My girlfriend drives a 2009 Sierra, and I have recently had to do some maintenance on it. Every time I have to work on that thing I realize just how much better built my truck is. I find it so hard to believe that people choose them over an F150.
In the 3.5 years I have been dating her, that truck has had 2 engine rebuilds due to wiped out cams, doors are already rotting away at the bottom, broken both sway bar links, both front wheel bearings are junk (just replaced them), and the door pins in both front doors are so bad you have to slam them to get them to latch. Granted, it is 2 years older than my truck, but hers has 96k miles and mine has 93k, so I'd say it's a pretty fair comparison. Both have always been driven in MI winters and mine barely has any rust underneath. Not to mention the interior quality is far... FAR better in mine.
Not sure what the price difference was new between the two, but I'd pay $10k extra for mine every day of the week.

Are there really any common issues with the 09-14 5.0 F150's?

In conclusion, if you want to feel better about your F150, just check out a GM product.

 

09-10 weren't 5.0 they didn't release the 5.0 until 2011

I'm totally with you though, seen way too many Chevy trucks with issues and the owners act like it's the best thing since sliced bread

 

I drove out on the beach Saturday and the truck parked beside me was a 2009 RAM Quad Cab 4x4. I talked to the owner and he said the 4wd had failed twice leaving him on the beach. Talking some more he said the clutches had failed so that meant transmission. He was planning to keep it though because he bought it new and Dodge/RAM had a lifetime drive train warranty on it and he had bought the extended warranty that covered other stuff. He was a Pharmacist and didn't appear to be the type to abuse his truck. It looked like new.

 

Sounds like a Mobile One user. That's a no-no in a push rod engine. It still fails in IVA testing. My brother is a Chevy fan. We raced the 348s back in the day. I got over it, he didn't. His work truck is a Chevrolet 4x4 extended cab. It gets great gas mileage with the 5.3 Flex, always starts and runs. But don't try to go any where offroad with it. That pile of junk would get stuck on flat, dry ground. Several times I've had to pull him out of loose gravel with my 04 Supercrew 2wd. Yeah, it is that bad! He's had zero engine issues but he's on his third front axle. When I got the 2014 Screw I told him I wasn't going in the brush to pull him out. Better take an axe, blanket, and matches with him so he could at least send smoke signals. There's no cell phone service at the ranch. He's a lot more careful where he goes now.

 

They (her family) are "whatever the oil change place puts in it" users. I think the problems had to do with the cylinder deactivation stuff GM uses. I see the trucks as built like a car with a bed. They hooked about 8k lbs to it a couple years back and that thing was on the overloads, with the weight as far back on the trailer as they could get it. I routinely pull my 78 bronco which is about 8k with the trailer mine and while it's noticable the weight is there, it sits perfectly level and has no problem pulling it without doing 4500RPM the whole time like that 5.3L. I love my truck.

 

Keep in mind 2009 was directly during bailout recovery phase, so they built all their vehicles as cheaply as possible while licking their wounds

 

Ding, ding, ding we have a winner! The early LS motors didn't have this and never ate the cams. The ones with DoD lose oil pressure on those cylinders and it eats up the cams. It also eats up the rings and cylinder walls enough to let a lot of oil get into the cylinder and foul out the plugs. A die hard Chevy friend of mine has this problem. The dealer quoted him a long block to fix it. The only fix is to drive it hard all the time or tune out the DoD.

 

All GM had to do was copy the Chrysler Hemi MDS (multi-displacement system) and they screwed that up! Typical GM

Many of the early Chevy V8s ate their cams early (70's). It's like a tradition I suppose like Ford has crappy brakes or did for decades. Still do on the 2002 that I can vouch for.

 

I haven't heard anyone mention Ford's crappy brakes before. In fact I always thought that was a GM thing too. Didn't they try going to disks in the rear of their trucks around 2000 and then realize they couldn't figure it out and went back to drums a few years later? They are consistently behind the 8-ball on everything. If Ford wasn't around to force them to innovate they would still be selling boxes with a 350 in it.

 

Nothing wrong with an old GM 350, that was a very good engine.

 

No doubt, as was the 351W. But that wasn't the point. The point is the reason I like Ford so much is because they are typically the ones that innovate, and then the others follow if it's successful. Just like who wants to bet GM will be using aluminum bodies soon? It has happened many times throughout history.

 

It was ok for its time. In factory form a Pontiac 350, MoPar 340, Ford 351W or 351C were all better for the size. It was the aftermarket support that made the GM small block what it is. However, compared to a modern engine of the same size it's not so great.

 

I've owned dozens of chevy small blocks over the years starting with a 56 Chevy convertible. They were good engines but many years of their manufacture the cams were soft and would have to be replaced. The ones I have owned or acquaintenances have owned that need cams were 70's or 80's models. The most disappointing small block chevy I've owned was the 86 305 in my Monte Carlo SS. Seems the quadrajet tended to leak gasoline into the manifold while sitting and the excess gas washed the oil off the cylinder walls and wiped out the engine. Had a dealer replace it with a GM Goodwrench 350 that was a cheap Mexican manufactured engine that was replaced twice under warranty and the last one was a pos. I had parked the car by then and only used it for a backup. After it sat for a while ti would smoke like you wouldn't believe when started signifying bad valve seals or too large valve guides in a "new" engine.

 

Not all small block Chevys are decent - the 305 was a turd.

 

Quality control at GM in the 80's was very poor. The 305 is nothing but a small block with the stroke of a 350 and a smaller piston size so there was no reason for it to be any different than the other small blocks. The 307 has the sroke of a 327 and the piston size of a 283 which is a little larger than the 305. Many different bore/stroke combinations were used in the same basic engine with lots of parts interchanging. QC was everything and GM had a big problem with QC.