Trip #7 back to the dealer.

After picking up my truck less than 24 hours ago, I was driving home from work tonight for the first time in my truck in almost two weeks. After replacing the ECM and #4 injector I thought they finally had it fixed. Boy was I wrong. I stopped to check my mail and noticed it was still idling rough. When I took off from the mail box it surged a bit and was down on power like it has been doing before. So I decided to take it back out on the highway to see if I could get it to act up enough to take back to the dealer.

About 5 miles from the dealer all the sudden I heard what sounded like lifter clatter. I let off the pedal to try and get a better listen and all the sudden heard a bang. It was down to 5 lungs and making all kind of racket, sounded like it was backfiring thru the intake. Looked like a coal train out the exhaust. Frustrated I limped it to the dealer and drove it right into the service bay. The service manager just shook his head in disbelief. I told him I didn't have a check engine light this time either, but was pretty sure something was wrong.

Needless to say I am . 21,000 miles in 10 months, 7 shop visits, with several flashes, two injectors and an ECM and I have about had it with this truck. I guess I finally find out tomorrow what the real problem is.

Rant over and out.

 

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I have been in your place only with two Ford 6.0L trucks with a lot more trips and problems. It gets old really fast. I ended up on a first name basis with the service writers, manager and diesel tech. Every time I walked in the door they started shacking their head. I also had the benefit of hearing everyone of my co-workers make a comment or wise crack every day about the Ford trucks. It got so bad, that I ended up taking every effort to keep them from seeing my rental car. I wish you the best of luck and hope that everything works out for you. Anthony

 

Thats horrible dude, hopfully they will figure it out this go around or perhaps you should look into finding another dealership around to take it to. I went through the same deal with my old half ton chevy with countless trips back to the dealership. All the bugs finally got worked out and it was a great truck till i rolled it 3 years later........ Then i bought a cummins!

 

Yeah I'm never gonna hear the end of it from my 6.0 Ford buddy. How I passed up a new 05 PSD for the 'superior' Cummins.

 

Can't you go for the Lemon Law? Or is it a different problem each time? Not sure how the law works, 3 times for same problem, I guess if they don't know what the problem is exactly, then it wouldn't qualify - but I would be doing some research if you haven't already.

 

Sounds like it may get a new "heart". I just got out of an 06 Duramax that served me well and then became plagued with a low fuel pressure problem, 2 months and $3000 later I gave up and came back to a Cummins. Hope they get it figured out for you, have all the repairs been at the same dealer?

 

Same dealer and basically the same problem all the way through. I was starting to think Lemon or Buyback but now that it grenaded it should finally get fixed correctly. I should find out today what happened, it definately swallowed some hardware in one of the cylinders. I am guessing I will get a replacement engine but we'll see.

 

Well the verdict is in. It was a broken #3 exhaust rocker arm. How the heck do I have a bad ECM, bad #4 injector, and broken rocker arm within the last three weeks?

Did they have to remove the #3 exhaust rockers to install the #4 injector? If so, is it possible the tech screwed up when he reinstalled the rocker? It broke less than 20 miles after picking up from the dealer.

 

In order to get injectors out they do have to pull rockers but not the 3rd for #4 injector. Maybe they did all of them while looking for the problem? Maybe #3 injector failed this time and filled the cylinder with fuel and it hydrolocked? I'm not sure if that's possible or not.

 

Hmmm...well I guess maybe it was just a defective rocker then. It just doesn't make sense, I have never read about anyone breaking a rocker arm on here. About 3 months ago they did have the head off to replace valves on #1, but that was about 3500 miles ago I wouldn't think it would have lasted that long if it was reassembled wrong.

Truck seems to be running fine now. I put about 60 miles on it yesterday. Still a bit of rough idle when hot, but it definately is running better and has much more power now. The ECM or #4 injector seems to have made a big difference overall.

 

Big Horn, I feel the exact same way as you. I have replaced so much stuff on my truck in the past year, and all the downtime is really getting old. At least you can take your truck to the dealer, I don't have the warranty anymore so I am paying out of pocket for all my repairs. Funny because I used to break my friend's chops about his 6.0 and all the problems they have, but his truck has never been in the shop for service and mine seems like it never leaves.......