The once-popular Navistar-built Power Stroke V-8 diesel will be gone as an option from Ford SuperDuty pickups and E-series vans by the end of this year, as part of the settlement of a two-year-old legal dispute between the two builders.
They announced that they are dropping their suits against each other, and that the long-running supply agreement will be terminated.

Ford sued Navistar when problems with 2003- and later-model 6-liter Power Strokes caused high warranty claims. Navistar countersued when it learned that Ford was developing its own diesels, allegedly in violation of their agreement. Ford still uses a revised 6-liter Power Stroke diesel in its vans, while a 6.4-liter replacement appeared in 2008 and is the current diesel option in F-250 through F-450 SuperDuty pickups and F-450/550 cab-chassis trucks.

Though Ford won't say what will replace the Navistar-built diesel, on-line reports claim it'll be a 6.7-liter V-8 that Ford designed and will build itself. Ford is also said to be readying a 4.4-liter V-8 diesel, based on a Land Rover design, for its F-150 pickups.

Power Strokes once went into more than three out of four SuperDuty pickups, but volumes dropped as pickup sales fell with high fuel prices and the slowing economy became a recession and then a financial crisis. Navistar's 6.9-liter V-8 first appeared in Fords and Internationals in the early to mid 1980s. It was enlarged to a 7.3 liters a few years later, and was turbocharged and extensively modernized as it evolved into the later versions.

Navistar now uses the 6.4 in International mediums as the MaxxForce 7, and a 4.5-liter V-6 variant powers a low-cab-forward truck sold by Ford and International dealers. The Blue Diamond joint venture under which Navistar builds those LCFs will also change, with Navistar taking control, the builders' announcement said.

From the February 2009 issue of Heavy Duty Trucking.