This page is for the diesel pickups and vans of Land O’ Lakes: Super Duty and F-150 diesels, Ram trucks from the 1500 up to the 5500 chassis cab, Duramax Silverados and Sierras, the Nissan Titan XD and Sprinter vans. RDI Power repairs them at 1665 Donto Way in Brooksville, about 28 road miles north of central Land O’ Lakes on US-41. Tractors and dump trucks have their own Land O’ Lakes page.
Stop-and-go at SR-54 and US-41, and the regen that never finishes
The SR-54 and US-41 intersection carries enough traffic, trucks included, to rank among Pasco County’s busiest. A diesel pickup that spends its week crawling through traffic like that, or running short errands along Collier Parkway and Land O’ Lakes Boulevard, seldom holds exhaust temperature high enough to let the particulate filter burn itself clean. The regen starts, the errand ends, and the soot stays.
The signs arrive in a familiar order: regens that come closer and closer together, a cooling fan that roars after shutdown, falling fuel economy, then a clogged-filter warning or a derate. Forcing another regeneration treats the symptom. We check differential pressure across the filter, look for an upstream cause such as a leaking injector, a sticking EGR valve or a boost leak, and only then decide whether the filter needs a regen, a cleaning or replacement. More on the pickup side of our work is on the light duty diesel repair page.
Land O’ Lakes half-tons and heavy-duty pickups on the same lift
Diesel pickups come in 2 sizes now, and we repair both. On the half-ton side that means the 3.0L Power Stroke in the F-150, the 3.0L EcoDiesel in the Ram 1500, the 3.0L Duramax in GM half-tons and the 2.8L Duramax in the Colorado and Canyon. On the heavy-duty side it means the 6.7L Power Stroke and its 7.3L, 6.0L and 6.4L predecessors, the 5.9L and 6.7L Cummins, and every Duramax from the LB7 to the L5P.
Factory software is what makes that range workable. Ford trucks connect to Ford IDS, and our Ford specialist spent more than 30 years at a Ford dealership. Ram trucks connect to WiTECH. Our service advisor, who worked 35 years as a technician at a Chevrolet dealership, knows the GM side well. The 5.0L Cummins V8 in the Titan XD and the diesel in a Sprinter van round out the list, and a van that earns its keep on deliveries gets the same scan and photo inspection as a pickup.
Fuel deserves a word on its own. High-pressure injection parts have almost no tolerance for water or dirt, and on trucks with the Bosch CP4.2 pump a failure can spread metal through the whole system. Changing fuel filters on time and draining the water separator when the dash asks costs very little next to a set of injectors.
Land O’ Lakes symptoms that should change your plan for the drive
Most pickup problems can ride 28 miles to Brooksville. A few should not:
- Temperature climbing toward the top of the gauge, especially with steam or a sweet smell. Coolant loss on a diesel can mean a hose, a water pump, a radiator or an EGR cooler, and running it hot can warp a head.
- An oil pressure warning. Shut the engine off and call.
- A flashing check engine light or a derate. The truck is protecting itself, and more miles make that worse.
- Long cranking that keeps getting longer. Weak batteries are the usual cause on a 2-battery truck, but glow plugs on a Power Stroke or Duramax and the intake grid heater on a Cummins can do the same thing.
If one of those is happening, call (352) 433-3800 before you leave. A mobile technician can often diagnose a truck at a job site or roadside spot, and if the truck needs the shop we will help plan the tow.
What a Land O’ Lakes pickup owner gets back
Every pickup leaves with a digital inspection: photos and the technician’s notes on the repair and on anything else worth watching. The labor carries RDI Power’s 3-year, 36,000-mile warranty. When a shifting complaint shows up alongside an engine problem, our Land O’ Lakes transmission repair page explains how we separate the 2, and owners a few miles north can read the Connerton truck repair page for the job-site side of pickup work.