2008 f350 v10?

[Hay Dude]

It really boils down to do you want to spend 20k on a nice gas burner and get 5-8 mpg towing or spend 40k or more on diesel trucks to get 12 mpg towing while burning $1-1.50 more expensive fuel and have a truck saddled down with emissions garbage. 3rd option is to buy an older 20k diesel but it’s almost guaranteed you’ll spend more in repairs than just putting gas in the V-10.

Why do you keep pricing an equivalent diesel at 20k more? I mean new they are like 9k more.
In my area, equivalent used trucks with a diesel option is like a 5k bump.

20k???? lol

The fuel savings for gas is wiped out as soon as the load goes over 10-12k. If the guy wants to tow with it, then he will be ahead.
Then there’s the engine longevity issue, but gas guys don’t like to talk about that.

 

[TractorTech]

I have a 2008 F250 V10 with 315,000 on it. Very quiet, smooth engine. Pulling a trailer, I don't have to rev up to more than 4500 rpm and do not like to go over 4000 as the power curve is maximum at about 3800-4000 rpm. Usual maintenance, synthetic oil and no components replaced except for the starter.
Also, a Ford market rep asked me one time if it over heats. Pulling 9000 lb. up highway 74 switchbacks out of Palm Desert in 115 degree heat, it kicks the fan in to be more aggressive, but the temp gauge hardly moves. Traveled in a lot of Southwest hot weather and temp is always steady. Cooling system on these engines is very well designed!

 

[Fallon]

HA, i found my spark plugs very easy to remove on the v10. 2 of them removed themselves with no help from me. One of them 200 miles from home. I drove home on 9 cylinders, got a helicoil, drilled it out and tapped it and put the insert in. I put a transmission funnel on the end of my shop vac to vacuum out all the bits of aluminum. It was not a fun job, but it was not terrible.

Under or over torque those plugs & they will get spit out, usually through the hood. Early Tritons only had 3 threads holding them in. A few more in later versions. They also used some fragile 2 piece spark plug design that loved to break rather than come out.

I'm up in the rockies at the moment rescuing a friend's RV. Turned from a V10 into a V9. Something bottom end or piston related, not clear. They got towed to a mechanic who put a new engine. Went home & are coming back for it in a month. Apparently it's somewhat difficult to get replacements at the moment.

 

[finn1]

I worked for a Diesel engine manufacturer for around thirty five years, doing engine developmen, but own two Ford Super Duty V10s, a two valve F450 4wd dump truck, and a three valve F350 long bed dually crew cab.

Why don’t I have a Diesel, you ask?

I simply don’t drive either enough miles to justify the extra purchase price to buy a Diesel. The fuel savings would never justify the added expense, and the worse gas mileage is largely mitigated by the lower pump price of gas compared to Diesel.

I paid $4500 for the F450; probably close to 15 years ag (it’s a 99), and the same for the F350 about seven or so years ago (it’s a 2005, but only 2wd). Both are low trim XL models, but I am fine with that. They’re trucks, not every day luxury transportation. The F450 had about 70k miles and the 05 F450 had about 130k.

The two valve in the dump truck performs fine when loaded to 15500 lbs coming out of the pit (Gvwr is 14500, so I am overloaded by a half ton). It downshifts for the one big hill on my route, but the hill is no problem.

The three valve towed a 13500 lb fifth wheel travel trailer from Mi to Texas and back. Would a Diesel have handled the hills better? Maybe, but the V10 pretty much maintained the speed limit, albeit at a high engine rpm. I also tow my 8800 lb ctl on a 14000 lb trailer with no issue.

locally, the percentage of diesels in new trucks seems to be dropping. Most people who buy ney trucks are finding that the adrenaline rush from being first to the top of the hill isn’t worth the increased buy in price and horrendous repair bills if, or maybe when, something goes wrong with their Diesel.

Sounds like the gasser is the right choice for the op.

 

[bgr]

Be careful, the Triton engine has a 3 valve head with deeply recessed spark plugs in the head. They are special plugs. The plug threads seize in the head and the metal shell breaks apart when you try to remove the plug. 2008 was right in the middle of the year band with this problem.

There are aftermarket tools to remove broken plug threads, but if they don't work, you have to remove the head to repair. $1000. to $2000 at the dealer for a V-8. V-10 is more. The plug change interval was 100k miles, so you have the original plugs in there and they will be due for removal soon.

