Also check out the appropriate areas on
Diesel Forum - The Diesel Stop.com and see what people are saying about the truck/engine you are interested.
I have a 2002 SRW F350 7.3L Six Speed manual crew cab with an 8 foot bed that has about 115,000 miles. I bought it new on 12/1/2001.
Problems have been few. I have had with it is the CPS which is common. So common that I bought a replacement from International before I put 50 miles on the truck. Somewhere around 60,000 miles the CPS started acting up so I replaced the origional with the one from International. I bought a new CPS for the glove box.
CPS failure can leave you on the side of the road but it can be changed pretty quickly. Quicker than a tow is likely to get there.
Ford finally had a recall on the CPS issue so I'm either going to let them change my current one since its starting to act up or I'll just have them give me the part.
The only other problem is the hydraulic clutch went out. At least it did not leave me on the side of the road like my 95 Chevy did two or three times.
Pretty easy fix, just gots to be careful removing the spring on the clutch pedal. It pops back at your face and could easily take out some teeth, break a jaw or nose.
Most of my drive for the last few years is 72ish miles round trip of rural 55 mph roads. During warm weather the truck gets 20.5ish most of the time with a high water of 21.2mph. The tank right now might go above 20.5.
How much a diesel will cost you depends on the truck/car and how YOU drive as well as the roads you drive. We had to buy a "new" car and we considerted a 2003 Excursion with the V10 engine. The X was too big for the wifey to drive so we got an Sequoia. We compared the X with the V10 and the 7.3L diesel. For the type of driving she does a gasser would be cheaper.
We just took the Seqouia to Disney. We got 16-17mpg on the trip. Traffic was either stop and roll for HOURS or 65-75. The F350 at 70-75 gets 17ish mph. With current prices the truck would have been a bit more expensive to drive I think.
I plan on keeping my F350 for a long long long time. I'm sure it will need a clutch in the next 5,000-55,000 miles.
Maybe a water pump in the same time frame. But the truck 8.5 years old and still going strong. Best vehicle I have ever owned. The engine is supposed to be good for 300-500K. I might find out.
The problem with Ford trucks was the auto tranny's prior to the new one in 2003/2004? Seems like if you ran them hot you killed the tranny. Backing up, especially up hill was supposed to be very bad since it caused the tranny to overheat. At least that was the theory on the website at the time. There are a couple of auto tranny builders, one called BTS(Brians Tranny Service?) in TN that people swore by. The only bad thing I heard about BTS was that he had some much work he was hard to get on the phone.
People complained about the 7.3 back in the day.
I think the owners of the 6.0L and the 6.4L have better reasons to complain. The younger 6.0L engines were supposed to be OK. The 6.4 seems to get really bad MPG compared to the 7.3s. This seems to be because of the pollution control stuff.
If I had to buy a truck to day I'm not sure I would get a diesel. Not sure if the money makes sense anymore with the higher priced and more complicated engines getting less mpg. The gassers seems to have improved mpg wise and my needs have somewhat changed.
Hopefully my F350 will around for a long long long time.
Later,
Dan
