It’s not inherently a bad decision. Actually far from it. But you have to be aware of the cost and repercussions. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my adult life. The DPF left me stranded 1200 miles from home with 4 horses over a 4 day holiday weekend. I vowed “never again”. I’ve not (knock on wood) had an issue since. And its nit picky whiney little problems went away too. I couldn’t be happier that it’s lost some weight.
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They didn’t properly cap a line, and I was driving down an interstate last year when it popped and my coolant sprayed all over the inside of the hood. Luckily I was able to limp the truck to a rest stop and have a friend come get my trailer with horse inside while we left the truck to be looked at the next weekday.
We’re not 100% sure how the fire started this weekend but think it was electrical. Have had a few weird electrical issues since purchasing it and so that’s my suspicion is faulty wiring. The truck actually still runs so hopefully the engine wasn’t damaged too badly, but I don’t think I can emotionally handle driving it again after this 2nd major scary incident while hauling.
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Probably not, no. When it became clear my truck needed $$$ work and having two car payments was starting to wear on me, I sold my daily driver and just drive my truck now. It gets 15-17 mpg, sometimes better, when I’m not hauling, up from 12-13 mpg before its little surgical procedure. The truck is better for it now that it doesn’t sit for days on end too.
I’ve thought about doing this, but I absolutely hate trying to navigate around in town with a large truck. It’s impossible to park anywhere downtown and would be also hard for me to get in and out of my work with it. I commute about 60 miles/day roundtrip, which would get expensive fast with diesel prices. I have a Subaru that I own free and clear, so I would rather not give that up to make the truck a daily driver if I can avoid it!
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I’m actively buying one. I’m aware. 
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Ah. They didn’t actually DELETE the EGR cooler. They just removed the EGR valve. That’s a lazy way to do that delete - the cooler was a TURD to get out of there, so lots of guys just left it in. It was a known issue that it would crack eventually if you did that, though.
That has no bearing on where the truck actually is.
It seems that someone did a lot of lazy/shoddy work on this truck before I got it. Lesson learned I guess, don’t trust the dealership to know or be upfront about what they are selling you!
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I can’t speak to the F250’s, but hubby’s work trucks have always been F350’s for the past 15+ years.
The trucks are USED HARD.
Other than typical maintenance, there’s not been any issues.
His current truck is either a 2020 or 2021.
Work replaces them every 3-5 years & many of the employees buy them then.
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I have. I ordered a custom RAM truck and the best price was from a dealer in WA (I’m in Los Angeles). They took delivery and did the inspection, then sent me video. Then they arranged shipping and I paid for it ($1200), and it was delivered as close to my house as narrow roads would allow.
It was a very easy experience and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
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Well…
Most people register a vehicle where it lives.
The OP (or someone) was saying they thought part of the problem was that it lived up north in the salt.
So knowing if the vehicle was registered in NY for four years is good information to have if that type of things matters to you.
That was my point.
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I read threads like this and am SO glad everything I have is over 20 years old. It may not be the prettiest but is not complicated and its reliable. I know the maintenance history too. And can have an entire new engine installed if need be and still be money ahead.
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here is the truck he bought, it was in pretty good condition, after he had the engine replaced and some other items updated he was offered $25,000 cash but he had hunted for a plow truck for about a year before finding this.
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OP, I haven’t ordered online, but I did deal with a dealership over the phone recently. Told them what I wanted (like you, basic work truck, 250, gas, 4wd, extended or crew cab, 8’ bed), and they found one within a half an hour at a dealership several hours away from them (dealership is two hours from me). They sent us a copy of the window sticker and photos, we provided a deposit within the hour, my husband went over and signed the paper work the next day, and they delivered it to us (on their dime) the next evening after it arrived to them that morning.
Easiest new-vehicle-buying experience ever.
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I love, love the big diesels. So it hurts to admit this. I do not recommend buying a modern diesel with the DEF unless you are going to be pulling five days out of seven at something approaching at least its mid range capabilities. And even then, I would think long and hard if a gas engine would work. Because it might. Certainly for most people, even those who feel they need the diesel.
DH has an absolute lemon of a Chevy diesel (2014, 2500HD). The thing is an amazing long haul, heavy duty pulling truck. It is wonderful, I love driving it, he loves driving it. It also throws engine codes at the drop of the hat and it is always, always a sensor connected to the DEF BS. If it wasn’t paid off and modified, I would push it off the nearest bridge.
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Dealerships are not legally allowed to take in or sell emissions altered vehicles, to my knowledge. Double check that they aren’t on the hook for making it stock again.