You want to pay for a purchase inspection by a Ford mechanic before buying. Price is a bit high, too

 

[Hay Dude]

I worked for a Diesel engine manufacturer for around thirty five years, doing engine developmen, but own two Ford Super Duty V10s, a two valve F450 4wd dump truck, and a three valve F350 long bed dually crew cab.

Why don’t I have a Diesel, you ask?

I simply don’t drive either enough miles to justify the extra purchase price to buy a Diesel. The fuel savings would never justify the added expense, and the worse gas mileage is largely mitigated by the lower pump price of gas compared to Diesel.

I paid $4500 for the F450; probably close to 15 years ag (it’s a 99), and the same for the F350 about seven or so years ago (it’s a 2005, but only 2wd). Both are low trim XL models, but I am fine with that. They’re trucks, not every day luxury transportation. The F450 had about 70k miles and the 05 F450 had about 130k.

The two valve in the dump truck performs fine when loaded to 15500 lbs coming out of the pit (Gvwr is 14500, so I am overloaded by a half ton). It downshifts for the one big hill on my route, but the hill is no problem.

The three valve towed a 13500 lb fifth wheel travel trailer from Mi to Texas and back. Would a Diesel have handled the hills better? Maybe, but the V10 pretty much maintained the speed limit, albeit at a high engine rpm. I also tow my 8800 lb ctl on a 14000 lb trailer with no issue.

locally, the percentage of diesels in new trucks seems to be dropping. Most people who buy ney trucks are finding that the adrenaline rush from being first to the top of the hill isn’t worth the increased buy in price and horrendous repair bills if, or maybe when, something goes wrong with their Diesel.

Sounds like the gasser is the right choice for the op.

Thats a great reason to own gas and I would agree, but you missed another reason(s)

Its called GCWR. Look at the GCWR of a diesel 4500/5500 compared to gas. It‘s an issue of a potential truck buyer having a trailer they want to tow that weighs xx,xxx pounds.
If the gas truck can’t tow it, but the diesel can, then the diesel is the choice. That’s where my situation is.
If I had a Ram 5500 with a gas engine, I’d be pulling a smaller, more lightly loaded trailer 100 trips rather than a diesel for 60 trips. That saves me a TON of TIME. That’s time which I can spend baling more hay and making more money. So it more than pays for itself for MY situation. The diesel engine’s ability to create more time for me to make money elsewhere is just MATH. It’s not emotion based on urban legends or rumors.

For you, conveniently, your load requirements were at the gas limits (or slightly above). That’s great for YOUR situation. However, to put diesel engines down for just a fuel economy advantage is ridiculous.

Also, I don’t care about getting to the top of a hill first, but I DO like getting to the top of a hill with more fuel in my tank than if I was pulling with a gas truck. Loaded on hills is where gas trucks drops to embarrassing low levels. Diesel does not. So if you pull heavy loads, even without driving a lot of miles per year, diesel may be the only choice.

The bottom line on fuel economy is this: Diesel costs more, but if you tow-especially tow heavy, the higher MPG’s pull the fuel costs to a tie or an advantage for diesel.

I’d also point out a diesel engine will run longer before rebuilds given equivalent care.

Look, I’m just gonna come out and say it. SOME (not all) guys who drive gas trucks only put down diesel trucks because they are jealous. Repeat- SOME (not all).

 

[Vigo327]

Gasoline engines have little low-down torque.

That's not true at all. Take the boost pipe off a diesel 6.7L truck and race a gas 6.8 truck and see what happens. Diesel engines generally breathe for **** and need boost practically to move at all. The big advantage is that they can take a lot of boost because they are immune to pre-ignition and detonation because the fuel isn't even in the cylinder until it's time to ignite it, and it can't ignite all at once because it's not injected all at once! So the limits that apply to boosting the low-rpm torque of a gas engine with a turbocharger, do not apply to a diesel in the same way. If you could feed a 6.8L gasser 20 lbs of boost at 1900rpm without it blowing up, it would make 1000+ ft lb of torque. But pragmatically speaking, you can't. When gasoline direct injection progresses to a certain point, we will be able to. This is part of why diesels are becoming less common outside of heavy trucks. Once you can give a gas engine over 14:1 compression AND boost without detonation.. the diesel holds very little performance advantage but is more expensive to produce.


