Quote:
Originally Posted by cleatus12r
The 6.0L is garbage. It started out as garbage and will never be anything but garbage. I won't even look at one cross-eyed for fear it might blow a head gasket. That's why Bill does those.
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I guess I should elaborate.
You're right. A lot of OEM stuff fails too due to the economics involved in producing a vehicle. However, a lot of these failures are also due to experimental periods when the EPA steps in and (for lack of a better term) messes up the whole deal. In addition, competition in the market also plays a role.
You used the 6.0L as an example. In International/Navistar trim, the VT365 was rated at a much lower horsepower level and was programmed to run significantly fewer RPM. Keep in mind that the medium-duty truck market wasn't as emissions-strangled at the time by our friends at the EPA so they weren't equipped with EGR at the time. You don't hear of too many failures with those trucks (at least the failures that were common to Ford F250/350 trucks). Ford stepped in and said, "We can make this engine turn 4000 RPM and make 320+ horsepower!!" All the while, the EPA mandated the usage of EGR on this engine since it was a light-duty truck.
Ford's adoption of the VT365 was completely EPA-mandated. Ford needed an engine to replace the T444E and the 6.0L was rushed to market with many shortcomings. Obviously, we see where that got us.......
Over the years, Ford has inundated it's customers with reflash after reflash after reflash; each subsequent reflash reduced power and made the engine less efficient. Unfortunately, this probably wasn't an EPA mandate, but an upper echelon call to reduce warranty work due to aggressive factory tuning that may have been causing head gasket and/or EGR cooler failures. Basically, Ford was trying to save money on warranty work.
Don't get me wrong. I worked as a GM technician for a decade and have been a professional automotive technician since 1999. I now work on heavy equipment and I have seen MANY, MANY failed factory attempts at making quality machines. My main beef is with the "requisite" parts that are constantly pushed on people to make their trucks "better", when, in fact, they're just throwing their money away.