Navistar Maxxforce 10

[Goofyexponent]

Well, looks like the Ford 6.0 woes are afoot AGAIN!!!!

Last year, a buddy of mine got into trucking. Went out and bought a 2010 International Workstar with the Maxxforce 10 International engine and a 13 speed. Overall the truck gets along fairly well. Rides like a DREAM and has OK power for a tandem.

But as woth Ford/International's 6.0 there are some SERIOUS engine problems!!!

First, it is an emissions engine. Does NOT require DEF. It uses a DPF and an EGR system, with two EGR coolers. Here is where things get bad.

The EGR coolers leak coolant into the intake. The engine will begin to hammer, miss and blow LOTS of white smoke from the stack. As you all know, the 17.5:1 compression ratio of a Maxxforce means that IF water gets into the intake, there is not a lot of room for it to compress.....because a liquid does NOT compress!

So the EGR coolers go, antifreeze gets into the intake, into the cylinders and raises teh CR to the point where the head gaskets let go at roughly 60k miles. Yep, a complete teardown at 60 000 miles.

The local International dealership tries to put off the claims until warranty runs up, then makes the customer pay out the nose. They filled my buddy SO full of BS his head was spinning so he comes to me with EVERY thing they told him and asked me to lay it on in laymans terms.

It started blowing white smoke and loosing coolant, he takes in it and they change the PRIMARY EGR cooler. Things seem fine for 20K miles. Then it starts again, white smoke, hammering like a stuck injector, missing and all that fun stuff. He takes it back, says it`s doing it again. They pull the tube that connects teh primary EGR cooler to the secondary EGR cooler and say, "Nope, no coolant in there". That's fine, so the primary EGR cooler isn't leaking, what about the secondary? "We can see inside there, there is no coolant inside." was their reply. Whynot just take the line off from the secondary EGR cooler to the intake and be 100% sure then? They got REAL defensive then.

So Ian takes the truck BACK, says I want a compression test done on my cooling system. They tell him there is no such thing. I call them, let them know I know my stuff about trucks and they agreed to compression test his cooling system. They did a cold leak compression test and found "nothing". i said what about warming it up on the dyno at Detroit and THEN saying you found nothing. They yammered on about that and changed the subject. The truck has lost 5 gallons of coolant in 10K miles, but there is "no problems" and it is "normal consumption levels" for an international....

there are 3 or 4 other trucks that are going through the SAME thing with the Maxxforce 10 in workstars....same BS. It's like Navistar built it to fail.

Sound like the 6.0 Ford much? EGR coolers failing, headgaskets blowing?

Does anyone else know of any literature or people I can email who are having the SAME issues? I am considering taking this truck over, IF we can deal with the EGR issues and get International to extend their crap warranty.

 

[bird hunter]

An International bucket truck that works for our utility recently had a Maxxforce 7 replaced under warranty. Not exactly sure what the specific problems were, but they found pieces of the camshaft in the engine. Truck was only 3 years old with no more than 60K. Kind of makes you wonder about these new diesels...

 

[Goofyexponent]

I am currently gathering up as many owner operators in the local area that I can and pooling together our problems. A maxxforce 9 that one of the guys owns was JUST in for a camshaft replacement....they never specified to the owner WHY it needed to be replaced either!!

 

[snicklas]

Goofy,

Not sure if it is the same issue, but in the 6.0 what happens with it coolers is actually started with the oil cooler. THe Oil and EGR Coolers are both in the valley on the 6.0. The coolant path goes through the oil cooler, then to the EGR Cooler. The oil cooler starts to plug with sediment, coolant dropout and casting sand. This limits the coolant flow to the EGR Cooler. When the truck is being worked hard and the EGT's are getting higher, the EGR Cooler is starved of coolant, which causes the EGR Cooler to "superheat" creating steam in the cooler, which melts the solder in the EGR Cooler, causing a leak into the intake. Blows white smoke from the exhaust and can cause head gasket failure. The gaskets can fail without a leak also... but that is another story. The 6.0 should have come with a coolant filter from the factory... that is on my to do list.

I wonder if it is something like this in the Maxxforce engines... having a DPF and EGR, sounds more like the 6.4 setup..... I would not buy a newer truck that an 6.0 until the rest of the growing pains are done, like the gassers in the late 70's and 80's. One of these days they will get a good system, just like in the new gassers, it will just take a while for them to perfect it.....

 

[Goofyexponent]

This sounds about the same as what is going on with the Maxxforce.

I had a good look at teh coolant overflow after reading about sediment being found in the overflows of the 6.0's, and sure enough....there is about a pop bottle cap or so full of sediment at the bottom of the coolant overflow bottle.

One EGR cooler already went to hell, causing coolant to be forced through the enigne and out the stack, and it seemed ok for a little while. Then the SAME thing started happening again. Coolant was going missing from the truck, but there was no sign of a leak. The secondary EGR cooler is being suspected by me and another driver. There is also an oil cooler on these engines, and they are prone to failure as well. One 07 had one go twice, an 09 had one go once and is suspected of having it happen again.

It's kinda of funny though, the mechaincs must be getting paid off to lie to owners....they sais that 5 gallons of coolant being lost in a mere 6200 miles (10 000 kms) was NORMAL! I think that was a BIG load of BS...that's what made this guy ask me some questions.

Something else that got me was when Ian became "educated" abot the issues from me and a couple websites, the service manager FLEW into him asking where he was sourcing this information!! He suspected his own employees and apparently was looking for blood. Why won't 'Binder just admit there is a problem and it needs to be addressed?

 

[Thatguy]

because they loose money. You could not give a maxforce engine. nope, not for this kid. I will stick with my pre-egr engine. I can get a pittsburg power OH and OH the transmission, rears, new bags, air lines, brakes, steering, bearings .......... and not be into half what a new rig costs.