Engines, Ford in particular

JML755

Well-known Member
What is it with automakers that their engines are money pits? I bought a used '04 F150 with the 5.4L aware of potential problems. The guy I bought it from just installed a phaser kit because the chain slapped a hole in the cover and I figured $4-5K on top of the price in case I needed a new engine. Still beat the heck out of buying new (or even lightly used). Well, after changing the oil and putting a cleaner in it, the thing seized up running down the freeway. So, I ended up with the $5k reman install after all. The shop that did it had (2) p/u's on the floor with 5.4's being installed when I took mine in. The rebuild shops must love Ford engineers (if you can call them that).

Don't these guys test these things anymore? They've got dynos and proving grounds that they used to run these things for hundred of thousands of miles to test new designs or even variation or new parts. I did a project for the GM Tech Center in Warren MI in the '80s where they built up engines in what they called their "Motor Room". They'd do a few of the same type engines with various differences, send them out for 50,000 mile tests, tear them down, record all the data, send them out again for lord knows how many times.

Seems like the engine problems that turn out to be "common issues" as mentioned in the 6.0 Powerstroke post below (or with my 5.4L) would show up before they built Production Unit # 1 if they did the testing. I guess they'd rather the customer be the guinea pig.

I recall an issue with early 5.4l's where the plugs popped out and dealer after dealer would deny knowledge of this for years. People who had it happen would then check online and find out it'd been happening for years. To the point that companies made a good living specializing in repairing them. Same thing goes for the 5.4L 2 part plug design. Changing plugs could run up to $1000 because it was unlikely the shop could change 8 w/o getting most of them to break in half.

Today, all the marketing you hear about is the fancy electronics they put in the car, bluetooth, voice activation, etc. I heard that Ford's Sync system so infuriated Mark Fields (ex-ceo) that he smashed a screen in frustration. If only they'd invest in basic car/engine design half as much as they're investing in software.

Plus, another part of the problem is that when times got tough, the Big 3 got rid of a lot of guys with years of engineering experience. For a while, they hired these guys back as contractors but then started hiring young "smart" engineers when times got better. I've worked with some of the "new" guys at all of the Detroit 3 and they're basically paper pushers. They also think if it looks good on the tube (3D CAD models), it'll work in real life.
 
If you hate Ford's so much why in the world did
you buy one? Every brand has had some trouble. You
sounds like you are just wanting to trash talk
ford. Knowing ford has all these pit falls why
spend money on one?
 

Seems to me that Ford has had MORE than their share of engine problems and failures over the last several years. I USED to be a fan of Fords. Now I avoid them like the plague.
 
You are stating the reason I have only owned one Ford in over 45 years. There engines have always been a step behind GM.

You can talk all you want about the old Mustangs and such maybe they had good motors. I had a 1970 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 390 in it. IF you shut it off in the summer you had better be willing to wait 30 minutes or so or it would not restart. Had an 1971 Chevy Impala with a 350 in it. Twice the car the Ford was.

One of the only great motors Ford made is the 300 cci slant six. That motor would run the world around and come back. Good friend bought them in 3/4 ton 4wd pickup as long as he could order them. IRC he could still get them in the early to mid 1990s by special ordering them. He would pull loaded gooseneck stock trailers to town just like the rest of us.

The 5.4 motors issues, with the 6.0 diesel problems PLUS the 4.0 V6 timing chain troubles makes it to where I would not buy any newer Fords.

I have the F350 with the 7.3 in it. I am not really sure it will be a good vehicle after just one year of driving it. It was money pit getting it on the road but seems fine now.

I know the 6,4 diesels are not much better than the 6.0 ones when they get age on them in that the emission system gets expensive to keep working. So if your in places that make you keep it working you can be spending big money of them when they get passed that 100-150K in miles. Good friend has 8-2008 F250 with the 6.4 in it. They are Coop trucks. 1-2 of them are always in the shop. He says he averages around $4K each year in repairs on each one with the majority being emissions or turbo related issues now that they have some age on them.
 
I have a 03 F250 with a 5.4 163000 miles on it now. Drive it every day. I have had to replace 2 coil packs and a little work on the AC a few years back. Other than that
it's been a dang good truck. Everybody likes certain brands for different reasons. I've owned one GM product in my life and I'll never own anouther one. Unless my wife
lets me buy a Cadillac CTSV.
 
