KYSkipper

I'm one of the poor unlucky/stupid soles to have purchased one of your poorly designed 2004 F250 6.0 PDS trucks. The year I bought that truck, I bought 2 new Ford vehicles. A 2003 Expedition and the 04 F250. In case you are wondering, close to $80,000 worth of new Ford Vehicles. The 2004 F250 has been a piece of junk and evidently isn't fixable. I'm dang glad I kept my 1995 F250 Powerstroke so I'd have something to drive when my new vehicle is in the shop. Fact is, on these 6.0 trucks, Ford ought to include a good used 15 year old Diesel with the purchase so people would have a truck to drive instead of the loaner Taurus they give you at the dealer when they are contemplating how to fix this misengineered pile of metal. That engine has got to be one of the poorest designed diesels Ford has ever used in a pickup truck. You'd have to go way back to when they converted a 6.9L backhoe engine to come up with something worse, with less power, and less reliability. There have been what? 25 computer reflashes on this pile of junk, 6 different EGR valve designs, injector problems, turbo problems, leaking gasket problems, the list is long. Oh, they can fix it, and make it run right for a few weeks, then it starts going down hill again. The first thing you notice is your fuel milage goes from 18 mpg to about 13 mpg. Then you notice it won't pull. You start gearing down on hills you never geared down on before. Finally one day your run to town in your old 1995 model and realize just how sorry the new truck is. So you take it back to the dealer. The process repeats, and Ford says my truck is running normally. Bull Hooey. If they call that normal, they've got a serious misunderstanding of Normal. The sideways under the frame fuel filter system is about as assinine as it gets for engineering. There's no way to change that thing without dumping fuel all over yourself and the ground. Further, you can't drain the water without making a mess of you, the truck, and your driveway. Why in hell can't Ford leave well enough alone. Navistar didn't design that system that way. The Navistar design is the same as the one on the old 7.3 Powerstrokes. It's on top of the motor and the water drain is a lever that can be operated wearing a suit and tie without getting dirty crawling around under the truck. Every other diesel has their fuel filter and water separator on top and is a no mess thing to change and drain. Surely, Ford's engineers could have done better than that. There's that dang electronic gas pedal with the delay in it. Any of you all ever drove a manual shift truck with a delay in the pedal? You ought to try it sometime. I wonder why the clutch is slipping on mine at 39,000 miles? Could it be from having to ride it because you can't let it out fully while waiting for the computerized gas pedal to GO. My 1995 model has the clutch in it that it came with, so don't tell me I can't drive. It's the piss poor idea and design of the go button that is causing that problem. There's that idiotic $105 air filter that takes 40 minutes to change. What exactly was wrong with the $20 air filter like my 1995 model has? It can be changed in 5 minutes with no tools and no fuss and is a heck of a lot cheaper to replace. Basically, the deal is this. I paid $40,000 for a truck. Now, I'm stuck with it short of taking a heavy loss on it because by now everyone on the planet knows that these trucks aren't worth a damn and nobody will buy it or trade for it. Nobody wants one. Nobody wants the problems this truck has. Personally, I don't see how Ford sells the first new F250 these days. It looks like more people would figure out what kind of turd these new trucks were. Oh, I forgot, the installed that new option of a brake box in the newer ones. Hmm, you can buy those things for $19.95 at the camper place and install one in about 15 minutes. Real good guys. You all spent untold hours building a $19.95 gadget into the trucks but haven't yet figured out how to get the engine to run. Can I call and talk to someone at Ford? Hell no. Nobody is evidently allowed to do that. I called the number in the manual. I got Boobla Boobla somewhere in India who connected me with my dealer's service manager. Big whoopie. I know where to find him. He sees me on a bi weekly basis. I think ole Bill Ford ought to personally send every F250 6.0 owner a personal apology for their failure to deliver the product they promised. Yes, they promised a lot. "The new 6.0 Liter Powerstroke has more horsepower and more torque than any diesel we've ever offered" Liar. You wanna put the 95 and the 04 together and see what happens? Skip Walden Corbin, KY

I never have needed one with my 1995 F250 7.3 PSD, but the 6.0 ain't worth a hoot without it. I don't see why it doesn't come with a programmer from the factory. I mean Ford has put out 47 updates on this rig so far. They should have hired the Supertuner or Edge or Bully Dog or whatever people to start with. Skipper

