Hey all, first post here. Need some advice from the experts. I recently purchased a 2005 one owner excursion eddie bauer 4X4 PSD with 56,000 miles on it. It has every option available and is bone stock. Good rubber, factory plastic still on carpet, flawless paint, southern truck with no rust, clean carfax, and Oasis report has nothing except recalls and a few petty things from back in 2006-2007 (a/c, door locks, etc). I paid $24000 for the truck. It was a quick impulse buy because I know how fast these things go. So my questions are:

1) Does this seem like a reasonable deal?
2) I know of the inherent risks of the 6.0 PSD with head studs stretching, EGR issues, etc. I want to make this truck last 10+ years with good maintenance. I am sitting on about $5k to blow on this truck right now. I am considering going ahead and changing out the headstuds and doing a full EGR delete. What do you think this would cost me? Or alternatively, for about the same price I could get a 60,000 mile extended bumper to bumper warranty from the factory. However, my fear is that the notorious issues would occur after the warranty has expired, and that possibly my truck could break down one day in a really inconvenient place (i.e. vacation)

So if you were in my shoes with a new beautiful truck and a little money to put into her up front, how do you think I should spend it to make this beauty last as long as possible? Sorry for the long post. I appreciate any advice. Thanks - Hunter

 

If you ask me, you're already on the right track....headstuds and EGR delete. If you can get both done, you'll be eliminating both the achilles heels of the 6.0 making it as dependable and reliable as the 7.3.

The rest is just following strict maintenance religiously and using Ford filters when it comes to maintenance.

With the headstuds and EGR you can kill two birds with one stone...i.e. get the headstuds AND EGR delete done while they're in there. The topside of the engine has to be stripped down to do the studs anyhow, so that's how I'd do it...

The $5K you have should be enough to do studs, EGR delete, AND get the extended warranty. The just don't have to know about the precautionary mods you've made....

 

I was in your same situation not to long ago I bought a '05 bone stock with 67,000 miles on it. The first problem I had was my crank shaft seal went out luckly it was still under warrenty. After that I put on a new cold air intake followed by an mbrp exaust and then an edge juice platnium tuner hoping to increase my mpg's. That all costed about $1600. It made some pretty good power and sound but did not really seem to do anything to the mpg's. Six months later I wanted to lift it I put on a 5" all spring icon lift with dual shocks and steering stabilizers followed by 35" toyo mudders and some 17" xd revolvers. That all costed around $5000. About six months later took a long trip and my check engine light came on, read the code through my edge tuner saying my turbo was underboost and I was having bad turbo lag. I deleted the code and it would show up again whenever I took a long trip. Then about a month ago I would take off from a light and it would just sputter and poor out black and white smoke, I checked my dtc codes and it was the dreaded egr codes. Made it home so I decided to try cleaning my egr valve, took it out and it was caked with soot. Got it all cleaned up and took it for a test drive and it was still sputtering but this time it wouldn't even move and I had coolant leaking out of my exhaust. Had to have it towed home and I found out my egr cooler took a crap. I went with a egr delete kit I was going to do it my self but I looked at all the stuff I would of had to take off and that didn't sound like to much fun. So I had a shop did it and when that egr cooler goes out it is most likely your oil cooler went out to I had the shop clean out the turbo while it was out and come to find out the veins were froze up and rusted that is why I was getting that check engine light on. They charged me $1600 to delete the egr, flush the intake out, clean the turbo, and flush the cooling system now it runs great. I was worried about the head gasket but the shop said that I should be fine unless I am making some serious power.

Needless to say I have put a lot of money in my excursion but the first thing if I were you would be deleting the egr system for reliability issuses we have four kids and this is our family vehicle good thing it did not go out during a trip. After that then you can do what ever I just wanted to let you know about my excursion experience so the same thing doesn't happen to you. Good luck!

 

Ok so this Ex runs fine.........Seriously you shouldn't fix what isn't broken. What if your motor goes 150K miles with very few issues if any? I'd save that 5 grand for when something actually breaks.

