Ford 6.0 liter

[Npdchief07]

I put a deposit yesterday on a Ford 2006 Super-Duty F-250 with the 6.0 liter/8 cylinder diesel engine. I plan on using this truck as a tow vehicle for a 6500 pound travel trailer. I know next to nothing about vehicles/trucks.

I have read that the Ford 6.0 has a bad reputation (read it online, so it has to be true). My question is does that engine historically have a problem and should I be concerned? The vehicle has 67000 miles on it.

[dodge_guy]

FishOnOne wrote:

dfb wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:

transamz9 wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:
I had to drive thru Houston today and couldn't help notice a lot of 05-07 Super Duty trucks still on the road.

I didn't notice a single Dodge/ram cummins with the H.O. or the Blue Tec badge on the tailgate indicating a early 6.7 cummins truck. As a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I've seen one of these trucks.

I would also recommend the OP to research the other brands since they also have some ticking time bombs as well.

Just so you'll know, the HO didn't come out until 2012. Also very few of the early "Bluetec" trucks actually had the badge. All of the DPF trucks were Bluetec. Learn your trucks before you bash them.

I used to see a lot of these trucks around that why I was referencing these two specific types. Today u would have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing one of these on the wild. Why is that? I think we know the answer!

You guys in Texas are still stuck in "Urban Cowboy" John Travoltas Ford.. we travel the U.S. coast to coast and see one heck of a lot more Cummins... No better engine for towing than the Cummins...Period.... even Nissan is putting a Cummins in their new trucks...

We've tried them all and the Fords just hold up better for our farm/ranch use. We do have a DRW mega cab dodge with the last of the best cummins 5.9 engine.

Did I read that right! Fishy likes a Dodge?!!!!!!:E

[blofgren]

The Super Duty truck is fantastic; I loved my 2003.

The diesel engines since the 7.3L are a completely different story. I actually thought about dropping a Cummins in my 2003 but decided I didn't want to spend any more money on it. The company "Destroked" exists because of the diesel engine offerings from Ford.

[FishOnOne]

dfb wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:

transamz9 wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:
I had to drive thru Houston today and couldn't help notice a lot of 05-07 Super Duty trucks still on the road.

I didn't notice a single Dodge/ram cummins with the H.O. or the Blue Tec badge on the tailgate indicating a early 6.7 cummins truck. As a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I've seen one of these trucks.

I would also recommend the OP to research the other brands since they also have some ticking time bombs as well.

Just so you'll know, the HO didn't come out until 2012. Also very few of the early "Bluetec" trucks actually had the badge. All of the DPF trucks were Bluetec. Learn your trucks before you bash them.

I used to see a lot of these trucks around that why I was referencing these two specific types. Today u would have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing one of these on the wild. Why is that? I think we know the answer!

You guys in Texas are still stuck in "Urban Cowboy" John Travoltas Ford.. we travel the U.S. coast to coast and see one heck of a lot more Cummins... No better engine for towing than the Cummins...Period.... even Nissan is putting a Cummins in their new trucks...

We've tried them all and the Fords just hold up better for our farm/ranch use. We do have a DRW mega cab dodge with the last of the best cummins 5.9 engine.

[dfb]

FishOnOne wrote:

transamz9 wrote:

FishOnOne wrote:
I had to drive thru Houston today and couldn't help notice a lot of 05-07 Super Duty trucks still on the road.

I didn't notice a single Dodge/ram cummins with the H.O. or the Blue Tec badge on the tailgate indicating a early 6.7 cummins truck. As a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I've seen one of these trucks.

I would also recommend the OP to research the other brands since they also have some ticking time bombs as well.

Just so you'll know, the HO didn't come out until 2012. Also very few of the early "Bluetec" trucks actually had the badge. All of the DPF trucks were Bluetec. Learn your trucks before you bash them.

I used to see a lot of these trucks around that why I was referencing these two specific types. Today u would have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing one of these on the wild. Why is that? I think we know the answer!

You guys in Texas are still stuck in "Urban Cowboy" John Travoltas Ford.. we travel the U.S. coast to coast and see one heck of a lot more Cummins... No better engine for towing than the Cummins...Period.... even Nissan is putting a Cummins in their new trucks...

