ArmyofOne

For me, its not nessecarily the quality of materials used, or the assembly, but the overall look. In the Ford, I love the gauges, but I hate the pattern on the seats, ect ect. The design of the interior is what turns me off to the ford, I probably should have said that initially. It doesn't flow well to me. Having said that, I agree that both truck makers are pretty much on par with assembly quality and materials used.

SteVTEC

Yeah that's the big question mark on a lot of these newer direct injected turbocharged gas engines. Nobody really knows, but true the history of turbocharged engines tells you to expect to need a rebuild possibly before 100k miles. And most people still are in the dark about the potential intake tract clogging issues with direct injected engines. The stupid TV screens at my local Shell station tells me all about how great Shell gas is and how it'll clean intake and intake valve deposits so good. Yeah, but only if you have port injection!

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

no doubt ford has done a LOT of brutal testing on their turbo engines and the scheduled maintenance should keep these trucks running a long time.

J.P.

Turbos were a big deal on the supra?
On diesel trucks?
On semi-trucks?
Hell I can get them in an offshore engine now!


I don’t see why turbos are to be feared for reliability \ maintenance….

FrankReynoldsCPA

If you can afford a $50k pickup, then you should be able to justify a turbo or two down the road. I've seen lots of diesel turbos go past 200k and 300k though. My friend's 02 Powerstroke has 350k miles on the original engine AND turbo.

LexFather

Its amazing to see how far these truck interiors have gotten.

SteVTEC

Because the fact is, they're big potential reliability and maintenance headaches. They add a lot of complexity and expense to an engine, which by definition makes them more questionable on reliability just from that alone. I think Supras did commonly have secondary turbo failures. And it's not just the turbochargers but all of the associated hardware too like wastegates and intercoolers.... Also not exactly an apples to apples comparison to look at light and medium duty on-highway truck applications, or even marine engines. Completely different engines designed for very different purposes. Petrol turbocharged engines have a lot of unique requirements and demands that these other types of engines don't necessarily face that make it more difficult to simultaneously design for high reliability on the turbocharger.

Only time will tell. For now it's a roll of the dice. If you own one, you ought to have money set aside to rebuild or replace turbos down the road, and hopefully you won't have to spend it.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

The same can be said about that 335i in your stable

J.P.

Coming from someone that spends a lot of time on the water, if turbos are running in the offshore \ marine world, I am certainly not worried about driving one to work and back.

And to go with Hooveys point, there are many other car brands that have components failing far before the turbos do, so unless the rest of the parts are immaculate throughout the entire ownership period, I am not worried about the turbo……..

SteVTEC

Right. Case in point, the BMW N54/N55 turbocharged Inline-6 engines. Turbo/petrol engines as deployed in automotive applications have had a decades long track record of being more problematic and less reliable than their naturally aspirate counterparts. Turbo and/or wastegate replacement isn't an uncommon thing on those engines, not to mention the high pressure fuel pumps needed for direct injection going bad like crazy that the naturally aspirated engines still running port injection didn't need. The more complicated something is, the more there is to potentially go wrong and the more difficult it becomes to make it super reliable. What suddenly has changed that makes that no longer the case? Ford's public accelerated life testing and torturing of the EcoBoost engine on the F-150 program was brilliant PR, but hardly means that that engine is never going to have any problems, ever, in the field over the true long-haul 10+ years out.

Like I said, it's apples to oranges comparing a marine engine to an automotive. In a marine application, you're not constantly varying load and on and off the throttle all over the map. You're not constantly in and out of boost, accelerating and decelerating the turbo putting it through all sorts of heating and cooling cycles. I don't think marine applications are going to demand maximum naturally aspirated like response characteristics which automotive applications need, nor do they face the same emissions standards, or fuel economy standards? And especially in a single engine boat, it's of far greater consequence if you have an engine failure out on the water than it is in a car. Thus engines are designed accordingly based on the unique challenges they'll be facing. It's not the same thing.

- Fuel efficiency
- Emissions
- Performance
- Reliability

Engineering has been and always will be a game of tradeoffs. Designing and optimizing for different traits such as fuel efficiency or reliability have always been at odds with each other so you end up making compromises and trying to strike the right balance. If you pick three of those that you want to focus on, you'll get what you get on the fourth one. (Which three do you think BMW focused on?) Do you think they really care about fuel efficiency in marine engines nearly as much as they do and are required to by law with automotive engines? The answer is obvious there, which makes it that much easier to design for the other three, and is also why you can't compare marine vs automotive like this. Totally different purposes, typical loading, and design priorities. Not the same.

My money on the most reliable F-150 engine in a 2012/13 bought today and looked at 5-10 years from now would be one of their tried and true V8 engines. I wouldn't put money on the 5.0 because it's a new design and hasn't been proven yet in the reliability department, nor would I put money on the ecoboost engine because it's both new AND turbocharged...