As a household that has experienced the worst luck with trucks lately, here is my take:
Our 2019 F350 is an amazing truck. We love it. It pulls like a workhorse and has run incredible up until my SO put a small amount of DEF in the diesel tank (literally 24 hours after we said we were going to delete it). We never even started the truck after the mistake, but the tow truck driver made us put it in accessory for .5 seconds to shift into N. Due to that, the truck just got out of the shop 8 weeks and $16k later for a sparkly, new fuel system…
In that 8 week time, we went to buy a new truck with more than $10k to put down. With the interest rates and cost of new trucks, our monthly payment would have been ~$1k per month. While we could make that work, we both decided it wasn’t worth it. Especially since my 2013 1500 also recently took a 
and I’ll be needing a new car as well, so do we really want two big trucks or one big truck and one small truck/SUV?
We took that money and he found a 95’ Chevy 3500 Western Hauler. Bought it cash. It ran great the first few weeks, but he started to tinker with it and ultimately bought a part that was wired wrong and installed it himself (he’s a Youtube mechanic at best). Now that truck is in the shop and we’re $3k into it as well.
Even though we’re into the Chevy for $3k and have had to borrow a clients truck for 6 weeks, I don’t regret our decision to buy cash instead of a new truck. We have to have a truck capable of pulling a horse trailer & my SO’s shoeing trailer. The Chevy is under $100 for full coverage. It gets good gas mileage and really is in good shape. Used trucks in our area are still sitting above $60k at the dealership and even cash deals are $30k+ for diesels with 200k+ on them. After the work we do on it - we will get plenty of years out of it and come out ahead in the end.
What I do regret is telling SO not to delete is F350 sooner. We are going to do it ASAP so we never have to put ourselves in this position again. He and his other farrier friends have had plenty of deleted trucks and have never had problems getting rid of them, getting them registered, etc.
As for a truck review, we are currently driving a 2022 Chevy 2500 with the new gas engine in it. It’s an incredible commuter truck- gets great gas mileage and is easy to drive. However, when it comes to towing - the gas mileage plummets and it is not nearly as powerful as our Ford. We both decided this will not be our next vehicle purchase.
I have another mechanic looking at the truck. He works at the Ford place but does car stuff on the side. The dealership people got my truck reprogrammed enough so I could drive it for a little while before it realized my DEF system was wonky and it drove fine to his house. He thinks the diagnosis from the dealership is kind of strange but he will know for sure what is going on when he pulls the code on the truck and looks inside. He doesn’t know if the tank got contaminated and that made the sensor not work correctly but he doesn’t know why they would want to sell me a whole new tank/ filter and not just drain and clean the tank and put on a new sensor. I did run the DEF tank down to 300 miles before shutdown just recently and he thinks that MIGHT have brought up sediment at the bottom of the tank. Hopefully I don’t need a whole new filter which he thinks shouldn’t cost 12 grand.
He also says if my problems with the truck have mostly been because of the DEF system that deleting the truck might be a viable solution. The truck hauls like a beast when it is not being fussy about the DES. Now I am off to read up more than I wanted to know about truck anatomy and where all these parts are. And what could have “corroded” the filter so the whole thing would be crumbling on a 2014 truck with just 100k miles on it. That is the story the dealership is giving me.
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well I suspect the dealership is following the EPA Mandates which are kind of governed by major fines if circumvented
; 40 CFR 86.1834–01(b)(4). For
example, in general, the maintenance
interval is in miles for the adjustment,
cleaning, or repair of fuel injectors,
turbochargers, electronic engine control
units, particulate trap or trap-oxidizers,
exhaust gas recirculation systems, and
catalytic converters. The minimum
allowable limit is 100,000 miles of use
(and then at 100,000 mile intervals
thereafter) for diesel cycle light-duty
vehicles, diesel cycle light-duty trucks,
whereas if You had an emergency vehicle, those will Not Go in Limp Mode
the June 8, 2012, rule, engine
manufacturers were permitted to request
to deploy specific emission controls or
settings approved as Auxiliary Emission
Control Devices (AECDs) for new
engines, and Emergency Vehicle Field
Modifications (EVFMs) for in-use
engines that are sold for use only in
emergency vehicles, defined as
ambulances and fire trucks at 40 CFR
86.1803–01. EPA adopted that rule to
enable dedicated emergency vehicles
with diesel engines to perform missioncritical life- and property-saving work
without risk of losing power, speed or
torque due to abnormal conditions of
the emission control systems. In this
final action,
it all in the software and how much pressure the EPA wants to put you under
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This truck has been serviced multiple times, and most of those for DES problems so it has not gone 100k miles with no service. I drive it about 5k miles a year and it has on average 3 DES problems per year. Nor has it been driven without the DES problem resolved. So the first situation does not apply to it. If at 100k miles your truck automatically shut you down I am sure the dealership would have said that was the case. I do not doubt that a sensor is bad and needs to be replaced. The question is why is the dealership telling me the whole filter is bad and why does that cost 12k to fix.
I am getting a second opinion to see if the dealership is not just trying to upsell me a fix that is not needed or do I have a really big problem? If I have a really big problem, what else is a problem and should I sell?
