Hi All,

I have never posted anything before so please bear with me. I guess I will get right to it. I am traveling from Southern CA to KS tomorrow and I am having a disagreement with a friend about the route based on my truck's engine.

He is claiming that my 1993 F350 2WD 7.3L Powerstroke Diesel towing a relatively light 2 horse trailer (no horses, just boxes for moving and still probably less than half the weight of a single horse) CANNOT make it driving the I-70 bc it will not handle the high altitudes bc of the amount of oxygen the engine needs to run. He swears that we will blow the engine if we try. Is this true?

It seems ridiculous to me bc why would they even make a vehicle that couldn't drive across country on a major interstate. And I have personally driven the I-70 route a dozen times in the last 15yrs with all sorts of vehicles and never had a problem. He has never driven that route at all.

We drove the I-40 route from KS to CA last year (at his insistence) and it was bloody awful. The truck hated the heat and the hills but I think it was more to do with getting too hot than "lack of oxygen" (which by the way is what he said last year which that argument has magically changed to be "oxygen related" for this year's trip.) But she was towing the same trailer but also loaded down with my horse and she ultimately made it through just fine.

He suddenly has "three friends" that have told him to go the I-40 route and have even "blown up" their engines of this specific Powerstroke diesel type over driving the I-70 route. (Apparently one friend even now has a "no Ford, Chevy only" policy that is a direct result of his single I-70 experience and can be attributed to the CO pass alone) I don't believe he actually knows one person that has made this trip outside of me let alone three with my specific engine but the only way to have a leg to stand on when disagreeing with this person is to have the opinion of fellow diesel owners bc apparently hard facts just won't cut it.

I have had the truck in CA this last year, it runs and drives great and hauls like a champ. The ONLY problem I ever have is it occasionally doesn't want to kick over immediately. In it's defencse, it has usually been sitting untouched months between uses and we just found a loose battery attachment. But if that is tight, she kicks over fine and at the very worst requires a quick spray of starter as a last resort. Other than that, she never misses a beat. She was a one owner vehicle until we bought her last year, we personally know the person, she has had excellent maintenance. She does have almost 400,000 mi though to be fair. I just want you to have the details in case that changes your opinion.

Anyway, I have been reading up and I cannot find anything that would lead me to believe his claim is true HOWEVER, if anyone has ever had these problems, I am more than willing to change my opinion. I just don't want to base my entire trip's decision based on "his friend's personal opinions". I need facts and actual experiences. I guess I'm nutty that way.

Thank you very much, your time and input is much appreciated.