As far as I'm concerned, there's 2 possible cures for my 04 6.0. Cure #1: Pull the 6.0 POJ and put in a 7.3 Powerstroke. Cure #2: Pull the 6.0 POJ and put in a Cummins. The engineer that came to look at mine said "It's running perfect." If perfect for a 6.0 means it can't pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass, Ford is in sad shape. Skipper

Not really, it's called tax deductible interest. Skipper

I really don't know that today's F150 is fit for a work truck. Fact is, I seriously doubt it. I think you'll find that most people looking for a work truck have had to go from half tons to 3/4 ton F250's to get the same quality of truck they are used to having. As far as using the bed to haul goes, bull hockey. Have you looked at the average pickup bed today? Does it appear to be long enough to haul a sheet of plywood? For that matter, does it look large enough to haul much of anything other than a few sacks of groceries? Time used to be when you couldn't buy an F250 with a short bed. Today, I'd venture to say that 95% of them have short beds. That number is probably even higher on F150's. Any serious hauling with mine gets done with a 14' tandem flatbed that I paid $900 for. It's heavy enough to support upwards of 4 tons, the truckbed won't handle near that. I guess my point is, Who cares about Honda's truck? What difference does it make to Ford? Ford needs to worry about coming up with a reliable, powerful diesel to put in THEIR OWN F250's and building an affordable truck that is as capable as trucks from years past. They aren't doing that now. When my 1995 F250 out performs my 2004 F250, something is seriously wrong with FORD's product. Skip

Actually, I have driven a Ranchero. Remember those? Torino with a bed. I also happen to currently own a 95 F250 Superduty and a 2004 F250 Superduty. I have owned an 87, 88, and 94 F150 and a 72 F250. From experience, I can say they have tried to turn the 04 F250 into a car. If you can find a 72 F250 with a manual tranny, go push the clutch in. It ain't for sissys. Try the same thing on the 04, granny uses a walker but wouldn't have a problem with that, not that I'm complaining about it. However, remember the problems they had in 87-89 when they first went to hydro clutches so that women could drive pickups? I do, the 88 about aggrivated the dickens out of me with the firewall falling apart and all. There were 2 separate parts made to retrofit and solve that problem. Did Ford offer to install them for customers having problems with their poor design? NOOOOOOOOOO. If you made it through 36000 miles, that design correction was your baby. Fortunately I was competent enough to fix it myself other wise it would have cost about a grand then. As far as going off road, I'd venture a guess that 70% of the F150's never leave the paved road. Skip

True, the 6.0 is still winding up at 3000 rpm's but who operates their engine at that RPM range? The shift point on it is about 2000 or so. 80 mph on the interstate in 6th gear is about 2800. Most in town driving is between 1500 and 2000. The 6.0 has 0 power till it gets wound above 2200. So for in town it doesn't have hardly anything because it's not wound tight enough. I actually did an experiment on mine over 1 tank of fuel and about 3 or 4 days of work by running it 1 gear lower than normal keeping it wound above 3000 rpms. The fuel milage surprisingly didn't change much although it was about 2.5 mpg less, but what aggrivation running a truck wound tighter than dick's hat band. It got some wierd looks and a short lecture doing that through a school zone too even though I had it in Granny low. Dad's got the 5.3 L in his Burban, and while I don't drive it much, I don't believe it runs 3000 rpms at highway speed, maybe if you hold it out of OD. I know with a boat behind it going through Atlanta it's a witch to merge where the older GMC that I had would go right on with it's 350. I've got a buddy with 500,000 miles on an 87 model 7.3 IDI. Although it is pretty weak compared to the 7.3 PSD, that likely has a lot to do with the tiny turbo on it. If you stuck a larger turbo like the one on the Powerstrokes I would think it would pick it up a whole bunch. The sad thing is, it's more powerful than my 6.0 without the programmer. Kind of embarrassing actually. They really ought to drive these trucks when they are designing them, and I don't mean empty. I mean loaded and pulling trailers, boats, campers, stock trailers, etc. Testing indoors with no temp variance, no rain, no humid air, etc is about useless. Skip

