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Close to buying a 2004 F250 what do you think?

2K views 21 replies 7 participants last post by  Smiley1 
#1 ·
The truck is a 2004 F250 XLT, Crew Cab, 2 Wheel Drive, 6.0L, with 99,000 miles on it. The truck is a 1 owner and belongs to my Wife's Uncle. The truck has never had a tuner on it and only very occasionally towed anything. It has a brush guard, running boards, and camper shell. He was going to trade it in for $13,000 and is offering it to me for $13,000. The truck is in Houston and I live in St Louis so I haven't seen it in about 4 years but this guy takes really good care of his stuff and I know it will still be in good to excellent condition.

He told me that the truck has never had any EGR, head gasket, or overheating issues. I wanted to see what the general concensus was on the price and history of this truck before I buy a 1 way ticket to Houston.

What do you guys think?
 
#2 ·
Unless he has some way to monitor oil versus water temp - the Ford gauges mean nothing - he's only guessing at the condition of his overheating issues. The really bad thing about the oil cooler design flaw is that some vehicles may take years to accumulate enough debris to cause obviously noticeable symptoms.

If oil temp rises more than 14 degrees above coolant temp you have a problem - a very expensive problem.
 
#4 ·
Unless he has some way to monitor oil versus water temp - the Ford gauges mean nothing - he's only guessing at the condition of his overheating issues. The really bad thing about the oil cooler design flaw is that some vehicles may take years to accumulate enough debris to cause obviously noticeable symptoms.

If oil temp rises more than 14 degrees above coolant temp you have a problem - a very expensive problem.[/quote


Maybe I missed something, but where was there ever a mention of this truck having overheating issues.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Subtle overheating issues

Sorry, I meant to post that any owner of a 6.0L may be having oil overheating issues and might not even know it for months/years. The oil vs. water temp needs to be checked on ALL 6.0L motors because Ford didn't provide a way to easily check this important parameter. It's an easy way to check the health of the oil cooler. Even just driving at highway speeds with no other load drives up oil temps if there is a clogging oil cooler causing problems.

The insidious nature of this problem that, IMHO will happen to ALL 6.0L motors eventually, is it can happen very slowly and not show up on any gauge until the poor EGR cooler is weakened to failure and pukes water into cylinders - bad, very expensive news.

fonecop1 search the site for EGR or oil cooler failures and read the topics. They're very informative and should give you a feel for the problem and solutions.

If you'd like me to give you the readers digest version (I just remedied the situation on my 6.0L) I'd be happy to - just post back here.
 
#6 ·
Yes by all means the readers digest is what I'm looking for, Thanks for taking the time. I want the long version because I'm teetering back and forth on buying a one way ticket to Houston to buy this truck for $13,000. Like I said I plan to address the EGR Cooler right away but am trying to figure out what else I need to plan on doing to provide some longevity. Do I need to plan to do something with the oil cooler too? Should I automatically plan that the Head Gaskets need to be replaced?
 
#7 · (Edited)
I'm showing my age fonecop1 - by readers digest version I was referring to a greatly condensed version of the whole story.

The long story you can read for yourself - the easiest way would be to do use this site's advanced search function and search on my user name: mlwest and you'll see links to many topics to which I've posted, mostly concerning the infamous oil/EGR cooler problems of the 6.0L motor.

The short version goes like this: the 6.0L motor has an oil cooler buried on top between the cylinders that is an oil-to-water type. That is it exchanges the higher temperature oil heat energy with the coolant from the traditional radiator setup. They did this by building a very efficient way to transfer the heat by forcing the coolant to traverse a set of very small orfices thereby providing a lot of surface area to do the actual heat transfer. Unfortunately the designers neglected to account for the fact that the block is made by a iron sand casting process that ALWAYS sheds small bits - those bits end up plugging up the works of the efficient oil cooler.

To add to the problem, it was decided to flow the coolant from the oil cooler directly to the EGR cooler and you can guess what happens when the coolant flow becomes restricted by the oil cooler - all of which are not good.

As for buying that used truck - you didn't mention if it had ever had the oil/EGR cooler replaced but if not I'd plan on reserving money for that use.

My suggestion would be to look at the Kelley Blue Book (New Cars, Used Cars, Blue Book Values & Car Prices - Kelley Blue Book) value and see if your $13k price is low enough to still be a good deal and still pay for replacing the oil and EGR cooler.

And if the current owner hasn't sprung for a way to monitor the temps we've discussed - plan on buying it yourself.

My truck with 60k miles on the odometer, does not appear to have damaged the head gaskets - as far as I can tell. We don't have the luxury of checking like gas motors.

It's a gamble.

Good luck.
 
#9 ·
I'm showing my age fonecop1 - by readers digest version I was referring to a greatly condensed version of the whole story.

The long story you can read for yourself - the easiest way would be to do use this site's advanced search function and search on my user name: mlwest and you'll see links to many topics to which I've posted, mostly concerning the infamous oil/EGR cooler problems of the 6.0L motor.

