Looking to buy 2007 Ford F250 diesel....

oughtsix wrote:
The 7.3 liter Ford Powerstroke diesel was discontinued in 2003. The 7.3 Powerstroke was a very well regarded diesel engine. Ford lovers seem to want a heavy premium for the 7.3 Powerstroke diesel because the 6.0 liter Powerstroke diesel engines that replaced them were so fraught with problems. There is no way I would own a 6.0 liter Powerstroke diesel engine... I simply do not enjoy being stranded in the middle of no where looking at a huge repair cost. There are upgrades you can spend a good amount of money on to supposedly make the 6.0 Powertroke a reliable engine. Many believe that the 6.0 Powerstroke is simply a bad engine and even after doing the upgrades it still has a considerably higher chance of breaking down and leaving you stranded than than a Dodge Cummins or GM/Chevy Duramax of the same vintage. To sum it up... If the 6.0 Liter Powerstroke diesels were horses they would simply be shot to put them out of their misery!

The Dodge Cummins diesel engines generally have an excellent reputation. The Cummins engines in Dodges are straight 6 (Six cylinders lined up in a row) engines vs everybody else's V8 diesel engines. A car person might think that a V8 is better than a straight 6 engine but in this case the straight 6 Cummins engine is simply an all round better engine. My major concern with the Dodge / Cummins combo is that when they get up into the 150K - 200K mileage range there is a very good chance that the automatic transmissions they are paired with will need to be rebuilt. So if you are looking at an older Dodge Cummins diesel truck with an automatic transmissions it would probably be prudent to figure that you will probably have to put a few thousand dollars into rebuilding the transmission. If you don't mind a manual transmission then you probably don't need to have this same concern. A Dodge Cummins engine running for a million miles with no major engine issues is not even notable because they frequently run this long without issues when taken care of well.

When I was shopping for a used tow vehicle around the price range you are looking in I did a lot of research and zeroed in on 2006 / 2007 Chevy or GMC Duramax diesels. I consider the Duramax almost as good of an engine as the Cummins BUT the 6 speed Allison automatic transmissions mated to the Duramax diesel engine is much more rugged than anything available from Dodge or Ford of this same vintage.

The 2006/2007 Duramax is sought after for several reasons. In 2006 GM made the internals of the Duramax even stronger than the previous excellent Duramax engines. In 2006 the Duramax bumped up the torque and horse power output of the Duramax considerably. In 2006 GM switched from the excellent Allison 5 speed transmission to the even more excellent Allison 6 speed transmission. By 2006 GM had worked pretty much all the quirks and weaknesses of the Duramax engine.

In the second half 2007 GM added emission control equipment to the Duramax engine to meet new emissions standards. The heart of this equipment was a filter in the exhaust stream that would filter out the unburnt diesel particles (The heavy black smoke diesel engines are so famous for). This filter gets backed up with these unburnt diesel particles by design. Also by design diesel fuel from the fuel tank is periodically injected directly into this clogged filter which has the affect of burning off the unburnt diesel particles and unclogging this filter. This system works very well BUT this extra step of injecting diesel fuel into this filter burns extra fuel and lowers the over all fuel economy of the truck by a few points. This is why the 2006 / early 2007 Duramax diesels are sought after. A few years later GM, Ford and Dodge all added a filter in the exhaust stream that uses an Urea fluid to reduce NOx emissions due to updated emissions standards. This means that there is an extra tank that carries the Urea that has to be periodically refilled in all of the late model diesel pickups regardless of manufacture.

I have a 3/4 ton (2500 series) Chevy Duramax. Specifically in the GM/Chevy Duramax diesel pickup trucks the only difference between the 3/4 ton 2500 series trucks and the 1 ton single rear wheel 3500 series trucks is a single spring leaf in the spring pack on the rear axle. All other aspects of the 2500/3500 series Duramax trucks are identical. I do not believe this is true of the 2500/3500 gasoline engine powered trucks. My 3/4 ton truck is more than capable of handling the trailer in my signature. If I ever need the additional capacity of a 1 ton 3500 series truck I can add a spring to the rear spring pack or add air bags to the rear axle for additional capacity.

Specific model year trucks / engines have specific weaknesses. BUT the most important factor in determining the life of any truck with 100K+ miles on it is how well the previous owners took care of the truck. The best designed/engineered trucks WILL have issues if the owners to not properly maintain the truck!

Good luck in your hunt for a pickup to tow your trailer!

One thing all 4 x 4 Dmax owners should do if they have up to a 2007 is check the transfer case pump. There is a service bulletin, but no recall on it. There are clips int there to protect the aluminum housing that are prone to breaking. When this happens it will punch a hole in the aluminum housing. Unfortunately the location of that hole means fluid shoots off on the highway and does not leave tell tale drips, resulting in ultimate seizure of the transfer case. GM';s solution is another clip. I checked mine and the clip was broken (75K miles) and the hole just started (caught it in time). I went with the solution from merchant auto. The video below does a good job of explaining. The labor cost at an independent shop was $300. Better than $5000 for a new transfer case. The issue is most common 75K to 150K. It is amazing how many people are not aware of it. Even my mechanic was not. He has since been advising customers to do it and has found 2 or 3 that were on the edge of going. The part from merchant is about $75. If yours hasn't been done, its $400 well spent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afmcNkgKuMY