2011 Super Duty starts at $28,020

[ausrutherford]

Thanks to the Ford site:

 

http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/superduty/

[ausrutherford]

Built one and the Kinga ranch now tops off above $70k, thats more expensive than the top off point of the last HD...and we havent seen the new HD yet of course.

[theDuff]

I just finished my second day of the 6.7 diesel engine performance and repair class. All I can say is that I'm very impressed. The instructer keeps saying FoE engineers did most of the engineering, but I though it was Peugeot?

 

It looks like they have thought of everything! The engine seems fairly simple to repair (who knows if it will even need regular repairs yet). It was said that owners will see a 18% improvement in fuel economy over the 6.4. The instructer calculated fe on a drive from Galesburg IL to Chicago (about 100 miles) to be about 18! Unloaded of course. Egr valve is on the hot side (not after the egr cooler) and this reduces valve coking considerably. Egr is used a lot less due to the def system and the ability of the pcm to actually read NoX levels with a NoX sensor and module. Engine noise is a little less than the 6.4 which I thought was already fairly quiet. They've thought of all sorts of ways to keep the def from freezing and are giving the driver lots of warnings via the message center if the def gets too low. The whole engine is kinda geared towards fuel economy. Even how they regulate fuel psi so the pump doesn't work as hard as it did in the 6.4.

 

I don't know if this has been posted yet but the engine meets emmissions regulations that are due in 2015 which will last until 2019! Can GM say that with their freshly updated d-max? You mean I won't need to familiarize myself with a new engine in three years! Yay!

 

The exhaust aftertreatment assembly is just a monster! It stretches from the trans bellhousing all the way to the rear axle on a supercap shortbed. The piece is said to cost about $5k to replace. OUCH!

 

The 6.4 achilles heal was its fe and he's saying the reason for that is the dpf cleaning the engine goes through. It dumps a lot of fuel on the exhaust stroke when it regenerates the dpf (every 100-300 miles). The 6.7 will regen the dpf 17X less than the 6.4. So, Dodge doesn't use a def system yet. What's its fe going to be compared to the SD?

[theDuff]

I guess Galseburg to Chicago was more like 150 miles. He said today they were going 80 the whole way and still got 18 mpg.

 

An interesting side note. He talked today about one of Fords durability test. Basically they use dyno engines and put them through there paces for x number of hours. 750 hours is the goal normally. What they do to the engine for that 750 hours equals about 250k miles. The 6.4 fails at 780 hours of testing, or thereabouts. The 6.7 exceeds 1600 hours of testing regularly before a failure.

 

There also was a hot/cold shocking tests. They get the engine as hot as it would normally run in severe duty situations then shove -40 degree fluid into the cooling system and beat them again till they're nice and hot. They do this repeatedly. None of the test engines had an egr cooler failure or head gasket failure. The instructer was unsure wether the 6.0 or 6.4 had these failures during testing.

[Marginal Economist]

OK to release and ship for the 6.7L from Kentucky occured yesterday.

[jpvbs]

Good stuff Duff. Thanks.

 

It is encouraging that the trainer had lots of good things to say about it. I assume his main mission is to teach techs to work on it, not to be a marketing guy.

 

I think Dodge is going to have a tough time - down a lot of power and worse fuel economy. The Dodge fans love to talk about how great it is that they don't have DEF, but it seems you'd have to be blindly loyal to not acknowledge the benefits of the DEF systems.