Winter Temperatures

[SDST08]

I apologize if this is a repost. New to the site, just purchased myself a 08 F-250 6.4L. While going through all the manuals and information I couldnt help but notice the recommended temperature for plugging in the truck. It says -23 celcius??? To me that seems a little cold, I was plugging in my gasoline engine truck at -20. Anybody ran their new engines in cold temperatures yet? It gets pretty cold where I live for a considerable amount of time so I want to make sure about this!! Thanks

[DavidPhillips]

The main issue for the internals of the engine is to have the right oil(5w??). As far as the fuel goes it must be winterized accordingly and you can expect some white smoke and more noise on cold start. This is unburned fuel which will clear up pretty fast.

As long as the glow system works and you have winterized fuel, proper antifreeze water mixture, and the right oil you can follow the manuals recommendations.

One of the main problems people have in the dead of winter is their batteries. It takes two good batteries to crank the engine over hard enough to fire. Plugging the truck in helps this problem but in reality you just have bad batteries. Corrosion and bad battery cables will be a fact of life. You must maintain the cables and connections to avoid problems. The starter on these things might have more torque than your gas engine


Oh, and good luck with your new truck. I love mine.

I have not had mine in winter yet.

[sportrac]

Had mine in Alberta in March. Very cold then. Temps are below -25. Had to try it out so did not plug in when it was -24 and got up in morning and it started no problem. Glow Plugs took about a minute then started with in 2 turns of engine. I was impressed

[SDST08]

Well thats good to hear. I guess -23 will be the magic number then!! Thanks guys.

[spburns]

I live in Alberta, and what we generally do is switch oil weights around early October and run 0W-30 until spring. Ford now recommends their 10W-30 diesel oil for winter, but if you do forget to plug the block heater in or just can't, you wouldn't believe the difference in the cranking speed or the instant oil pressure you get with the 0W-30. Good old 15W-40 the rest of the year, always a blended oil. (Says synthetic on the jugs, but it's a blend, not straight synthetic which I'd hate to use - you generally can't go back to a regular petroleum based oil once you've used synthetic due to ring seating differences and besides, it would be way too pricey for something unnecessary.) Motor oils are of such high quality nowadays, just stick to the manual's recommendation for temp range suitable oil weights and you can't go wrong. Only change with the '08's is Ford's recommended oil change schedule - 16000 kms is just too many, and we've always done it at 10000 kms unless it's trailer-towing and dusty roads, then it's every 5000 or so, and we'll continue to keep the same schedule on the new 6.4's

[SDST08]

Thanks for the advice, thats probably a good idea being that where I live from November to March -30 celcius is just another normal day!!

[99gt]

my 6.0 would start at -30C + windchill without plugging it in..mind you it does sound like a bag of tin cans when started at that temp. Anywho, i would imagine the 6.4 would be leagues ahead in could weather starting.

[DavidPhillips]

Good thing is wind chill does not have any effect on inanimate objects .