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OT - Ford 6.8L V10 Good or bad?

WILLEO6709

WILLEO6709

Diamond
Joined
Nov 6, 2001
Location
WAPELLO, IA USA
Been browsing the ebay pages getting feel for prices on used trucks and SUV's, there are some fairly attractive prices on some of the 6.8L beasts out there. What is the word of PM on the Ford 6.8? Any known issues?
 
Not much to do with the V10's but the 5.4L V8's can run on almost NO oil in the engine apparently. Engine burnt off most of its oil, had a little over half a quart of oil left in the engine and it still kept on kicking without acting up at all. :)

Dimitri
 
Thirsty is not the word. My mechanic's truck at work has one. I drive it very easy, and the best it has ever got is 6.3 miles to the gallon. At the price of gas, it is no wonder there are so many "good" deals on them
 
Friend had one of the first new ones in an Excursion - hated it. Said it could never decide whether it needed to be in overdrive or not.

Neighbor kid has an Excursion diesel - regularly wakes us up all hours of the night, so I hate them too.:D
 
The early ones had a problem keeping spark plugs from blowing out of the heads. Not sure what years at the moment, I think it's been fixed, a lot was due to mechanics overtorquing the small plugs. Thedieselstop.com has some info on this.

In operation they run great and have lots of power, you need to rev them hard when pulling but that doesn't seem to hurt them.
 
If you're only getting 6.3MPG something is wrong.

People never warmed up to the Ford or Dodge V10's, mainly because of perceived MPG issues. But here's how I look at it - a 5.9L gas Dodge would get 14 or 15 MPG on the highway unloaded. The V-10 would get 11-12 MPG unloaded. I know because I owned both. So what's 2 or 3 MPG? It's not meaningless but it's also not going to kill anyone. A V10 Dodge used the same size radiator, brakes, suspension, etc as a diesel where the 5.9 V8 used smaller pieces.

As for the Ford, I never understood why they made a V-10 but then made it so small. It would be easy to get those cubes in a V8, so why bother? Also, like the diesels, they are a serious PITA to service as the engine is so far under the cowl area. The factory procedure for a head gasket change is to pull the cab off the truck.
 
right now I have a daily driver passenger car, but hate the low to the ground to get in and out of. I am fairly young at 38, but at 6'5" tall and 270 lbs most vehicles won't fit me well. I have a down for the count 1996 explorer that I liked, 4.0V6 that has a current head crack/ gasket issue at 190K miles. I am contemplating what to go to next. At the 5k + price difference in the used market for a diesel, you can still buy a bunch of gas. I was looking at expeditions/ excursions and thinking a deal may be in the making in the next 6 months. I may end up rebuilding the 4.0 in the explorer and going for 380K.....My preference would be a good used truck but that seems to be a contradiction in terms.
 
You might want to google ford spark plugs. Ford has a bulitin out on spark plug/head repair. I have it in pfd but don't know how to post the link. It is 16 pages with pics and special tools. They reccomend removing the head for the repair. There is a special coil that you install and then drill and glue a pin in to hold it. The instructions say it covers a variety of engines from 1992-2005, 2 and 4 valve design. There are three different plug hole designs of varrious lengths and they show a special tool to determin which hole you are dealing with. Apparently Ford kept trying different lengths to fix it but kept selling them anyway. The instructions don't say who to bill for the repair!
Fords story is the plugs are blowing out because they are not torqued properly by mechanics. But the plugs from the factory are susposed to last 100,000 miles but are coming loose and blowing out.
 
Ford -10 good or bad

I've been working on Ford trucks for 15 years, along with with Chevy's and dodges. The biggest problem i have with Fords is the complexity of design. No experience with the V-10 but the Triton V8s are a serious PITA to work on. One example, the Chilton manual lists 28 to 30 hrs to remove one head!!!! The overhead cams and attendant drive chains make a once simple job a nightmare. Since the mid eighty's Ford has had problems getting transmissions to live behind the bigger engines. And don't even get me started on the "Power Stroke" diesels.

If someone gave me a brand new "Super Duty" Ford I'd keep it long enough to get to the nearest Chevy dealer. One company I worked for bought 7 brand new Chevys from half ton to HD one tons. In two years the only problem was one digital inst cluster failed.

Just my opinion of course.

Lee
 
I've got a 2000 F250 with V10...

and it is a pretty good truck. I have teh 3.70 rearend, so it does tend to hunt a bit between OD and 3rd gear. On the HWY at 70 MPH, I'll see about 14 MPG unloaded. Around town, 10.5-12.0 MPG depending on how much start and stop.

Pulling 13,000 lbs on a gooseneck at about 65 mph on a country, uphill, downhill road, I get about 8.5 MPG. Lately, I've been pulling my 6X10 enclosed trailer around ALOT and I get about 9.5 MPG.

So, it is not great, but you can just keep loading it up and it will pull. I feel it gets a bit winded on hills. I would love to try a diesel to compare them, but have not had the opportunity to drive one. It is nice that you don't have to do all the maintenance that the diesels require: lot's of oil for changes, fuel filter changes, moisture separators, etc. Just fill it up and go. Takes 6 quarts of oil.

I would do it again. If you pull ALOT, I would look at the diesel. If you just want a good truck that you can't kill and will carry a ton of weight and take a beating. Just my 0.02.
 
My point in the above post was, simple works. Open the hood on a Chevy truck and you can actually see the spark plugs!! All new vehicles are extremely complex, thanks to the lawyers in DC telling engineers how to build cars.

Ford seems to have gone overboard with complexity compared to GM. Ford almost forces you back to the dealer for any kind of work. GM manages to build engines that get great fuel milage and lots of power useing 1910 pushrod tech. Seems to work well for NASCAR too.

Lots of people love Fords same for Chevys and Dodges. Personal taste I guess.

Again just my opinion.

Lee
 
Hi all, we're looking at a camper with a 6.8L V10. It's a 2010. Good idea or disaster in the making? This is a tech savvy group so any and all feedback appreciated. Thanks!
 
My son who is a very well trained mechanic said you should use only ford oil filters (motorcraft) on fords and change the oil at the stated miles or less.

QT: [getting feel for prices on used trucks and SUV's,[ used you dont know how it has been treated..
 
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