[blofgren]

northshore wrote:
Just bought a 2006 f 350 6.0, mine has 67k miles, its a clean well maintained truck, but I am going in with eyes open and prepared for the worse, and basically thats a oil cooler and egr cooler. I checked the prices from "bulletproof diesel" in AZ and have watched just about every utube video by powerstrokehelp and dieseltechron.
Mine is like brand new, and even with doing the bulletproof I think I'll do ok, so far I am very happy with the truck. I think for the price of a much newer one you can make lots of preventive repairs.
There is no doubt that the 6.0 has the bad rep, and probably well deserved, however I have learned that the 05 thru 07 are better than the earlier ones, there were hundreds of changes for the 05 thru 07 by Ford.
Again my suggestion and what I plan to do is learn everything I can about the problems and take care of them.
i don't believe you will be sorry, Im not.

Not that Bill Hewitt is the final word on power strokes, but he does have a shop that works on them on a daily basis, he does make sense on a lot of things he says about diesels, a couple of vids I would suggest looking at are;
"tale of two trucks" and "what year power stroke is best"
I wouldn't buy or not buy a vehicle based solely on what he says or does, but I do take some of the information he has into consideration.
Dieseltechron, has excellent instructional videos on the 6.0 and explains what going on with the 6.0 even so I can understand it. Ron not only talks about how to repair but he shows you step by step. Rons you tube videos are very very good.
Do your self a favor and watch a couple of them. even if you never plan to pick up a wrench watch the videos they are excellent.

As much as Ford made some improvements to the 06/07 models they were still plagued with a bunch of common design issues that were common to all years of the 6.0L. When I owned my 6.0L I did tons of reading and research to help in my decisions on how best to proceed to make the truck reliable to a point that we could feel reasonably safe to take it on an extended trip with the camper. Believe it or not, the worst year for these trucks was not 03 as many state, but 05. I actually read this in several different articles and techs in the know confirmed it.

I truly wish you the best of luck with your truck. The Super Duty trucks of this era are one of the best looking trucks ever made (much better looking than the new ones in my opinion) but the engine is definitely the shortfall of them. As much as I loved mine I just couldn't justify spending more money on expensive engine repairs and the feeling of uncertainty while travelling was awful. We feel much more confident travelling far from home now.

[spud1957]

8 pages of responses and the OP hasn't responded back.

Think he was scared off.

[FishOnOne]

northshore wrote:
Just bought a 2006 f 350 6.0, mine has 67k miles, its a clean well maintained truck, but I am going in with eyes open and prepared for the worse, and basically thats a oil cooler and egr cooler. I checked the prices from "bulletproof diesel" in AZ and have watched just about every utube video by powerstrokehelp and dieseltechron.
Mine is like brand new, and even with doing the bulletproof I think I'll do ok, so far I am very happy with the truck. I think for the price of a much newer one you can make lots of preventive repairs.
There is no doubt that the 6.0 has the bad rep, and probably well deserved, however I have learned that the 05 thru 07 are better than the earlier ones, there were hundreds of changes for the 05 thru 07 by Ford.
Again my suggestion and what I plan to do is learn everything I can about the problems and take care of them.
i don't believe you will be sorry, Im not.

Not that Bill Hewitt is the final word on power strokes, but he does have a shop that works on them on a daily basis, he does make sense on a lot of things he says about diesels, a couple of vids I would suggest looking at are;
"tale of two trucks" and "what year power stroke is best"
I wouldn't buy or not buy a vehicle based solely on what he says or does, but I do take some of the information he has into consideration.
Dieseltechron, has excellent instructional videos on the 6.0 and explains what going on with the 6.0 even so I can understand it. Ron not only talks about how to repair but he shows you step by step. Rons you tube videos are very very good.
Do your self a favor and watch a couple of them. even if you never plan to pick up a wrench watch the videos they are excellent.

We purchased a 07 F350 6.0PSD CC FX4 in January. All I can say it's a much better truck to drive than our 7.3PSD trucks or our cummins truck. Basically we had the transmission serviced and had a new serpentine belt installed. We changed the oil with John Deere Plus and Motorcraft oil filter, replaced fuel filter with Motorcraft and expect years of hard service from this truck.

