Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
About three weeks ago I was taking a trailer from Pendleton, OR to Santa Fe Springs, CA and stopped at the Flying J at Lebec/Frazier Park to refuel. Another Horizon driver pulled in to fuel in the other lane and we talked as we fueled. He explained he was there to hook up a fifth wheel trailer that had to be abandoned when a third Horizon driver lost an engine pulling the Grapevine.
We were both spending the night there and an hour later the driver who had lost the engine showed up to hand over the keys, bill of lading, and shipping documents on the abandoned trailer and we talked with him. He had retired from the LA MTA (city bus driver) last fall and decided to haul trailers to supplement his retirement income. He purchased a fully-loaded '05 Ford F-350 6. 0 PowerStroke and started hauling trailers in September. He said he experienced injector problems on his way out from Indiana and had a couple of injectors replaced at a Ford dealer under warranty. Pulling the Grapevine the day before he had suffered a catastrophic engine failure. He had his truck and trailer towed to the Flying J where he dropped the trailer and then had his truck towed on to a Ford dealer. The dealer's service department had already inspected his engine and advised him it was destroyed and would have to be replaced . . . at his expense. He said he had 101,xxx miles on the truck when the engine self-destructed. I don't know the rest of the story. He may have been able later to persuade or threaten Ford into replacing the engine under warranty or with a discount but at the time we spoke he had been told it was out of warranty and his responsibility. He claimed he had maintained the truck properly and had records to prove it. I've been told by other drivers that a complete new PowerStroke, parts and labor, can run $14,000 at a Ford dealer. I didn't ask but assume the driver bought his truck with a loan and probably owed five or six years of payments on a $40,000 truck. As he left he said he was thinking of accepting his former boss' offer of a part time job driving a city bus again. It was genuinely a sad story and I felt sympathy for him. My Dodge had well over 200k miles on it that afternoon as I had pulled the Grapevine for the umpteenth time.
Another Horizon driver, a loyal 7. 3 liter Ford owner, told me recently that he knew several RV transporters who had purchased new Fords to pull trailers and had the trucks repossessed after repeated breakdowns cut their earnings and caused them to miss payments. He said several even had to file for bankruptcy.
These stories are, of course, anecdotal evidence. All Fords may not be bad. I talked with another new Ford owner a couple of days ago who had over 80k miles on his and claimed he'd had no problems. I do know that in the RV delivery industry most new trucks and all the high mileage trucks are Dodge-Cummins.
Harvey
We were both spending the night there and an hour later the driver who had lost the engine showed up to hand over the keys, bill of lading, and shipping documents on the abandoned trailer and we talked with him. He had retired from the LA MTA (city bus driver) last fall and decided to haul trailers to supplement his retirement income. He purchased a fully-loaded '05 Ford F-350 6. 0 PowerStroke and started hauling trailers in September. He said he experienced injector problems on his way out from Indiana and had a couple of injectors replaced at a Ford dealer under warranty. Pulling the Grapevine the day before he had suffered a catastrophic engine failure. He had his truck and trailer towed to the Flying J where he dropped the trailer and then had his truck towed on to a Ford dealer. The dealer's service department had already inspected his engine and advised him it was destroyed and would have to be replaced . . . at his expense. He said he had 101,xxx miles on the truck when the engine self-destructed. I don't know the rest of the story. He may have been able later to persuade or threaten Ford into replacing the engine under warranty or with a discount but at the time we spoke he had been told it was out of warranty and his responsibility. He claimed he had maintained the truck properly and had records to prove it. I've been told by other drivers that a complete new PowerStroke, parts and labor, can run $14,000 at a Ford dealer. I didn't ask but assume the driver bought his truck with a loan and probably owed five or six years of payments on a $40,000 truck. As he left he said he was thinking of accepting his former boss' offer of a part time job driving a city bus again. It was genuinely a sad story and I felt sympathy for him. My Dodge had well over 200k miles on it that afternoon as I had pulled the Grapevine for the umpteenth time.
Another Horizon driver, a loyal 7. 3 liter Ford owner, told me recently that he knew several RV transporters who had purchased new Fords to pull trailers and had the trucks repossessed after repeated breakdowns cut their earnings and caused them to miss payments. He said several even had to file for bankruptcy.
These stories are, of course, anecdotal evidence. All Fords may not be bad. I talked with another new Ford owner a couple of days ago who had over 80k miles on his and claimed he'd had no problems. I do know that in the RV delivery industry most new trucks and all the high mileage trucks are Dodge-Cummins.
Harvey