Dodge Cummins and Chevy's Duramax run off the same fuel and have to meet the same emmission standards. Why don't they have the same problem? Have you ever heard, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The 7.3's weren't broke and didn't need fixing. They were dependable, very servicable, and powerful enough. While in a lab with white coats on and some sort of special environment and fuel the 6.0 supposedly has more horsepower and torque, in real life, I can easily tell that is BS. My 7.3 truck will walk all over my 6.0 truck. The only place the newer truck does better is at extremely high speeds well above the speed limit, and the main reason for that is a taller high gear in the tranny than the 7.3 has. I have a programmer on my 6.0 and have it set to performance. The 6.0 at that level is close but still not any where near exceeding the performance of the 7.3. GM did the exact same thing when they went from having 350 gas engines to the 5.3 or whatever it is. They say more horsepower and more torque. Bull. I've towed with both engines. The 5.3 has nothing on the 350. Not horsepower, not torque and surely not fuel milage. It is beyond me how the US manufacturers can supposedly "Improve" their products yet in practicality they are worse than their predecessors. Of the 3 F150's I had with 300-6's the first and oldest one was the best in both milage and power. The 87 truck wich was actually built in July 86 and was one of the first batch of Fuel injected 300-6's got 21 mpg on the interstate and had plenty of power. IMO more power than the 302's I drove. It sure had more torque than the 302's. I had an 88 F150 also with the same engine and tranny. 17 mpg on the highway and significantly less power. The 94 was a complete dog. 14 mpg on the highway and 0, zilch power. You would think that in 7 years time they would improve the power and the mpg. NOT. Skip

Meanwhile those of us with an 04 6.0 POS that nobody wants to trade for feel like we've been screwed. Skip

What's the point? Ford and every other truck maker is trying to turn their trucks into cars. Skip

Just wait till we start sinking holes in Anwar. :rolleyes: Skip

The smallest Cat I'm aware of is the one that comes in a F650, and no, I wouldn't want it in a pickup. As one guy says that drives one daily "Caterpussy". One of the things that is mucking up the 6.0's is the injector system which isn't a Navistar product, it's a Caterpillar system. The Cummins still uses a normal common rail injector system. The Cummins system is a lot simpler than the HUII/Cat system Navistar uses in the Powerstrokes. Simpler means less things to go wrong and easier servicing if it does. A single HUII injector for the Fords costs in excess of $300 for the part. There are 8 of those in the engine. That does not include labor. I pulled the injectors on my 7.3 a couple years ago and replaced the O ring seals. It was about a 3 hour job to get them out and another 3 to put them back in. Then it took about 2 hours to get the truck lined out and running again. (have to bleed the air out of the heads and system) A set of 6 injectors for a Cummins costs about $350 and can be changed in a couple hours. The expensive part of common rails is the injector pump. For the life of me I can't see how a manual transmission affects emissions. If driven correctly, it ought to work out better. My 95 model has no Miracle Emmission Curing device on it like an EGR valve and it doesn't smoke near as much as the 04. That stinking EGR on the 6.0 stays messed up and causes more problems than it solves. What it ammounts to is most people these days can't drive a stick. Heck, old farts like me that have driven sticks since the 70's cant drive them either because the manufacturers can't make one that works right. I had a 78 Chevy C10 in College. It didn't have electric windows. It had a motor and ash tray, and that was about it. AM radio. :P In my 04 F250 I have a Garmin 276C. It's a small marine model and is at home on the water or in the truck cab. Handy invention. If it was screwed to the dash I couldn't carry it with me in the boat. If someone put an Onstar in my truck, I'd find a way to disconnect it. No need for the government or anyone else to be able to watch me drive. Skip

