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Where to begin...
Last week we split the drive shaft in half on our 2000 F350 tow truck. This brings me to my current predicament, I can't necessarily justify pouring more money into this truck. After spending $670 at the Drive Shaft King, which btw I wouldn't recommend to anyone, they decided the rear end is bad and to blame for the drive shaft failure in the first place. Now this could be, but the rear end wasn't having any trouble before they replaced the pinion yoke... That's a story for another day! For now I need another rear end or at least a rebuild.
The truck in question has a 7.3 PSD in it and has been a good truck while I've owned it. Currently it could use a couple of injectors as it runs pretty bad until warm and my diesel tech told me an HPOP is in my near future. The truck has 500k miles on it and its getting tired, or maybe I'm getting tired of replacing stuff on it. It has a lot of new parts on it, but also has a lot of old stuff that continually creeps up on me. I hate to see this truck go, but it may be time.
I have another truck that is nearly identical to the above mentioned truck, but it's an '03 model with a 5.4L gas motor. I got a hell of a deal on this truck off of craigslist back in 2010. Sure this truck too has had its problems, but for the most part it has been a low cost work horse. The power isn't like the 7.3, but for around town (which is about 90% of my business) it does great. This truck gets roughly the same gas mileage in town as the diesel. Since fuel and maintenance are both cheaper on this truck, I have figured out that this truck is .20 cents a mile cheaper to operate than the diesel. Reliability wise, I would say this truck is actually a little more reliable than the diesel. Plus when it does leave you stranded some where every Autozone or O'Reilly's will have parts always in stock for it, which isn't always the case with the Powerstroke. Finally, the biggest plus of this truck is how quiet it is in all facets of the job. Driving it's quieter, creeping through apartment complexes at night is much easier, and my neighbors don't mind it as much. I find myself driving this truck more at night only because it is quieter than its diesel counterpart. The trade off for the quiet pleasure is driving stability. The gas rig can't haul a crew cab diesel F350 as easily. The front end tends to get a little light on this truck at times b/c it doesn't have the same weight of the diesel to keep it balanced. There are ways to compensate for this, but for the most part you just don't over load this truck and all is fine.
So now that I have made a long story longer, on to my question. I have been thinking that I would like to have a 6.8L crew cab F350 to replace the 7.3L single cab truck. I picked the 6.8L only because I have yet to see a crew cab F350 with a 5.4 in it (and probably under powered too). I can buy a cab and chassis and switch the wrecker bed over and save quite a bit over buying an already built truck. My concern is that I don't know much about the V10 motors. Obviously I know they are nothing more than a 5.4 with two extra cylinders, but that's about all I know. When I was in the oil change business, these motors had a bad name. This was in the early 2000s and the motors were new then and I can't honestly say that the reputation was deserved. I also know that we have towed a lot more 99+ diesel trucks than we have towed gas V8 or V10 trucks. I use that as a gauge in my head to justify maybe going that route. One thing I keep in mind is that there seems to be a lot more diesel trucks than gas trucks anyways.
I know the fuel consumption will be more than the 5.4, but I'm ok with that as long as the power is there and the MPG stays above 10. I know of one tow company in Arlington that has almost all V10 trucks that are 08 or newer.
Can someone on this board school me about the V10 6.8L? I'm looking for a truck that is 05 or newer and preferably a crew cab. The newer 6.2 might be an option if I can find a cab and chassis that is in my budget. I also haven't ruled out a GM 3500HD with a 6.0 b/c these trucks seem to get 12-14 MPG or better in some cases. I tend to lean towards Ford stuff as I am a bit of a nut hugger.
Last week we split the drive shaft in half on our 2000 F350 tow truck. This brings me to my current predicament, I can't necessarily justify pouring more money into this truck. After spending $670 at the Drive Shaft King, which btw I wouldn't recommend to anyone, they decided the rear end is bad and to blame for the drive shaft failure in the first place. Now this could be, but the rear end wasn't having any trouble before they replaced the pinion yoke... That's a story for another day! For now I need another rear end or at least a rebuild.
The truck in question has a 7.3 PSD in it and has been a good truck while I've owned it. Currently it could use a couple of injectors as it runs pretty bad until warm and my diesel tech told me an HPOP is in my near future. The truck has 500k miles on it and its getting tired, or maybe I'm getting tired of replacing stuff on it. It has a lot of new parts on it, but also has a lot of old stuff that continually creeps up on me. I hate to see this truck go, but it may be time.
I have another truck that is nearly identical to the above mentioned truck, but it's an '03 model with a 5.4L gas motor. I got a hell of a deal on this truck off of craigslist back in 2010. Sure this truck too has had its problems, but for the most part it has been a low cost work horse. The power isn't like the 7.3, but for around town (which is about 90% of my business) it does great. This truck gets roughly the same gas mileage in town as the diesel. Since fuel and maintenance are both cheaper on this truck, I have figured out that this truck is .20 cents a mile cheaper to operate than the diesel. Reliability wise, I would say this truck is actually a little more reliable than the diesel. Plus when it does leave you stranded some where every Autozone or O'Reilly's will have parts always in stock for it, which isn't always the case with the Powerstroke. Finally, the biggest plus of this truck is how quiet it is in all facets of the job. Driving it's quieter, creeping through apartment complexes at night is much easier, and my neighbors don't mind it as much. I find myself driving this truck more at night only because it is quieter than its diesel counterpart. The trade off for the quiet pleasure is driving stability. The gas rig can't haul a crew cab diesel F350 as easily. The front end tends to get a little light on this truck at times b/c it doesn't have the same weight of the diesel to keep it balanced. There are ways to compensate for this, but for the most part you just don't over load this truck and all is fine.
So now that I have made a long story longer, on to my question. I have been thinking that I would like to have a 6.8L crew cab F350 to replace the 7.3L single cab truck. I picked the 6.8L only because I have yet to see a crew cab F350 with a 5.4 in it (and probably under powered too). I can buy a cab and chassis and switch the wrecker bed over and save quite a bit over buying an already built truck. My concern is that I don't know much about the V10 motors. Obviously I know they are nothing more than a 5.4 with two extra cylinders, but that's about all I know. When I was in the oil change business, these motors had a bad name. This was in the early 2000s and the motors were new then and I can't honestly say that the reputation was deserved. I also know that we have towed a lot more 99+ diesel trucks than we have towed gas V8 or V10 trucks. I use that as a gauge in my head to justify maybe going that route. One thing I keep in mind is that there seems to be a lot more diesel trucks than gas trucks anyways.
I know the fuel consumption will be more than the 5.4, but I'm ok with that as long as the power is there and the MPG stays above 10. I know of one tow company in Arlington that has almost all V10 trucks that are 08 or newer.
Can someone on this board school me about the V10 6.8L? I'm looking for a truck that is 05 or newer and preferably a crew cab. The newer 6.2 might be an option if I can find a cab and chassis that is in my budget. I also haven't ruled out a GM 3500HD with a 6.0 b/c these trucks seem to get 12-14 MPG or better in some cases. I tend to lean towards Ford stuff as I am a bit of a nut hugger.
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