Sorry for the bad pics, took them at sunrise!

Washed the truck on Saturday, and have noticed (even before) that the bottom edge of the stainless steel exhaust tip frequently accumulates soot.

3.5L Ecoboost, I don't let it idle for long periods prior to taking off. Now - two confessions; I have but about 1,600 miles on it, approximately 1,450 of them being mainly city driving. Occasionally get it up to 65 for short periods.

And I haven't really flogged the truck yet (a couple of short bursts), so do I simply need to "blow her out" on a good, long stretch of highway? Y'all know I'm no mechanic, but I remember the good old days when my dad said he needed to take his car out to "blow the carbon the hell out of the engine".

So - is the soot much ado about nothing?

 

my 5.0L does the same thing, So did my 4.6 in my 09. i do mostly city driving too. not sure if that's the cause or not.

 

I have a little and think it is much ado about nothing.

 

My 2010 5.4 did it when I first bought it but cleared up after the truck computer learned my driving " habits" around 3 or 4k mark - take a rag wipe it off & 4get about it

 

Direct injection gas engines create a bit of soot, its just the nature of the beast.

 

I see it, too. I used to have some stuff in a milk crate on the garage floor near where the exhaust comes out. The stuff was caked in black soot, I guess from starting up in the garage. Anyway, I cleared everything out of that area.

I've seen other threads about the soot as well, so it's pretty common with these engines. Probably nothing to worry about.

Mashing the go pedal once in a while might help keep it down, but I've only heard anecdotal and never seen empirical evidence on this solution, though.

 

I had to jump on mine the other day - give it the gas - in a big way and I happened to be looking out the right mirror at the time just to notice a huge plume of black smoke out of the exhaust. I thought I was driving a diesel!

 

This is normal for the ecoboost. 2 reasons 1st its inherent with direct injecton engines. 2nd the EB is programed to run a little rich to aid combustion chamber cooling to control nitrogen emisions because there is no EGR on these engines.

 

You guys are so smart. Not sarcasm at all. Wish I knew more about vehicles other than where I parked it last! ;-)

A belated thanks for the replies.

 

All older driver's have soot on their tailpipes!