Unfortunately, the work truck crowd is who has brought Ford to the dance. Chevy has nearly always had a plusher cab than Ford, and Chevy's gas engines, paticularly the 350 V8 have always out performed Ford's gas engines in both power and fuel economy. The advantage Ford has had for years has been the SUSPENSION. When it comes to buying a truck to haul and or tow stuff Chevy hasn't cut the mustard for years because their suspensions have been built way too soft to make a smooth ride instead of a TRUCK. Back when I had the F150's I fished bass tournaments with a local club. All 3 F150's were 300 6 cyls and manual shifts. On the highway the 350 Chevy's would run off and leave me and get far better gas milage doing it, but when it came to the twisty 2 lanes on the way to lakes like Dale Hollow, The Chevys couldn't keep up with me at all, not even a close race. The main reason was the F150's Twin I Beam front end was much much stouter than the Chevy's front end and the Chevy's couldn't anywhere near corner with me. I know people gripped about those I Beams, but they lived and or drove in flat straight country. When Ford went to the A arm type suspension like a Chevy in the F150's, that's when I went to F250's. If I'd wanted a Chevy to start with, I'd have bought one. When I bought my 04 F250 the dealer begged me to take an auto tranny, mainly because that's what he had on the lot, he had to order the 6 spd. I had a GMC several years ago that I bought used off my dad. The truck had a good 350 gas engine but that auto tranny just killed it. Every time I'd get back from fishing, I'd have to throw cardboard under the truck to catch the oil off the tranny because it had overheated running across the mountains. That truck made regular trips to the tranny shop. Additionally, I hated the auto tranny in the mountains. They just don't hold a gear like you want them to. So basically my opinion of autos wasn't high to start with, but I gave the Torque Shift a drive from the dealership to the farm. Danged if it didn't do everything I hated about an auto tranny. On the way up the mountain, every time I'd let off coming into a corner instead of holding a gear to slow the truck as opposed to brakeing, it would upshift 2 gears, then when you got through the corner it had to hunt back down 2 gears before it would take off again. Basically I ended up manually shifting it into 3rd and leaving it there across the mountain. If I gotta do that, why would I want to pay $5,000 extra for one that's supposed to do it for me but won't. One of these days somebody is going to realize there is a full size truck market for quality built and designed trucks that don't have a bunch of junk on them to cause problems and accessories and such that people just don't want. If Ford doesn't pay attention, it may very well be a Yota or some other foreign manufacturer. The rumor is that Dodge is going to dump Cummins and put a Mercedes diesel in their trucks. If they do, the market is wide open for someone to put that Cummins in a good quality built truck. Skip

I have had suspicions about that drive by wire although the 1995 model is drive by wire also and both are standard shift trucks. Is there anyway that you know of that I can fix that back to the way they used to be on the older trucks. I don't know why they have to have an electric gadget thinking for such a simple thing as a gas peddal. I don't know why in the sam elmo Ford wants to do away with people who like driving standard shift pickups. I DO NOT WANT AN AUTO TRANNY IN A TRUCK. An F250 Super Duty is supposed to be a WORK TRUCK not a Momma take the kids to the soccer game truck. In a work Truck, I don't want a tranny that need regular filter changes, that I have to worry about over heating, that I have to be aggrivated with it shifting gears back and forth going up hills when I don't want it shifting gears. I want to do the gear thinking not the dang truck. I still contend there isn't a close relationship in power between the 6.0 and 7.3. It is very noticable on hills. One hill here in town my 7.3 truck will pull just fine in 3rd gear and even 4th. The 6.0 truck won't pull it in 2nd gear with the factory program on the computer. I have been testing a Superchips programmer on it. In the "Performance" mode is does seem to be close to the 7.3 if not a spec better. The 7.3 is not chipped or altered. It is 100% factory. I just talked to a guy who traded his 04 F250 for a 06 Chevy. He and I both agreed that when we bought our 04 trucks, they had plenty of power. When mine was new off the lot it would run a circle around my 95 truck. Both of us agreed that when we went in for recalls and got them reflashed, they went down hill fast. I noted once on mine that the computer messed up and it went to running on the default mode. It ran better on the default mode than it did on the program. The only place that the 6.0 seems to have an advantage on my 7.3 is above 75 mph. The problem is very little of my driviing is on the highway, most is 2 lane country roads. There are also other gripes on this truck that ammount to piss poor engineering. 1. Too small of a fuel tank. Most of the time with the guage on empty I can put about 27 gallons in the tank. The older 95 model holds 34 gallons. Now, 7 gallons may not seem like much, but at 18 mpg that is 126 miles. One of the reasons many of us are driving these diesels in the milage they get. Some of us like to go to a job site and get back to where the fuel is cheaper without having to fill up. Fuel in Eastern Kentucky can vary 90 cents or more per gallon in cost depending on where in the state you are. The extra 126 miles on a tank is helpful. 2. Piss poor tires from the factory. You'd think after having the number of lawsuits Ford had over tires they'd find a good supplier. NO. My 04 truck showed up with Generals on it. Thank goodness they finally wore out enough to justify buying a new set of Bridgestone. The Generals would not balance, rode horrible and had 0 traction. I know, I know, some of the trucks came with BF Goodrich. Why not all of them? I couldn't find one with a manual tranny and Goodrich tires so I had to take the Generals which I'm not 100% sure were even round. 3. That sorry design for a fuel filter and water separator on the frame rail. Hey guys. You can't blame Navistar for that. That is a Ford design. The Navistar design on that exact same engine is the same as it has always been, right on top of the motor where you can get to it and change a filter without pouring out a pint of diesel all over yourself. All small diesels that I've seen have the water drain valve on them that can be opened by hand. Not the 6.0 Ford. It's under the truck, requires an allen wrench and when it drains, it hits the frame rail and splatters all over, it can't be caught in a drip pan because of that. 4. The air filter need not be as complicated as it is nor as expensive. The $20 filter on my 7.3 worked great. It was easy to change. 2 plastic nuts that could be loosened by hand, lift the cover off, and you're good to go. The 04 truck's air filter is $105 (Motorcraft) or $65 (Wix). It's a booger to change, takes about 30 to get all the tabs and slots lined back up and inserted. Skip