[northshore]

Just bought a 2006 f 350 6.0, mine has 67k miles, its a clean well maintained truck, but I am going in with eyes open and prepared for the worse, and basically thats a oil cooler and egr cooler. I checked the prices from "bulletproof diesel" in AZ and have watched just about every utube video by powerstrokehelp and dieseltechron.
Mine is like brand new, and even with doing the bulletproof I think I'll do ok, so far I am very happy with the truck. I think for the price of a much newer one you can make lots of preventive repairs.
There is no doubt that the 6.0 has the bad rep, and probably well deserved, however I have learned that the 05 thru 07 are better than the earlier ones, there were hundreds of changes for the 05 thru 07 by Ford.
Again my suggestion and what I plan to do is learn everything I can about the problems and take care of them.
i don't believe you will be sorry, Im not.

Not that Bill Hewitt is the final word on power strokes, but he does have a shop that works on them on a daily basis, he does make sense on a lot of things he says about diesels, a couple of vids I would suggest looking at are;
"tale of two trucks" and "what year power stroke is best"
I wouldn't buy or not buy a vehicle based solely on what he says or does, but I do take some of the information he has into consideration.
Dieseltechron, has excellent instructional videos on the 6.0 and explains what going on with the 6.0 even so I can understand it. Ron not only talks about how to repair but he shows you step by step. Rons you tube videos are very very good.
Do your self a favor and watch a couple of them. even if you never plan to pick up a wrench watch the videos they are excellent.

[Bedlam]

Burningman is probably referencing leaks in the bedplate on some of these engines. My PSD did not leak or burn oil - Just don't ask me about my old air cooled VW...

[shum02]

burningman wrote:
The great thing about the 6.0 I had is it changed its own oil.
You just kept adding it and it leaked it out on its own.

My last oil change a week ago the truck gave me back everything but 200ml of oil, about a can of beers worth, out of over 14L's put in. That's an engine with 200k miles on it.

Have really never heard of these IH engines using a lot of oil.

[burningman]

The great thing about the 6.0 I had is it changed its own oil.
You just kept adding it and it leaked it out on its own.
And that was a NEW truck.
This isn't a Ford/Chevy/Dodge thing to me. Ford made Granadas... and they make Shelby Mustangs. The 6.0 is just the worst offering from a company that does make other very excellent engines.
I prefer the Cummins because it's an inline 6 and a LOT easier to work on, because I do all my own work. I like Fords. I'd steer the OP to either a newer Ford or an older one with a 7.3, or else a Cummins or Duramax. If it's a Duramax, go for an '05 or '06 "LBZ" but not an earlier one than that, the earlier ones have cylinder head issues. I'd love to have an '06 Duramax with the Allison auto trans, that's the hot setup if you like just old enough to be affordable Chevys.

Definitely don't just go buy whatever pretty diesel pickup the dealer has on the lot without doing a lot of research on that particular year and model. The Big Three all made great trucks I'd be happy to own, and they all three have particular ones to be avoided.

[2001400ex]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

it ran awesome. It ran better than my 08 Duramax with the same work done.

Strange? :h How so?

Actually it is strange. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Duramax and I'm a Chevy guy. But the way that 6.0 put the power to the ground was awesome. Pulling a mountain pass, the Duramax is better as I don't have to worry about EGTs (with my load, I only get over 1,300 degrees if it's lugging in 6th). But unloaded, the tranny shifted better and quicker than my Allison, even with the tranny tune.

[shum02]

kennethwooster wrote:
Amen I realize the reputation of the 6.0. I had a 2003 and 2005. Loved them both. My theory on the 6.0 is to check its repair history. Most are not bad if repaired correctly. Should be able to buy one cheap.

Cheap yes but like any truck 10 YO the mileage on a lot of these trucks is starting to get up there. If I could find a nice dually CC 4x4 in Lariat trim with less than 100k on the odometer for a good deal I'd probably grab one. Truth is most I see are hitting the 500k mark now. Just a lot of work to rehabilitate a truck with that much mileage.

[kennethwooster]

Amen I realize the reputation of the 6.0. I had a 2003 and 2005. Loved them both. My theory on the 6.0 is to check its repair history. Most are not bad if repaired correctly. Should be able to buy one cheap.