The 300cid straight 6 was not a slant engine. I was a ford technician and nope it is a great engine, but not slant. Jim
 

I agree that the 300 was not a slant. It was an inline 6 cylinder. One of the best, good 'ol workhorses ever made.

The 390 was another good one. Owned 2 of those. Never gave a speck of trouble.
 
Just to clarify the 6.0 is a great motor the problem
with the 6.0 was any kid or hill jack in the country
can get a hold of a tuner or "chip" and that
destroyed the motors. When you make the
explosions inside a piece of cast metal twice as
violent without taking any other precautions what do
you expect. Take the military for example the do not
build bombs that are several hundred pounds and
expect the same result as dropping a hand
grenade.
 
Can't say I've ever heard of a Ford engine
seizing for any reason not related to poor
maintenance. This is a first for me. Many
thousands of 5.4 Ford's out there running
many hundreds of thousands of trouble free
miles.
 
much of the spark plug problem of either the 2 or 3 valve ford engines was caused by: going way to long before changing the spark plugs, some one using anti-seize on the threads when replacing them and along the same line, not using a torque wrench to install them. They use a very low torque and have to be dry.

The engine is quite unforgiving due to lack of oil changes. The earlier ones were bad enough then they put the variable valve timing in them. Any dirt or carbon wrecks havoc on them. The only real failure point I would suggest is the little bearings in the cam followers. A hundred thousand miles and they can become problematic.

When the Ford chassis was starting to be used for RV's I thought they would not hold up. I was wrong. They are lasting mostly because they will rev to the moon without blowing up.

A funny observation about the spark plugs blowing out. The ones that come out are almost always an easy one to get to ,which makes it an easy repair. Kinda like someone wants to check his plugs so they take the easy one out, look at it, and put it back in. By the time we see the vehicle it still has the original plugs and the rest are seated just fine.
 
"The ones that come out are almost always an easy one to get to ,which makes it an easy repair."

I guess I'm usually the exception to the rule. I've got a blown plug on my truck waiting to be repaired. Of course, it's cylinder #4 on my '98 F250 w/5.4. I'm putting it off just because I don't need the truck right now and I'm waiting for the weather to cool down just a little bit. Yes, I've probably done a few dozen of these. Yes, I use the Time-Serts and I haven't had one fail on me yet. The real bad thing about these failures is not the repair, but the fact that they go out when you are furthest away from the shop.
 
As for the diesels of past Fords, those were IH, not Ford, but Ford did write and/or approve the specifications. So Ford has no free pass (blame it on EPA if you like). As for those Triton engines, sometimes management makes a mistake by giving a young engineer a clean sheet of paper and lack of experience allows too few threads in aluminum, or he comes out with a really 'new' (cool me, look what I came up with!) plug design the will not hold up to the test of time and must never be changed for life if engine without huge cost! Now, nearly any company will come out with a 'flub' at some point, as we remember the Vega sleeveless aluminum blocks disaster. Now a similar process is used all over the world, but engineers have refined it to the point that it now works just fine in Mercedes and many others. It was just not ready for "prime time" when Vega came out. Neither was Ford's Thick Film Ignition module (millions replaced). It hasn't been long since Toyota and Chrysler tallied up some of the largest recalls in history...........all make mistakes from time to time.
 
JD you need to try one more ford. Go get you one with the 3.5 eco boost v6 . It will make a believer out of you. On my third one and this 17 model is getting around 21.5 mpg ever day and will pass anything on the road including that 430 hp 2500 chev.
 
I don't know, I used to work for a shop that had a bunch of E350 work vans. All had the 5.4. Mine was the youngest with 250K on it. We never did anything to them except change the oil once in a while and beat
the snot out of them.
 
I have a '99 250 with a 5.4 with 225K. I've had to replace a PCV, the differential exhaust valve and intake manifold gaskets because of a coolant leak, and one coil. That's it. I got it with 93K and let the original plugs run to 120,00. Most of those miles have been run with low oil. Can't seem to keep it on the stick.
 