From a longtime Ford Customer and Owner of a 2004 F250 with a 6.0 POS Diesel, I can tell you, the article is 100% on the money. In my lifetime I've owned 3 F150's and 3 F250's. I currently have 3 Fords parked in my driveway. One is a 95 model F250 Powerstroke 7.3, the 2004 F250 and an 03 Expedition. The 2004 F250 is JUNK, and it has changed my mindset as to which truck I'll buy next. First off, the "New" engine was advertised to have more torque and more horsepower than the older 7.3. Horse ELMO. It isn't even in the ball park. My older truck will out pull the newer one any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And just in case you are wondering, both trucks have a 3.73 axle ratio. The 6.0 is so torque anemic that you really have to ride the clutch to pull out on flat ground to keep from stalling it. With the older truck, you'd have to try real hard to stall it. It easily has 25% more torque than the newer truck. Secondly, the new truck was supposed to get better milage than the older truck. Wrong again. About 16 v's 18 with the older truck. The 95 model is 10 years old and has 140,000 miles on it. To my knowledge it has never been reflashed, never needed to be reflashed, and dang sure hasn't had anywhere near the problems of the newer truck. In fact, the newer truck has been in the garage more in less than 2 years than the 95 model has in 10 years. The major gripe I have with the 6.0 is lack of power, and I'm not alone. It's been that way for 90% of the owners of these hunks I've talked to. Ford sent an engineer down to look at my truck to see why it keeps loosing power. He wanted me to drive it and show him what was wrong. I dropped the clutch on it in the parking lot at the dealership and stomped it to the floor. Honestly, it would not so much as spin the tires. If I'd pulled that stunt with the older truck, it would have ripped the axle out from under the truck. Not that I want it to spin the tires, but I would like to be able to pull out in traffic and beat a Volkswagon up to speed. You can set a concrete block in front of it and it won't climb over the top of it. If you polled the majority of the full size truck owners 5 years ago on a couple simple questions you'd find this: Diesel Engine Quality: 1. Dodge/Cummins 2. Ford/Navistar (Very close 2nd) 3. Chevrolet/Detroit=Junk Rest of truck Quality: 1. Chevy/Ford 3. Dodge The reason that Ford Diesels have owned the market is because the 7.3 was dependable and provided satisfactory horse power and torque. It was also in a truck that was far better than Dodge. The fact is, the Cummins engine gets better milage and has always been more durable than the Navistars and has had pretty equivalent power to the Navistars. The Cummins has always been more readily modifiable than the Navistars, and can be made to produce much more power than either Navistar engine could. Chevy's diesel offerings have traditionally been a candidate for the boot award. Poor head design leading to failures and poor quality injector pumps have traditionally choaked them. When Chevy changed engines to the Isuzu/Duramax, they greatly improved their lot. Today the rank of the diesel engines is 1. Dodge/Cummins 2. Chevy/Duramax Distant 3rd. Ford/Navistar It is beyond me how Ford's R&D department let this piece of junk engine be put in production trucks. There is no doubt in my mind that it is currently costing Ford sales even with repeat customers. The funny thing about diesel truck owners is, they talk to one another about their trucks. I can't say that my opinion of the 6.0 has been favorable. I know of more than one loyal Ford customer who is and has been holding off the purchase of a new truck waiting for a new engine or contemplating buying a Dodge or Chevrolet. Honestly, I feel like I've paid $40,000 to be Ford's R&D guinnea pig for this truck, and I'm not happy about that. Skip