never posted on the super duty forum-spend my time on the f-150 area. i don't own a super duty but one sleepless night my mind got to wondering. while i work midnights i see ambulances with the superduty front with the psd parked and idling. i've casually read about the problems with the dpf and the regens on the 6.0/6.4. if these are parked idling how does the regen occur? how does the dpf not clog up? do they run a different system than the 'normal' superduty's? on my shift they rarely move (15%?) of the time. i have friends with the new 6.7 cummins who can't leave them idling for long or the dpf clogs w/o a regen. just curious about this. any input is welcome

 

Are these Super Duty truck chassis ambulances or Super Duty van chassis ambulances?

The 6.0L Power Stroke does not have a DPF, just a catalytic converter and EGR. The 6.4L PSD has the DPF and I recall reading the SD van didn't get the 6.4L engine, it stayed with the 6.0.

 

there is a mixed bag of them. some older ones are the van fronts. the newer ones are the true super duty fronts. on a side note, one of the medics said they are going to the duramax/allison/chevy package because the ford kept dropping transmissions. don't know how true but i've seen the chevy van fronts on them lately.

 

Dunno, the autos in the 6.0L and 6.4L is a really good tranny.
Actually, I have wondered about the EGR myself. The 6.0Ls don't like to idle too long, wonder what they do to prevent issues with the EGR and cooler?

 

Around the suburbs of Pittsburgh, it seems like most new ambulances are either Chevys or Sprinter chassis. The Chevys are not van front ends either, rather the larger truck like cab. They look huge compared to the E350 or C3500 chassis.

The City seemed to have alot of ambulances with the F350 truck front end. But all the new ones I see are Chevys now. Rumor had it that at any given time, half of the Ford diesels were in for repairs.

Ford used to virtually own the police/ambulance business. Thats all you would see were Econolines and Crown Vics in some areas. Now, its Chevy ambulances and Charger cop cars.

The one market they still seem to dominate is the municipal trucks, where the Super Duties seem to be very prevalent.

 

Chevy involved with the government???? I don't believe it!

 

The fire depts I work for have the ambulances housed inside so when not on a call we return to the house and shut them off. When we are parked, they high idle when in park and the brake is set. Some people are more diligent about this than others. As far as regen, we drive them just like any other vehicle. If it's regening when it's time to shut down, too bad. We're not going to waste time or fuel driving them around until it's done.

As far as problems with EGRs and DPFs clogging, our 6.0s have become much more reliable since ULSD was instituted. I think that is keeping the EGRs and turbos from getting carboned up. We have had one DPF clog up on an 08 and it took the engine and turbo with it. However we had a very early 08 and I suspect that there was still plenty of LSD in the city's tanks and they didn't have it flushed out before switching.

The Torqshift transmission has been the best thing about the post 7.3 era. As far as I know we have about 100K on two units, and about 60-70 on another without a failure. That's hard running all day and night.

We have purchased an 09 GMC 4500 chassis ambulance. It has about 25000 miles on it and has been leaps and bounds more reliable than the Fords. Only some minor A/C issues. Both of our 04 and our 08 Fords had major engine work by 25000. The fit and finish in it sucks and it rides like crap but it's reliable. Unfortunately they aren't producing it anymore, so we'll be going to something else. Maybe Ford, but the administration has been really put off by the 6.0 and 6.4 reliability even if some of the 6.4's problems may not have been Ford's problem. (We had other problems not ULSD related)

I've heard Dodge Sprinter and some kind of Navistar chassis (they don't realise that they made the Powerstrokes pre 2011). Maybe we'll be in a 2011 SD.

Mike

 

thank you everyone for the reply. just a word about ford reliability. never have driven a diesel, but their gas engine is pretty darn reliable. i drive a police version every night. the two i drive on a daily basis have 150k on them and the engine keeps purring along. the rest of the car is what one can imagine for that many miles.