother I don't have $1000 between my pillar and my dash to be cool. Its because I know all to well that the 6.0ls components can fail. I also know that the earlier the detection the less damage done. Would you agree that a 6.0l would be a better drivetrain for towing at 30-32k gcwr than the v10 7 days a week? When its time to haul that is. I'm putting 30k+ on this truck a year. My alt. Has jumped my repair bill up to something like $350. When I replace my glow plug(s) and harness it'll be something like $500 in 5 yrs. I really don't think that's all that bad. The truck has paid for itself and any repairs needed.

 

A nice sensor to have on the 6.0 and 6.4 would have been a coolant pressure sensor. That would have saved many trucks from death.

 

That's ... interesting. I'll let others discuss that.

Another interesting statement.

 

The challenge for me is to choose my words carefully. I already have a limited vocabulary.

 

 

I've been waiting......

 

i remember reading way back that when we got to talking about the v10 and it spitting plugs that alot of the owners got to blaming it on overtightening. well alot of the 6.0 problems can be traced to misguided mechs and them throwing parts at a problem when they were not needed. for example replacing egr coolers 3 or 4 times before doing the oil cooler too. the early 6.0 had bad reps because they were not getting all the casting sand out and that stuff clogs up and wears out parts everytime you crank up the engine. now the later 6.0's had the problems worked out and people are seeing great service out of them. i have a 06 that i drive everyday and treat it like crap.(idling all day, towing way to heavy loads, don't service right, ect) and it has lasted over 200,000 miles with min repair cost.

 

Good points.