Well as you all know from my previous post about my 2003 F250 6.0 crapping out on me, I had to get it towed to a shop. It has been there for 15 days now, and finally today they call me saying they have 6 hours of "diagnostics" done to it, and have determined that oil is somehow leaking into my engine coolant and also into the turbo. Somehow it has choked out the glow plugs and the glow plugs, and also turbo, need to be replaced. $1000 for the turbo, $150 for the glow plugs, 6 more hours labor... Does this all add up, or is it going to be a temporary fix that is going to screw me over more?? I am 17 with a minimum wage job I cannot afford for this fix to be wrong and waste $2395.74 on it. << That is the total price. Can oil leak into the coolant and "drown out" the glow plugs and cause the truck not to start? It was having a blue smoke and extremely rough riding problem a few days before it quit on me for good. Please educate me on how the oil can leak into coolant and how this all affects the turbo.. Thank you in advance!! Really need to figure this problem out fast!

oil leaking into coolant on a 6.0 is either an EGR issue (which is very common), a head gasket issue (also common), or an oil cooler issue ( oil is cooled by engine coolant, they've been prone to internal failure due to leftover contaminants from block casting). Or the exhaust seal in the turbo.

but seeing how oil was found in your turbo, it's pretty much narrowed down to an oil cooler failure along with the possibility of a bad seal in the exhaust housing of the turbo (which is not uncommon either).

Another plausible explanation would be a head gasket which seals the combustion chamber and the cylinder head together, while sealing oil and coolant passages running between the engine block and cylinder head.

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They probably screwed you on diagnostic time, but $2,400 isn't exactly that expensive to have these kinds of repairs done to a 6.0...

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If we knew what exactly the problem was, and if your feeling motivated, we can give you instructions and the products to do these for less $$$

Well they actually kinda saved me on the diagnostics.. They have had it for 2 weeks and had done about 6 hours of work on it, but only charged me 2 hours which wouldve been $200, but they said they'd cut me a break and charge $150.. so overall its not bad. I bought a new turbo and glow plugs, and the turbo has a 1 year warranty on it, so hopefully I can get the truck sold before the warranty is up.. I was also having hard starting in cold temperature problems, and couldnt drive the truck anywhere if I didn't let it warm up for 10 minutes. It would shift into reverse when I put it in drive on really cold mornings.. I just hope this fixes the problems.. Already had to sell a guitar to fix this thing once.. This will be about the max I can spend without going out and stealing some copper to scrap.... (jk haha)

Thank you for the input!

This also could be a FICM issue . If whatever they do for repairs doesnt fix it and you wanna solve the issue let us know

Or send a PM to Mdub707, he's a lot better with 6.0's than I am, tell him I referred you

If this doesn't fix it, ill be outside in the rain wrenching on it for free. Can't afford anything else literally...

If it doesn't work, i will pm him and try to see what all you guys can help me with! Thank you very much, glad to be a part of a great forums that doesnt tell me to "sell the piece of shit".. I posted on other forums and I was pretty much told to sell it. Of course i know ill be selling it, but that doesnt fix the issue, you know?

Thanks for the tip! Ill test out the FICM when i get the truck back if it's not cleared up.

If you look in the 6.0 pages here (up at the top of the page) you'll find 6.0 FICM test procedures. problems starting and rough running conditions are not always caused by bad glow plugs on 6.0's. Bad FICM's sending weak or abnormal votage signals can cause the injectors to act funky. If you PM Mdub he'll probably give you test procedures himself (its very easy) and he fixes them

And yes I know exactly what you mean on the whole "sell the piece" thing. You'll find that most of us on here will try to be as helpful as we can

sounds like ruptured oil cooler and possibly a bad FICM. was this a ford dealer, if it was they did not do a very good job with the diagnosis. Also these turbos will always have oil in the compressor side, I hope they didn't rip you off because they found oil in there, drive the new turbo 1000 miles and it will be full of oil again, the crankcase vent goes right into the inlet tube for turbo.

So when I get it back I should test the FICM asap? And no, it was a tow truck business, they tow broken down coal trucks around here and then fix them at the same place. Ive always heard good things about them around here. Maybe they found something actually mechanically wrong with the turbo.. hopefully.. but I will check the FICM, and also could it be a blown head gasket issue? would that cause the no-start?

They sound like a bunch of morons. Glow plugs don't just get "plugged up" it's just a probe. It sounds like they're definitely hosing you. Morons. They probably didn't even know that the crankcase vents into the intake which sends a little bit of oil right into the turbo, so they're pretty much always soaked in oil on the intake side.

