New F150

In reply to z31maniac:

Why?

I'm just about to cross 200k in my miata. Haven't even worried about the fuel filter.

There's no real need for a filter.

I'd rather have the filter.

I just changed one in my E250 because it wouldn't rev past 3500 rpms. It was the OEM filter from when the truck was new in 99. What dumped out the inlet side was blacker than used motor oil. Granted it had 430k miles worth of fuel through it. If that $18 filter saved me from one stopped up injector, it was worth every penny.

If you assume that all of that hits the injector all at once, of course it's going to gum up the works.

But it doesn't- it would have been spread over 430k miles, and probably would not have stayed there.

Then again, what kind of fuel is being bought? With the more recent fuel tank rules, what you get is much better than what we could have gotten a long time ago.

I do try to stick with major-brand fuel in my truck, mostly BP and Shell, fwiw. I have heard of issues with DI motors, specifically fuel blow-by. I have a friend with a Mazda CX-7 that had that. I'll keep an eye on it, use relatively short (5k) oil change intervals and get a Blackstone analysis once a year or so.

kreb wrote:

Sky_Render wrote: However, if it is going to be primarily used for doing more truckly things, get the V8.

I believe that the ecoboost has a sizeable torque advantage, so perhaps that should be the other way around? I would lean v8 simply for simplicity's sake, however.

It's the fuel economy I was talking about. Pulling the same trailer, the V8 gets better fuel economy.

I'm not a big truck fan, and I love to tease Tom about his red neck pick-em-up-truck. But I am seriously impressed with his Ecoboost. Last November he kindly joined me in the trip to get my Saab. As I was covering gas I was very interested in the mileage. An 800 mile round trip pulling a trailer, half of that with an extra 3,000lb of SAAB sticking up and the truck returned right around 18mpg. That wasn't sparing it on the freeway either, that weekend the flying donut patrol in Ohio could have made a some extra revenue off us. Very very impressed with that kind of mileage.

Let me put it this way:

I was driving west on Interstate 64 through the hills of Virginia and West Virginia in a '98 XJ Cherokee with the 4.0. I was able to keep pace with an Ecoboost..barely.

Did I mention that he had a full sized '58 Ford in tow on a tandem trailer?

In reply to z31maniac:

My Saturn has 312,000 miles on the original fuel filter Seems to still work fine. As far as gas quality goes, I put in whatever is cheap.

I'm probably not going to change the filter anytime soon. Only because that would be a major investment with this car.

I put whatever the base exchange offers as it's like on average 20-30 cents cheaper a gallon than anything else in DC.

I would go with the ecoboost based solely on the fact I saw two virginia rednecks tie a huge rope to their tow hitches and have a truck pull. It was a 5.0 vs. ecoboost and ecoboost won 3 out of 3 times. yeehaw

alfadriver wrote: Kia, Mazda, Toyota, GM, and Ford all manage to not have problems. And I don't think even Audi are having problems.

Toyota and Audi are having problems. So is GM. I've heard of Toyotas needing the heads pulled for cleaning at as low as 10k, the VWAG problems are well documented online.

Last I heard about GM, they were experimenting with flashes that intentionally mis-time the injection pulse, so some of the fuel washes up into the intake.

That said, you should have seen some of the horrible things shown at the DI seminar I was at recently. Combustion chambers with giant stalactites around the injector, intake valves nearly triangular from carbon... and this being from engines that were running well.

The stories of trying to remove injectors in the field were priceless.

alfadriver wrote: If you assume that all of that hits the injector all at once, of course it's going to gum up the works. But it doesn't- it would have been spread over 430k miles, and probably would not have stayed there. Then again, what kind of fuel is being bought? With the more recent fuel tank rules, what you get is much better than what we could have gotten a long time ago.

I've done many fuel pump replacements where the pump died from ingesting rust from the filler neck. The particles get between the sock and the bottom of the tank and wear through the sock.

Sky_Render wrote: It's the fuel economy I was talking about. Pulling the same trailer, the V8 gets better fuel economy.

On what fuel? The Ecoboost is supposed to get up to 30-35% better economy on premium when towing. Premium isn't 30-35% more expensive than 87 octane swill.

DI is wonderful but we're still talking about a turbo engine here.

I rode in a V8 when they came out, it was too fast for a truck, capable of neck damaging acceleration. I'd go with the 6 for its added grunt, economy, and proven to be stupid strong.

In reply to Knurled:

ok, so be it.

But the only issues I'm aware of concerning the durability of DI isn't about the combustion chambers or intakes. So....

having seen insides of pfi engines, I would not label deposits "horrible". Ugly, perhaps, but if it's not impacting how the engine runs, how is that horrible? They are just there.

As for the other engines being "cleaned" was it needed, or just done? Who is cleaning them? Are dealers doing it for free? Or some other mechanic?

While I've been working on DI for going on 7 years now, I'm not that big of fan of it. So it's not as if I'm tring to sell something- I want to see what actually is happening compared to hysteria.

Knurled wrote: I've done many fuel pump replacements where the pump died from ingesting rust from the filler neck. The particles get between the sock and the bottom of the tank and wear through the sock.

Sure. But how many modern cars use steel filler necks anymore? Vs. stainless? Or even plastic?

Somebody was finally smart to understand that most of the problems with fuel system was self inflicted (say rust). Fix that, and the need of the filter goes away.

The fuel system is part of the emissions systems, so it's covered so that it will survive all of the FUL testing- if not, it gets replaced for free. Nobody wants to pay for that.

our son just bought one last week. he went with the ecoboost mainly because his wife's explorer has had excellent results with one. granted it's a 4cyl, but it posts excellent mpg for it's size.

a few comments on the truck. first, trucks aren't what they used to be. this thing is seriously nice. way to many electronics for my tastes, but he likes all of that. and unfortunately many people buy cars today based on what electronics it has. second, it doesn't drive any better than the '07 we have at work, in fact it feels almost identical. and last, expensive is too soft a word. there is nothing on earth that makes a truck worth that kind of money. you could have bought a nice bmw and had 10k left over.

in the end, he likes it. except for the cost, ford should get a pat on the back for upping their materials quality too.