Hey guys just recently have gotten interested in diesels. And the ford f350 4x4 4 door short bed 6.4l is specifically what I'm looking at. I'm also looking at dodge (ill be posting this same question over there).

A little bit of background for you guys. I've owned a 1999 ram and a 1999 mustang, both I paid more in repairs than what they were worth (I'm unlucky with cars haha). My driving habits are probably frowned on with most, but I've heard diesels love to be pushed. My foot is always to the floor until reaching the posted speed limit, I treat my cars like race cars. But I am religious when it comes to regular maintance, if its time for a fluid to be changes, it's changed, if its time for a part to be replaced, it's replaced. If a part is notorious to go out, I replace it with something better than factory (and it's normally cheaper too haha)

Okay into why I am here! I've recently read A LOT of horror stories when it comes to this model truck (and the dodge), I'm hoping that many of these are a rare occurrence (spending 10k plus before even 60k miles). Are these scary stories something I should really worry about? The only thing that I can see that seems to really fail is the radiator and something about the brakes/calipers. Is there Any other major probls or common problems that I should look for?
Also I live in Alaska and I have no emissions testing, what kind of upgrades would you guys recommend? I heard of some sort of delete that some do.

Thanks guys!

Boots

 

Common problems are the radiators that leak...at the seams so look all along it and down by the tow hooks. Look for rust and white splatter from the coolant.

Occasionally someone will have a radiator hose that leaks. Original ones only had one o-ring on them. Replacements have two.

DPF/regen issues. If you used it lightly I hope that his DPF is ok. Look at the tail pipes, should be clean to maybe a little grayish. If not then it needs to be addressed.

General maintance records. How often for oil changes and fuel filter changes..must use OEM filters on this truck.

 

I've heard a lot about the DPF and Regen. I can just take the DPF out right? Or do I need a tune as well? I don't know much about Regen but people say to just cruise at highway speeds to fix this or what ever it is that happens. I drive a 60 mile round trip, most of it would be 55 mph, would that be good enough? How would I know if the truck is Regen?

I also just read that I should not let this truck idle for long periods of time. I'm in Alaska where I'm at it can be -20 and I do go to the Yukon in the winter (-60). I always have heater blocks but in this cold you need to let it idle a while. Is this true that its bad? If so what can I do to fix it.

 

You need a tuner to be able to get rid of the DPF

 

How much would it cost to get a tuner? A few hundred bucks?

 

Check this thread out https://www.dieselbombers.com/ford-p...-question.html

 

idling will fill the DPF in no time. Deleting the EGR and DPF is a good idea especially if you dont have emissions testing. H&S is a great programmer to delete everything off of the truck. BUT if you want to do this you have to act fast since DPF delete tuners are no longer produced from H&S and whats left on dealers shelves is it. Your looking at $1200 easy to get the truck deleted

 

Yeah I just did a little bit more reading and it sounds like the DPF and erg delete with tuner is the way to go and rather inexpensive for the amounts of gains and problems it fixes.

Thanks

Boots

 

I'm not bashing the ford's but in your case it seems the deleted dodge would be your best bet. A friend of mine uses ford bucket trucks at work and he says they are constanly having issues due to the long idle periods. I did a delete to a 6.7 cummins earlier this year and it was around $600 with parts and an efi live tune, if you do the work yourself. It takes about six hours or less to complete the delete work and about an hour to tune. I guess they have ways to wireless connect to a smartphone for monitoring and tune changes for the efi tunes now. JMO