Has any had trouble with their truck in the cold mornings? Do the 04's start ok? the guy next to me had to have his chevy towed in due to a frozen starter. Batteries probably get killed pretty fast in -33 mornings and a day time high of -24 (without the wind chill).

 

No problems starting -31, power steering pump whines upon startup for a few minutes though....as did other makes and models of vehicles...

 

Mine had a tough time starting this morning, second time I have run into this....2 degrees was the low at my home. It cranked longer than usual then ran very rough for 20-30 seconds but ceared up and ran fine after that. Mine had PS whine also for about 5 minutes....

 

now I need to find wipers that don't freeze up. I bought some teflon washer fluid and it froze the second it hit my windshield and smeared ice all over and made it very difficult to see. Do any one know of any great washer fluid that doesn't freeze that easy?

 

Never yet a problem starting under any circumstances. Lowest so far this winter was 7f, most days it is in the teens. But I do 90% highway, so my motor is always well-exercised, the battery strong. I can see how a lot of short-tipping in city driving would sort of clog things up.

 

I'm So glad its 70 here today and a cold 55-60 at night ...

 

Boston temperature last night was -10 degrees, I live on the coast with no barrier to the sea, the winds were about 25-30mph making the windchill approximately -40-50.........+

I started my Screw with one turn made a load whine for 3 secs. and then drove away ...........no problems!!!!!

Hope this answers your question.

 

Usually the only reason you would have a hard time starting in the cold is if the battery is bad or defective. Seeing that these are 04’s the batteries should be in good shape. It don’t matter if you have an 04 or a 74 if the battery and starter are in good condition you should never have a problem starting a vehicle in cold weather…

My battery is about 2 1/2 years old and my truck still starts fine in -15 degrees...

 

Same here

PS whine worries me. My Ranger had PS whine no matter what I did and it bugged the **** out of me (and my neighbors). I hope this is just a cold weather thing because I can't go through that again.

 

8F temp here today. No problem starting and no PS whine then again I'm hard of hearing.

 

Try the Prestone de-icer wiper fluid. has not frozen for me yet.

 

I noticed that the optional good year tires on the FX4 and Lariat 4X4 work great in the snow. Especially when the snow is packed down on the highway. How do the stardard FX4 tires (BFG) work in the snow?

 

My truck was slow to start & i did have that whine from the power steering & that was all

 

There IS a problem with the starter motor in the early 04s. Early could include production up until the end of 2003. I spoke with a Ford mechanic at a big dealership yesterday. He has had 6 trucks this week for this problem. Ford has a fix on their service hotline and will replace the starters. The early starters allow some water to enter and will freeze in only extremely cold temps if they sit for 12 hours or so. It needs to get below 5F or -15C to be noticed. I found this by coincidence as I have a Ford remote starter with alarm installed. For 2 mornings in a row I tried to start it with the remote and it failed and set the alarm off at 6 am. (neighbors love me - not) Apparently if it fails to start for this reason the system checks all possibilities and can't find an programmed intrusion point open, so it defaults to alarm. Bit complicated but the bottom line is Ford is replacing starters due to freeze up

 

It was -21F Thurs. night here in upstate NY- truck started fine, but the PS was not whining, it was SCREAMING! This is really bugging me! It does this at higher temps ,too.(0-+10F)
Also, can anybody tell me the size of the freeze plugs in the 4.6 block?