Stay away from the 6.0s. They make us a lot of money, and that's about all the good I have to say about them. Right now we have 3 bays full of 'em and that's pretty much the normal. Guys either swear by them or swear at them. If you're lucky enough to find an owner that has had no major problems with his chances are he's not going to sell it.
When guys ask us about them the answer is it will either be trouble free, or you should figure on spending between 6-8k on repairs before it hits 175,000 miles. I probably see 1 trouble free unit for every 20 or more trucks that rolls through here.
- Head Gaskets Fail - (heads are warped between .003 and .004 from the factory and only held on with 10 bolts). Even when Ford warrants the gaskets, they tell techs to check the short way and if its less than .002 that way, put it back on
- EGR coolers crack and leak - can be solved by removing or welding shut
- If engine is ran long enough with a failed EGR cooler, oil cooler can fail.
- Injector Wiring Harness fail
- FICMs (Fuel Injector Control Module) fail
- Injectors fail
- Rebuilt Injectors fail
- New Injectors fail (Alliant power thought they had a fix, but went back to building injectors the old way, since the failure rate (on the new injectors mind you) even with the "fix" stayed the same.
- Injectors fail again.
- Guys run engines with failed injectors so long they they wash the cylinder walls down, requiring a $8500 rebuild.
That's just the "normal" problems that we see. The list goes on and on........
If you're looking to go newer model truck, Long Live The King - stick with the 7.3L.
- Ken