 

This is just my 2cw,
PUT A WATER FILTER ON THE TRUCK! Now if not sooner. I put one on my wife's truck and 6300 miles later (truck has 56000 miles on it, her truck is in my sig) it had a tablespoon on casting sand in it when i cut it apart. This should save your oil cooler from pluging and in turn save your egr cooler because of lack of cooling. I am not sure why everyone deletes the EGR cooler, first off, the oil cooler pluging up is what causes 85% or more of the problems with the EGR cooler. To me thats like getting rid of a tire that has picked up a nail on the highway, it's not the tires fault. Anyway if you are not going to ask something of the motor that it was not desighned to (ie: chip it for more power) do i would think that you don't need head studs.
I am sure someone will contradict me but just read the first line!
It seems like an good deal to me, i would have to have all of that for my wife's truck.

 

Just because there are many on this site that have had problems, inherant in a format such as this, does not mean that there aren't many PSDs out there that have gone miles and miles without a problem.

When I buy a used vehicle I expect to spend a few dollars to fix whatever the previous owner didn't care to.

If you want to spend some monies playing with it is one thing.

I would not spend monies on what might be. Enjoy the truck. Which is very easy to do. Change the oil when you are suppose to. Keep the extra monies in the bank for when you find out why the previous owner sold it.

 

1) It's a tad on the upper end, but in the ball park. But then again, it really depends on your location and the condition of the vehicle. If it's immaculate, hard to find in your area, and in demand, then it's on target.

2) I was contemplating the same not long ago. In the end, I decided against it (as the wise man says, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it") and instead opted to spend the money on the Ford PremiumCare ESP 4 years/48k miles.

So far, I am not regretting my decision which you can read about my recent warranty repairs here. The other thing to consider is that once you do the delete and head studs, you may not qualify for the ESP (fail the warranty pre-sale inspection) should you decide before 60k that you want it. Then again, likely a moot point since you'll be remediating the biggest weak-point.

Anyway, I bought my Ex (in sig) back in April '09 with 57.6k miles. Clean title, CarFax, and Oasis report. Clean body and interior, no accidents. The first thing that I did was change the engine oil with Mobile1 Syn Turbo Diesel (5w-40), trans fluid (MotorCraft), and did the air, oil, trans, and fuel filters (using all OEM). That cost around $300-ish. You can read about my maintenance here along with where I was able to find the best prices on parts (at the time).

I sleep (slightly) better at night knowing that I'm covered bumper-to-bumper through to 2013 and 108k miles. Given the miles that I drive, it should be just below that when the time expires.

 

I agree with the folks that say if it isn't broke don't fix it. Here in South Florida there ae a lot of "Rednecks" with their 6.0's all pumped up. I have never seen one on the side of the road broke down. These folks go crazy with mods!

There is a diesel shop about a mile away from me and I have never seen an Ex in there. A lot of the issues with the 6.0 was the old dirty diesel. Now with the clean stuff those issues are down considerably.

Drive it, enjoy it and know that everyone else wishes they had one. :-)

 

Beign that it was a southern truck with good mileage on it I would say decent deal.....I just picked up 05 X limited with v10 and paid $15795 down from $17995 asking with 88k....tires 50% interior was good except armrest (worn through) which I fixed.....it isnt a southern truck but was clean w/o rust anywhere on the body. Blue book on mine was $18400....so you cant be that far off with the deisel.

I would also agree not to throw your money away with stuff that isnt broke yet.....Put the money in a CD for 12 months and use the interest to buy things for your X......might not be much $$ but its better than just blowing it and you can get to it if you need.

 

Oh, the other consideration which I can see coming down the line especially in CA... emission inspection for diesels. It will be inevitable in CA, much like it is for gassers. This may or may not factor in your decision with the delete. The alternative could be to get the after-market egr cooler that has been reinforced against cracking at the weak points.

 

He didn't say anything about living in Cali....

In that case I would go with the stronger reinforced EGR cooler found on ebaymotors, don't remember the name of the company though...

 

Nah, according to his profile, he lives in TN, so I am unsure of how stringent their emission controls are (or will be in the future).