If you did not buy it new and know complete service history, you cannot speak to its durability, or lack there of. I would venture a guess
yours was not treated to even sporadic oil changes when new. Only thing that kills a 5.4 is lack of maintenance. I have replaced one that
seized at 50K and 5 years old. Was a municipal owned truck that only had one driver that was responsible for it. He never had the oil
changed, even though he would have been paid to sit in the waiting room and drink coffee while it was done. I currently have a customer
with an '04 5.4 with 240K one owner miles on it. Never had anything but plugs and a thermostat outside of 3K mile oil changes.
 
Jml755 you are correct. I work at a used car dealership. We have so many problems with ford 5.4's
boss doesn't want to take them in on trade. They will not buy a pickup from another dealer or
auction with a 5.4 in it. Our ford mechanic constantly tells us horror story's about them, after
30+ years of working on them there isn't much he has not done. We have people constantly wanting
to trade the 2007 and newer in, most want another brand because they have already had so many
problems with them, same with the early 6.0's. Family has ford pickups but none with 5.4's
 
(quoted from post at 22:40:17 07/15/17) I don't know, I used to work for a shop that had a bunch of E350 work vans. All had the 5.4. Mine was the youngest with 250K on it. We never did anything to them except change the oil once in a while and beat
the snot out of them.
ood that you never tried to change the plugs!!
 
(quoted from post at 11:22:51 07/15/17) If you hate Ford's so much why in the world did
you buy one? Every brand has had some trouble. You
sounds like you are just wanting to trash talk
ford. Knowing ford has all these pit falls why
spend money on one?
I don't "hate" Ford. I was simply musing about the engineering faults in engines that are severe and should have been caught before they went into production. You're right. There are problems with EVERY brand, I had to replace intake manifold gaskets in my '02 Pontiac Grand Prix. That was a "common" problem for them.

The body on the F150 I bought was in very good condition for an '04, not all banged up or rusted out. I've been mostly a GM guy and my '02 Silverado has been a great truck. It did have an injector issue that was fixed by going to a multi-point setup. However, the truck would still run (but rough) and the fix for that (and my '02 GP gaskets) was just a few hundred dollars. Other posters point out that lack of maintenance is the root cause of many of the 5.4 problems. Probably true. But I do recall engineers (at GM in the 80's at least) running engines low on oil, no oil changes for hundreds of thousands of miles, dusty dirty conditions, etc. to find any glaring problems. And it's not like the problems were not detectable and fixable. They've updated the design on many valve-train parts over the years due to what the experience in the field has been. It all goes back to real-world durability testing (or lack thereof).
 
Onan used the 300 in there 30/45KW generators. Made thousands of them. Great engines. I had one that ran for 31 days until it ran out of oil and shut down.
 

IMO all the problems we see with engines, trannies and electronics have to do with engineering for cost and not longevity. When the bean counters run the show and profit margin is the goal, then things go south. Even Toyota isn't what it used to be.

That being said, we've had good luck with Ford engines with the exception of a Windstar some years back.
 
(quoted from post at 10:46:03 07/16/17)
(quoted from post at 22:40:17 07/15/17) I don't know, I used to work for a shop that had a bunch of E350 work vans. All had the 5.4. Mine was the youngest with 250K on it. We never did anything to them except change the oil once in a while and beat
the snot out of them.
ood that you never tried to change the plugs!!

I have got the E350 V10 down to 4hr. to change the plugs... I hope that's as far as I ever have to get into one :)

I want to comment on the torque issue... I have torqued my fair share and had my fare share come back with at least one lose spark plug as the root cause of a misfire. It takes a few years and at least 20K of driving to get to that point. Everyone I manually tighten down I never see a issue with. If it is a issue I see it then not later. After thousands upon thousands of spark plug changes I think I have the tightening part down pat. This would cover all engines not a ford... A chebby 5.3 is as worst for this the difference is it does not take out the threads when it gets lose...
 

I've got an '89 E-150 with the 300-6 and the 5 speed standard transmission. Maybe 160,000 miles. It was my go to work vehicle until I retired in Feb. 2001.

Dusty
 

I have though about this all day... I sure would like to see old times were they needed a valve job every 10K and a re-ring job tween valve jobs...
 
