New 6.4L diesel

[HGM]

John,
You're absoloutly right.. How many of us out there can honestly say they would prefer to drive a '55 Chevy(or insert your particular favorite classic)across country(on something other than a leisurely cruise) because it was so much simpler than todays vehicles?? The truth would be more to the tune of you needing to be a mechanic of some sort to make it coast to coast in a bucket like that, not to mention kidney belt and lumbar support for that straight bench seat.. Neat car, I'd love to have one, but nowhere near todays quality, performance,reliability, comfort,etc.. Times change, we need to accept that and change with them... All '07 emissioned trucks have the same technology in the exhaust aftertreatment, no big deal. Thats why you take it to the dealer(not the gas sation attendant),as soon as possible, to let trained techs fix it if something goes wrong.

Enjoy your truck man, you deserve it, you worked for it...

 

[ducati996]

Jcmseven,

As you will notice folks like to just pile on a particular brand - so you have to weed through the obvious bias to get to anything worthwhile. Let me say congrats on your purchase and dont worry about what you heard.
The 6.0 are solid motors, so much so that Ford gave away powertrain warranties up to 6/75k for free for the 2006 models (I have one). If they were such bad motors Ford wouldnt give anything away. it will turn out in time the 6.0 were better than they appeared to be, and its my understanding the 6.4 came out to meet the USLD requirements and emisssion requirements. otherwise it would be still the 6.0. Same power (or any noticable difference) between the two. Should be a great motor so just power on and dont listen to the nay sayers - you will find more fiction then fact on this board, so just go to the site with more fact below

Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - Ford truck and SUV owners and enthusiasts Community And Information Source.

 

[GreatWhitehunter]

Man, I've been reading this thread and growing more irritated by each repy. I was just about to weigh in and Ducati took the words right out of my mouth. As discussed on past post the 6.0 is NOT the problem child it was made out to be. I have and early 04 6.0 and the engine and tranny are rock solid. I looked at the big three before buying, the Duramax was a nice engine. But the ford still was my choice. Not because I'm brand biased but because it was the best machine for the money and my taste. I'm sure the 6.0 will become the well respected engine the 7.3 was. Once the naysayers ( all the folks who don't even own one) subside. The 6.4 is rumored to be a great engine and I doubt seriously that ford didn't due it's homework on the possible problems it could have. Best of luck on your new toy! I'll be looking at them in a year and a half.

Matt T.

 

[ultrarunner]

Buying a New Car Manufacturer's Buy Back can be a real savings, the operative words are "Can Be"

I've handled about 30 Lemon Law buy back cases in California. Sometimes, it is just incompetence on the part of the manufacturer through the servicing dealer to promptly fix a problem that resulted in the Manufacturer buying the vehicle back. (And yes, the "Trouble Free" miles the consumer has driven the vehicle will be used to lower the amount of the money returned to the Buyer"

The Lemon Law, speaking only from California experience, can be beneficial to both the buyer and manufacturer.

For the buyer, it is completely voluntary and at no cost. The buyer does not have to accept the arbitrators decision and is free to pursue a court action. The decision is only binding on all parties once the Buyer accepts.

For the Manufacturer, it is a private, informal and relatively low cost method to resolve disputes.

Getting back to the servicing dealer's part...

New vehicles are eligible for Lemon Law arbitration for allege defects that substantially effect the USE, VALUE or SAFETY of the new vehicle that the manufacturer has not been able to remedy given a reasonable opportunity.

The California Lemon Law also further presumes unreasonable as generally being out-of-service for more than 30 days in the first calender year or having had 3 opportunities to correct the same problem without success.

Sometimes, a Buyback is triggered by something as simple as the vehicle being in the shop for an unreasonable period of time waiting for parts. Other times, especially with first-year models, a part may fail and be redesigned several times, before the manufacturer gets it right.

In both cases, the Lemon Law offers protection to the Buyer. Also, Buyers have a lot of protection under the "Song Beverly Act and the Magnuson-Moss Act"

These acts, in a nutshell, say that when you buy a product as a consumer you have a right to the reasonable expectation that the product will perform/function as advertised... ie you will be able to drive your new vehicle safely and you won't spend all of your time dealing with repair issues.

