Howdy All,

First of all, I love my truck. Bought new with 300 miles on it in 06. I now have 44,000 miles on it engine light came on and it turned out to be sticking turbo vanes. It was fixed under warranty so it was not a big deal. I have been thinking about how to avoid this in the future.

I pull a 38' 5th wheel & or a 20' horse trailer with a clydesdale in it & it does fine. But I also use my truck around town like everyone else which means 10 minute trips to hour plus trips. I haven't done the CCV filter sytem yet but I will be here in the future which I know will help.

But I also have another idea. I've noticed that when the transmission is not in Tow Haul the turbo spends a lot of time with no boost when running around town. It seems to me that with the vapors coming from the crankcase etc, that the vanes are more likely to get stuck by the carbon than if they are constantly moving. I've started driving all the time with Tow Haul on. It shifts at 3,000 rpm, OK I like the power, which is 20 pnds of boost. So the turbo vanes are working alot more when just running around thus, I think, much less likely to get stuck by carbon build up. Does this make sense to anybody else? Besides it is more fun to drive.

 

I've never tried it, but sounds good. How about a tech chiming in on this.

 

Sounds plausible but you will use a lot more fuel in tow/haul. What I do is every now and again when I get in an acceptable area give it a good WOT run at full boost. I figure that this must sweep the vanes pretty good.There was another post on here about a new flash that just came out that sweeps the vanes on the turbo periodically, although I believe only when the truck idles... Of course who knows what downside there is to it.

 

I try to keep my turbo form boosting as much as possible for economey myself. if it is prducing boost at the correct levels then no need to mess with whats not broke.

 

It has been out a while, downside is the egr needs to be plugged in for it to work, scared me when it first happened in my truck, sitting at a red light all of a sudden my turbo starts squealin, all I could think was my turbo was going south and I'm just out of warranty

 

Unfortunately boost levels that are great for economy aren't that great for working out the turbo every now and then. There are too many instances of stuck vanes and hearing about people driving for economy or like ma and pa kettle for it to be good to drive like that all the time. Ford apparently thinks this to if they came out with a program that simulates this activity at idle(or as close as they dare too at idle). This is also coming from people that are getting the correct boost levels(according to them).

 

my drive in to work is 40 miles. The big issue is idle time thats when the simulation happens. They added the progam feater to reduce problems from wet stacking. Failing to get and maintain operating temps is another big issue and even more so on a 6.4.
I do drive it like I stole it from time to time as well.

 

Ok, your previous post was a little misleading to me as to what you were saying. I got it straight in my mind now.

 

I think the best thing you can do to prevent vanes sticking is avoid running your truck on short trips, when you can, and get the engine up to operating temperature at every start, when you can. As I understand it, condensation will build up in the turbo after a short run and not letting the engine heat up before turning it off.

In short, once you start it, and after reaching operating temperature, the 6.0 likes to be driven and opened up a little before shutting her down. Of course you will want to let the turbo cool down for a bit before turning off, as usual, to avoid coking.