Controversial Guest Responds to Comments

Recently, The Diesel Podcast did a three part series on the best and worst Cummins, Duramax, and Powerstroke engines. Vinny Himes, from Leadfoot Diesel Performance, covered his experiences as a service writer with trends, common failures, and potential fixes for these issues. We reached out to Vinny due to his position seeing trends with his customer base and years of experience.

Topics covered included K16 failures, 6.7L Cummins headgasket issues, CP4 failures on LML’s, 6.0 EGR and EGR cooler problems, and more. The comments erupted both agreeing and disagreeing. For those who disagreed, two main points of contention were L5P crank failures and the 6.7L Powerstroke being the best Ford truck out of the box. We asked Vinny to join us again to clarify and expand on these trends.

With L5P’s, the trend he has noticed is with heavy use trucks – constantly towing, hauling, and with first responder vehicles. Does this mean every L5P will have a crank failure? Not at all. But it is worth tracking why more than one has experienced a failed crank under extreme daily use.

The topic of which Powerstroke is the best got a lot of listener feedback. The criteria for “best” wasn’t which made the most power, won the most races or had the most aftermarket upgrades. It was based on, off the showroom floor, which provided the most usable power, longevity, and fit the package for towing, hauling, and drivability. Vinny chose the 6.7L Powerstroke, specifically the 2015+ trucks with the 6R140 transmission. His reasons were exceptional factory power (vs 7.3’s), less emission system problems than the 6.0, and longevity of the engine compared to 6.4L Powerstrokes.

In this conversation, we went in-depth on the main reason Vinny held these opinions – his work experience. Truck owners that don’t have failures don’t need to visit diesel shops for fixes. That alone will eliminate a majority of the trucks on the road. But of the ones that do have failures, there are trends that arise. And a diesel shop needs to pay attention to these trends for a number of reasons. First, to efficiently diagnose and fix customer trucks based on experience. Second, to have inventory on hand for common repairs needed to fix a Ford, GM or Ram. Third, for proactive maintenance for fleet or business customers. When a truck makes money every minute and hour, avoiding costly downtime is crucial.