A second, and often overlooked provision is that your warranty is automatically extended for the period of time the product is out-of-service for warranty related repairs. (I've used this one with a new computer that I was having trouble with. It had been repaired under warranty and when it broke again, I was told it was no longer in warranty... that is until I reminded the company that my warranty was automatically extended by the number of days they previously had my computer for warranty repairs)

 

[gemini5362]

I do not know enough about the new fords to have an expert opinion about them. I have an 06 chevrolet and do not have enough miles on it yet to even think about a new truck. I also would not buy a new diesel truck of any flavor right now until they get some of the problems that the new exhaust emission controls have created. To the best of my knowledge ford is the only one that has had to come up with a fix for a major problem The blowing fire out of the tail pipe problem. I would not be comfortable with the fix they came up with. According to what I saw a Ford Engineer on the news say. They are monitoring exhaust temperatures. If the exhaust temperature gets to be too high then the engine will give you a reasonable amount of time to get to the side of the road then it will shut your engine down. I have not heard what a reasonable amount of time is. If I am on the side of a mountain and it shuts down then that might be a problem. If I am stuck in traffic and it shuts down before I can get to a safe pull off point that also could be a problem. I realize that this is a interim fix but I would not have to want to worry about having this problem. I also think that all the big three are going to have a similar problem since they have a similar idea in the exhaust emission equipment

 

[jcmseven]

I appreciate the responses so far. I would say that the ULSD requirements have caught us all by surprise, except the motor companies. The gentleman that installed my Banks system on my previous truck used to work at the turbo factory that manufactures turbos for Navistar and was at the time working and testing COMPLETE engines, 6.4L engines, to run well on ULSD. He changed jobs in 2004!!!! So, my perception is not that the engine manufacturers of any company (except maybe Cummins--as they seem to have had to do some extensive changes to displacement to achieve similar performance) had to do much last minute changing. Many of these engines have been in testing for several years. This is similar to me to when John Deere went with the PowerTech engines in their 4000 series tractors, replacing Yanmar. Everyone I spoke with said they had concerns about the "New engines" yet these engines had been used for thousands of hard hours in other applications. They really were not new. As for the power the 6.4L is rated at 350 hp and 650 lb.ft of torque, both of which are higher than the previous 6.0 (325/575). I can say having driven a few examples of both the 6.4 does seem stronger. I cannot say how many parts/components they share, but the 6.4L is touted as a "redesigned" engine. Greg, GWH and Duc, I appreciate your--and others--nice comments.

John M

 

[KICK]

lest anyone forget, the first navistar engine in a Ford Light Duty pickup was the 6.9, it morphed into the 7.3 which was around for years.

so now we have the 6.0 morphing into a 6.4.

literally the same increase in displacement, probably amounts to a retooling of the bore or stroke sized.

I'd buy one if I were in the market, and not worry about it.

 

[HGM]

To the best of my knowledge ford is the only one that has had to come up with a fix for a major problem The blowing fire out of the tail pipe problem. I would not be comfortable with the fix they came up with. According to what I saw a Ford Engineer on the news say. They are monitoring exhaust temperatures. If the exhaust temperature gets to be too high then the engine will give you a reasonable amount of time to get to the side of the road then it will shut your engine down. I have not heard what a reasonable amount of time is. If I am on the side of a mountain and it shuts down then that might be a problem. If I am stuck in traffic and it shuts down before I can get to a safe pull off point that also could be a problem. I realize that this is a interim fix but I would not have to want to worry about having this problem. I also think that all the big three are going to have a similar problem since they have a similar idea in the exhaust emission equipment

To clarify that a bit, the only reason your temps would get above the threshold that was set is for the engine to have a problem. To put it quite bluntly, if it shuts off on the driver, its because he was ignoring a problem for way too long.. Again, driver causing an issue that the MFG must adjust for. A normal running engine will not create these temperatures. The Flamethrower video showed a truck that had a major injector failure, it was missing , dumping raw fuel into the exhaust.. So, to sum it up, this is a pretty effective fix. The truck will give you plenty of warning if your listening to what its saying.. I suspect all MFG's will make the same calibration adjustments. I recently heard of a Dodge throwing some flames too.. I've even seen gas burning vehicles catch fire(in the middle) because of a leaking injector filling the cat with fuel .. Its not that big of a deal, we should be paying attention anyhow..

Very good point KICK..

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Greg, has there been any more issues with the exhaust "problem" or is it still just a few trucks? If it is just a few trucks then for the most part the truck shutting down isn't ever going to be a problem for the average user who takes care of their truck.

 

[Egon]

I am in Alberta right now and it seems every second vehicle is a P/U with Fords share present. Many of these are "Working" trucks used for towing, hauling and transportation.

The number on the road indicate they must be reliable.

From what I've heard out here they have lots of power but may like a drink or two.