The short version goes like this: the 6.0L motor has an oil cooler buried on top between the cylinders that is an oil-to-water type. That is it exchanges the higher temperature oil heat energy with the coolant from the traditional radiator setup. They did this by building a very efficient way to transfer the heat by forcing the coolant to traverse a set of very small orfices thereby providing a lot of surface area to do the actual heat transfer. Unfortunately the designers neglected to account for the fact that the block is made by a iron sand casting process that ALWAYS sheds small bits - those bits end up plugging up the works of the efficient oil cooler.

To add to the problem, it was decided to flow the coolant from the oil cooler directly to the EGR cooler and you can guess what happens when the coolant flow becomes restricted by the oil cooler - all of which are not good.

As for buying that used truck - you didn't mention if it had ever had the oil/EGR cooler replaced but if not I'd plan on reserving money for that use.

My suggestion would be to look at the Kelley Blue Book (New Cars, Used Cars, Blue Book Values & Car Prices - Kelley Blue Book) value and see if your $13k price is low enough to still be a good deal and still pay for replacing the oil and EGR cooler.

And if the current owner hasn't sprung for a way to monitor the temps we've discussed - plan on buying it yourself.

My truck with 60k miles on the odometer, does not appear to have damaged the head gaskets - as far as I can tell. We don't have the luxury of checking like gas motors.

It's a gamble.

Good luck.
There is no mention of the EGR or Oil cooler ever being replaced. The blue book values are:

Trade-In value for good condition is $13,500
Private Party good condition it is $17,500.

Trade-In value for excellent condition is $14,250
Private Party excellent condition it is $18,370
 
#8 ·
I have pulled 10,000 lb loads a lot with my truck, but I do run my truck stock. I have also taken care of the egr system the proper way. I have not really had to do anything to my truck besides that. I guess I just changed out the glow plugs, and batteries but these are things that can and will go bad on any diesel sooner or later. I installed a 4 in turbo back exhaust which gave me another 2mpg and lower temps pulling. I love my 04 6.0 and would not sell it to anyone. 13,000 sounds like a good deal if the truck has been problem free thus far, I would get it. I would do a bunch of reading about these trucks. The more educated you are about them, the better off you will be.
 
#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
So what you are saying is if your engine oil temp is 14 degrees above the coolant temp that indicates that the oil cooler is restricted? I have been doing a lot of searches and a lot of reading over the last 3 days and I appreciate the help. I just need to get off of the fence and either buy the truck or decide not to by tomorrow because if I'm not gonna buy it he is just going to let them have it on trade.
 
#12 ·
Man,
with all of the negative posts I've read over the last 3 days of searching and asking questions maybe I should just keep driving my 95 6.5 Chevy with 328,000 miles on it? I feel like for every positive thing that is said there are about 10 negative things. Ford should have done a recall and put ARP studs in every motor and it probably would have been cheaper than the bad press they are getting over the 6.0L. I was looking to upgrade but I just can't get a good feeling about this truck with the reputation it has. I appreciate all of the candid comments though, and I guess I'll sleep on it another night and see what tomorrow brings.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I wouldn't lean too heavily on the posts you read here - remember this site is going to attract people who are searching for solutions to problems they are experiencing - so you'll likely get a skewed view of how many trucks are having problems.

As for studding all of these 6.0L motors - IMHO the reason most if not all need for studs is driven by two forces:

1 - oil cooler and then EGR cooler failures causing overheating problems

and/or

2 - all of those folks buying programmers/chips, buying hugely oversize tires, leaving the stock gearing to struggle as best it can and then hooking up the trailer and wanting to drive 75+ up 7% grades on a 100 degree day and can't understand why they blow through motors.

ANY motor modded enough will break - every design has limitations. The trick is to live within the operating envelope and take care of your ride.

And yes, if the oil temperature ever gets higher than 14 degrees above the coolant temp - you have a compromised oil cooler. No question.

I can't suggest what you should do but I do like to know that the vehicle I buy has had just one owner and if I can be comfortable with what they tell me about how the vehicle was driven and maintained - well, in my book that's a better deal than you'll get off of any used car lot.

Good luck.
 
#14 ·
Gotta make a decision today, I still think it's a good deal. I agree with you about people with problems being more active/vocal, I've been doing this forum thing for quite a while with my 328,000 mile GM truck. Most of the time guys are really frustrated and then they get the problem fixed and gain some knowledge about their truck and they end up liking it. I guess there is such a bitter taste in guys mouth when they have to pay somebody $3K to $5K to do the head gaskets that they don't forget that easy. Thanks for yur replys.
 
#17 ·
Congratulations and good luck. Be fore warned if you plan on running a tuner or towing a very heavy trailer, you need to address all of those issues first and they still are prone to give problems. I bought a new 05 never put a tuner on it or any other mods other than a 5th wheel hitch. I was towing a 15K trailer in the north west on pipeline and it would not take the grades. If you are going to ride around on Saturday night, they don't give much trouble but like a lot of people this day and time they don't like to work for a living.
 
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