Low mileage 2016 F450 6.7 Turbo and DPF system failure

[MG84]

I'm posting this for my father, trying to do a little research to get to the bottom of some fairly serious trouble he's been having with his truck. It's a 2016 F450 cab chassis, 4wd, 6.7 diesel, purchased new, truck currently has about 56,000mi on it. It is primarily used for towing and hauling, either a stock trailer or gooseneck equipment trailer, I would estimate 75% of those miles are towing. Also used for some low speed use around the farm, picking up hay, moving livestock from pen to pen, etc.

For the past year or two he's been having repeated problems with the emissions system, multiple trips to the dealer for forced regens (which seem to do nothing) truck often derates thinking DPF is overdue for regen when it's not. Truck has been down on power for some time. He took it in to the dealer last week for several emission related "updates" from Ford. Gets the truck back, says it has a lot more turbo whine than normal, driving home says it has more power than it's ever had, even more than when new. 15min down the road from picking it up the truck just falls on it's face, won't go over 55mph, I don't believe there were any check engine lights on. Dealer say the turbo has gone bad and needs to be replaced.

Is a turbo failure probable at such low mileage? Did something they do with their "updates" cause this or is it a terrible coincidence? Why can't anyone figure out whats wrong with the emissions system and get it to work properly for more than a few weeks? Unfortunately my father lives on the other end of the country and my knowledge of these new 6.7 diesels is very limited. Trying to get a grasp on the situation and how to proceed. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Truck Shop]

Turbo can fail somewhat early-but it would be nice to have photos which won't happen,
if something went through it. Kind of hard to say without knowing what the updates
consisted of.

 

[MG84]

As far as I know all updates were software related but I’ll try to find out more tomorrow. The dealer is adamant (of course) that nothing they did could possibly cause a failure of this kind.

 

[Legdoc]

Unless your pop knows the dealer service manager or the mechanic well and trust them the dealer would be the last place I would trust. Is there a independent qualified Ford Diesel specialist in the area?
Otherwise he is held hostage by the dealer.

 

[Birken Vogt]

Did the problems begin when it was still under warranty? I've had decent success by claiming the dealer did nothing but bandaids until it fails out of warranty, sometimes they will go back and mark the beginning date of problems as the date of failure and get warranty that way. They may ask for some % customer participation.

 

[sillej]

My 2012 has I have had to pay to have fixed at the dealer and then later on a campaign comes along from Ford and I have been reimbursed for the repairs. EGR cooler and DEF pump setup so far at 99k.

 

[MG84]

Unfortunately he lives in a fairly remote area of AZ and to take a vehicle to any shop is a long drive. Took it to the Ford dealer because this update was technically a recall, which there have been 9 of, and it’s still not right. Talked to him today and he has gotten Ford corporate involved...

 

[Truck Shop]

Talked to him today and he has gotten Ford corporate involved...

There is the {Lemon Law}, when I worked at a ford dealer in the late 80's I saw it used on a
89 460 powered Super Duty. It spent 6 months out of 12 at that dealer, It belong to a towing
company.

 

[cfherrman]

How many engine hours?

 

[funwithfuel]

If a turbo was weeping oil or a valve guide was allowing oil into the exhaust stream, you could cause face-plugging or frequent regeneration. The other thing with 6.7s they have very aggressive VGTs. If the VGT gets caked with burnt oil , it can't throttle the nozzle and then you can't promote regeneration. I'd be pulling the exhaust pipe off the turbo and inspect for burnt oil.
I'm not saying that is the problem, just pointing out that there could be a correlation.

 

[MG84]

I’m guessing between 1000-1500 engine hours, but thats just a WAG. It’s never left idling unattended for more than a few minutes, there are some farm/field miles but most are highway miles.

What has me puzzled is why the dramatic increase in power after this last update? And why did it then seem to have a failure almost immediately? He said the only things the last update included were a new NOx sensor and software updates. I have little doubt that all of these problems are related.

I’ll admit that I’m a complete troglodyte when it comes to these new computer controlled diesels. A ‘93 F250 with a 7.3idi is the newest diesel truck I currently own...

 

[funwithfuel]

If the turbo nozzle was stuck closer to closed, you'd have mad boost right off the line. Now it might be stuck full open or the shaft might just be broke from being spun up so hard. VGT takes place of scrolling and wastegate like in the past.

 

[funwithfuel]

If their program caused the exhaust throttle to exceed previous end points, hell yes, they could've caused it. It'll be a hard argument, if it's what happened.

 

[MG84]

Thanks for everyone's replies, this was exactly the information we were looking for. After reading these replies I went and did a little research on how VGT's work and the relation of failures between the DPF system and the turbo. I have little doubt that the problems are related, seems as though its a case of the chicken or the egg. Either the DPF or turbo could have been failing and caused the failure of the other. What ever they did with their reprogramming just did it in, as funwithfuel mentioned.

 

[funwithfuel]

Thanks for everyone's replies, this was exactly the information we were looking for. After reading these replies I went and did a little research on how VGT's work and the relation of failures between the DPF system and the turbo. I have little doubt that the problems are related, seems as though its a case of the chicken or the egg. Either the DPF or turbo could have been failing and caused the failure of the other. What ever they did with their reprogramming just did it in, as funwithfuel mentioned.

That's really only one possibility. There are so many variables. Coolant intrusion via failed head gasket, EGR cooler etc can cause high differential pressure across the DPF triggering frequent regen. Injector failure is another possibility however with common rail engines, will usually result in hard starts or fuel knock. There's also the possibility of cracked or broken rings, leaking valve guides. I'm not implying that is the only possibility, just A possibility.

 

[Truck Shop]

That's really only one possibility.

Problem is what did they find before updates were added, did they ignore a issue thinking
it would be no issue update would cure it. I say that because at my old job we had several
issues with updates causing problems with DPF.

 

[funwithfuel]

When I was with the Volvo dealership, software changes were rolling out every couple weeks with tier IV interim. It was a hot mess.

 

[MG84]

Ford corporate is investigating the situation now, they seemed especially interested (alarmed?) that the truck had been to the same dealer 9 times for warranty/recall/updates and the problem has only gotten worse, eventually leading to possible mechanical failure.

As far as I know the truck has always operated normally up until this point, aside from being down on power and the perpetual regen/dpf issues. No coolant loss, overheating, oil consumption etc. I don’t ‘think’ there is anything wrong with the long block, but I guess nothing should be ruled out.

 

[Tyler d4c]

There is the {Lemon Law}, when I worked at a ford dealer in the late 80's I saw it used on a
89 460 powered Super Duty. It spent 6 months out of 12 at that dealer, It belong to a towing
company.

There was one of those trucks that spent its life local to me that back fired from day one so bad the only muffler that would stay on was a cherry bomb. The only idea that wasn't tried to repair it to my knowledge was that the cam was out of time. It ran like that til it rotted in half

 

[MG84]

Just wanted to give an update, neither Ford nor the dealer will accept responsibility for the turbo failure, however Ford has agreed to pay for a portion of the repairs. The remaining balance my father will owe is not great enough to proceed with any legal action. This of course assumes everything is fixed correctly...