Anyway, i own a 2002 6.8 v10 in a class B rv, basically an e350 dually that weighs 10k. It's the only ford 'mod motor' i truly like. Basically, once you're aware of and know how to handle the spark plug issues and the fact of having 10 ignition coils (aka Whack A Mole: Ford Edition), everything else about the motor is VERY reliable.

The diesels i own are Kubotas.

 

[hornett22]

He’s only wanting to tow 14k not 140k. A V-10 dually will tow that with ease. It’s going to get 8 mpg if it even gets that good but it handle that load good. You realize they put V-10s in 450s, 550s the occasional 650, and motor homes. 14k isn’t that heavy of a load.

Yep, buddy of mine bought a F-550 4x4 dump with a V10 when the 6.0s were blowing up left and right. Towed fine and it was very reliable. Logs and equipment were no issue. He later bought a 450 with a 6.0 and sunk over 10k in getting it fixed and bulletproofed. 10k buys A LOT of fuel. Not to mention the down time. My only diesel is my tractor. I prefer it that way. I also HATE working on diesels.

 

[finn1]

Thats a great reason to own gas and I would agree, but you missed another reason(s)

Its called GCWR. Look at the GCWR of a diesel 4500/5500 compared to gas. It‘s an issue of a potential truck buyer having a trailer they want to tow that weighs xx,xxx pounds.
If the gas truck can’t tow it, but the diesel can, then the diesel is the choice. That’s where my situation is.
If I had a Ram 5500 with a gas engine, I’d be pulling a smaller, more lightly loaded trailer 100 trips rather than a diesel for 60 trips. That saves me a TON of TIME. That’s time which I can spend baling more hay and making more money. So it more than pays for itself for MY situation. The diesel engine’s ability to create more time for me to make money elsewhere is just MATH. It’s not emotion based on urban legends or rumors.

For you, conveniently, your load requirements were at the gas limits (or slightly above). That’s great for YOUR situation. However, to put diesel engines down for just a fuel economy advantage is ridiculous.

Also, I don’t care about getting to the top of a hill first, but I DO like getting to the top of a hill with more fuel in my tank than if I was pulling with a gas truck. Loaded on hills is where gas trucks drops to embarrassing low levels. Diesel does not. So if you pull heavy loads, even without driving a lot of miles per year, diesel may be the only choice.

The bottom line on fuel economy is this: Diesel costs more, but if you tow-especially tow heavy, the higher MPG’s pull the fuel costs to a tie or an advantage for diesel.

I’d also point out a diesel engine will run longer before rebuilds given equivalent care.

Look, I’m just gonna come out and say it. SOME (not all) guys who drive gas trucks only put down diesel trucks because they are jealous. Repeat- SOME (not all).

That’s true, but it’s also why they make class seven and eight trucks, and why Diesel dominates in those markets. Using your rationale, a class 8 semi could probably reduce your trips to five. The F550 and equivalent rigs aren’t used much for real hauling anymore, since they require the same logs, licensing, etc as a class 8, and are inferior in braking and general reliability and life.



Having said that, from what the op of this thread implied, he’s not looking for a class 8 semi, just something that can occasionally tow a trailer for personal use around his farm, or whatever. He’s not looking to put a lot of miles on, either, otherwise he wouldn’t be looking at a 10-15-20 year old rig.

Lots of light truck Diesel owners rationalize the $6-10 k upcharge for a Diesel because they might tow a large trailer twice in the trucks fifteen year life span. I have no issue with them buying the Diesel, but they should, and probably do, realize they are paying a lot of money for image and feel-good, rather than rational need.

As far as DI gas engines and turbochargers go, the little ecoboost 3.5 l engine in my van has 400 some foot lb of torque and a relatively high compression ratio. Ford dropped all of their small Diesels, reportedly because the ecoboost gad DI Turbo intercoolers engine’s outperform them, at lower cost, and similar fuel economy.

 

[Tomtint]

I have had a number of V10s. ..Have one now as well. First was a 2011 F350 DRW dump..Loved that truck. It was a basic XL with a bench seat.Traded it for a 2013 f350 Diesel DRW dump with power windows..Hated that one and traded it for a 2015 F450 V10..Liked that truck but the seats sucked. Traded that for a 2017 F450 4x4 V10 DRW dump...Really like this one but both the manifolds have been replaces ..twice. The callipers and rotors have also been replaced already..Truck has 10K miles it as of now. And it gets 6.5 mpg on average. Motor itself is a very strong motor and pulls 12K with no problems whatsoever.