Makes me appreciate the 454 in my old one ton that much more. I built it in 2001. In the last 10 years I've replaced an alternator ($40), water pump ($50) and fuel pump ($30) and one starter ($50) and that's it. Had the carb apart two years ago after a fuel filter failed and let trash in to cause flooding.

The guys at work have various diesels. Someone spent $1500 on an injector pump the other day. Somebody else spent several grand for injectors on a Dmax. Somebody else wiped out a turbo. Some are suped up but some are just stock trucks.

Yes, they can out-pull me but how much does one have to spend these days to get the job done?
 
I agree that Ford has had more DUD engine designs than other makers seem to. The 302 and 460 I like. The 351-400 not so much ! I know it varies from year to year but those 5.4L can be full of problems. 6.0 diesel is a disaster. Wonder if the same people who designed GM 350,6.2 & 6.5 diesels made it ? I had a 1996 Dodge with the 360 in it. I really liked it. I think many of the models they made after it were problematic.
 
Every manufacturer has their chronic problem products, and then I think I can suggest there are numerous others with their respective products that need to be "managed." GM Series II 3800 V-6 engine can be a long lived engine, but the self destructing plastic intake manifold needs to be "watched/managed." We have replaced these on one of our cars twice, and we are closing in on 300k on the odometer. I had a Dodge with a 360 V-8. It sucked in two sets of intake gaskets. You knew when they failed, because the engine would start losing oil from the crankcase. Was a decent and durable engine otherwise. My father in law has a 1999 F-150 with the 5.4 liter V-8 engine. He is on the third engine and nearing 300k on the odometer. I now have a 2004 Cadillac with a 3.6 liter V-6 engine. It has an unpredictable thirst for engine oil. It seems when I am on long drives on the freeway at 70 mph, is when it consumes oil. I am finding the crankcase ventilation system is poorly designed, based upon what I have found on-line. I may be on to a way to resolve this issue, but I need to keep researching. I had a mid to late 1980's Ford product with the 5.0 liter V-8 engine, as did my dad in a pickup truck. Durable engine, but had an affinity to drinking a quart of engine oil unpredictably, too. Also was the moodiest engine when it came to gasoline burned, as it would ping on most pump fuels, but there were a few which did not produce this. One of the worst engines produced in this country, as noted by several auto magazine writers, was the Oldsmobile 5.7 liter diesel. I worked through the fuel injection pump problem, and then a set of head gaskets, and managed to wring over 200k on the odometer. Maybe I do not "cut my losses" like others, but I have worked through the issues in pretty much every "quirky" engine I have had in my cars and trucks. I also try to steer clear of widely recognized problems, too.
 
Biggest issue with the 5.4 3 valve with variable timing is the oil must be changed regularly and should be changed at 3000 miles. The cam phasers and hydraulic chain tensioners use the engine oil to operate and sludgy dirty oil doesn't cut it. The owner's manual says every 7500 miles - doing it at half that will get you a 300,000 mile engine with very little work. Changing it at 7,500 to 10,000 miles will mean you are tearing the front of the engine apart at 100,000 miles spending $4,000 (or more) replacing all the timing chain components. Buying a used one that you don't know the maintenance it has received is rolling the dice hoping you haven't bought someone else's problem. I have been looking at Expeditions and I won't even consider a 2005 to 2011 model, a low mileage (and they are RARE) 1997-2004 model with the 2 valve engine is much better as far as I'm concerned.


GM has the same issue with their 3.6 V6 engines. They constantly had issues with the variable timing and the timing chains it until they finally got it right in about 2012.
 
and the ecoboost does just fine on regular gas while the chevy requires premium which can add $3500.00 to the cost of running the chevy 150000 miles based on 21.5 MPG
 
(quoted from post at 13:04:49 07/20/17) and the ecoboost does just fine on regular gas while the chevy requires premium which can add $3500.00 to the cost of running the chevy 150000 miles based on 21.5 MPG
hey will all run without damage on regular gasoline.........just less power.
 
Bought a new Silverado in 2011, back when the gubborment was in control of GM. Has the lowly 4.8 with 4 sp. auto. Been in the shop
twice and both times for wiring repairs due to rats, nothing else. Still running strong and plenty of get up and go. The word on the street
around here USED TO BE that Ford had the engines and my usage supported that claim. But times have changed, at least for me.
 

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