FICM is a good possibility for your hard starts and not being able to drive it for 10 minutes, I would definitely check that out when you get it back. It would also be a good idea to have the batteries load tested at an auto shop, they'll typically do it for free. If one is bad, replace BOTH. Good batteries and a good FICM do wonders.

As for oil/coolant swapping... are you SURE that's what it's doing? Or did they tell you this? An oil analysis would tell you for sure if there is coolant in the oil, it costs about $30. There really are only two ways for this to happen, most commonly is a ruptured oil cooler. If the EGR cooler ruptures you'll just burn coolant, there is no oil going through there. The other thing is cracked heads, but that's less common.

What mods are on the truck? Programmer?

A $150 EGR delete, and a $235 oil cooler rebuild kit, along with a coolant flush and some new coolant as well as a coolant filter should get you up and going again for a lot less, and be way ahead of what these guys are proposing. They obviously have the advantage being in front of the truck, while we're just guessing from behind a keyboard, but so far sounds like they suck at diagnostics.

The more you can explain about what happened when the truck shut down, the better it will help us. Any noises, any smoke, if so what color, anything man...

i hope they didnt screw me over, and that my turbo was actually mechanically broken, because i already ordered the new remanumactured turbo and brand new glow plugs...

i feel sick to my stomach thinking that i couldve tested and possibly fixed this issue with a simple FICM test and saved $2500...

the problem is we have no way to tow the truck to the house by ourselves.. i have been without it for 19 days and getting a ride to school every day is getting pretty old

if it's not fixed after they install these parts i will try to get all of my money back (doubt it) and test these things by myself..

and for the oil "leaking into the coolant," they were the ones that told my dad this, he mightve misunderstood them, but i believe you over some guy trying to make a living off of me, at least you arent trying to sell me something :P

these guys have been trustworthy in the past, so we will see how it goes. it was a different mechanic shop telling me that oil leaking into the intake side of the turbo meant you have to get a new one..

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sorry didnt read all of your post.. heres what happened

well i started the truck up a about 3 weeks ago and it had its usual "cold, white smoke, violent shaking" startup.

warmed it up completely after a couple miles down the road. after school that day it had the same violent startups, but the smoke was blue this time. i brushed it off not thinking, but after driving down the road, it was having a bad problem accelerating. it acted extremely sluggish and would hardly accelerate at all. if i mashed the pedal any at all it wouldnt accelerate it would shake and blue smoke and have a choking type of sound to it.

with no other means of transportation i drove it like this for a day or 2. on the 2nd day after school, it wouldnt start. it would turn over and crank normally, but it wouldnt start up (40 degrees outside, so it shouldve been alright) cranked on it little by little with no success in starting it. it would barely start then die after the first few seconds of idling. (almost instantly dying) also it was white smoking out of the exhaust.

what could this be?

Just curious, have you noticed a oil leak on the back of the motor? seeing any oil on the ground where you park??
Could be FICM or ICP sensor, or??

nope havent noticed any leakage whatsoever.

i am going to the shop tomorrow to look at the truck for myself, and see what the guy was telling my dad. dad said he didnt catch much of what the guy was trying to say. i will look at the turbo tomorrow, and see if he can let me test the FICM right there in the shop. i will post back tomorrow after i hear what all of the problems are with it.

All of your conditions are pointing to a failing FICM.

It's possible there was also a high pressure oil leak developing, and the 03's are notorious for failing HPOP's (high pressure oil pump).

Any competent mechanic could check this with a scanner. The FICM should take a couple guys about 15 minutes to check (yes you'll need a buddy for this).

It's making me angry just reading this nonsense. This is why so many 6.0's get such a bad rep. It's something that could have easily been fixed for under $1k, worst case scenario, and now you've got some jagaloon just throwing parts at it trying to fix it because they don't know squat about 6.0 powerstrokes.

Here's how to test the FICM: FICM test procedure

One question, when it wouldn't start, as you were cranking the truck over do you remember any smoke coming out at all? If no smoke comes out, this tells us the injectors are simply not firing. Which means it's either FICM, or typically HPOP. Both relatively easy fixes. You can get FICM's repaired almost anywhere these days (I wouldn't recommend buying a new one), and HPOPs are something like $550.

I dont recall seeing any smoke, but usually on startup it white smokes horribly so does that mean glow plug problems?

I am going to look at it today to figure out what dad was talking about. I will post back here in a few hours and let you guys know what the problems are.

No, the glow plug systems in the 6.0's are FAR more robust than their 7.3 counterparts, and very rarely do you see issues with it. No smoke when cranking points to either a FICM or high pressure oil issue. The smoke at start up is probably also FICM related. Quite common.

Keep us updated.