Ford - your block cracks; its a wear item

OP - unfortunate to hear that happened to you, here's to hoping you get that squared away with little affect to your wallet. 

Ford Cyclone 3.7 - am I to understand correctly that the waterpump issue is only on FWD variants? I've been eyeballing a 3.7 V6 Mustang for a potential "crapcan" racer. Finding a thrashed version is pretty easy and the fact it can consume 87 octane and there are tons of them out there makes it a lucrative idea. Plus the aftermarket for Mustangs is close to infinite. 

I will saying hearing the abundance of issues with ecoboost engines throughout their lineup makes me skeptical to consider one either new or used. A CPO would be my first choise if I considered a Ford because of the 100k warranty. 

Tom Suddard said:

GarageGorilla? Never heard of him...

DirtyBird222 said:

 

Ford Cyclone 3.7 - am I to understand correctly that the waterpump issue is only on FWD variants?

It looks like the RWD 3.7 has a traditional belt driven water pump.

Brett_Murphy said:

DirtyBird222 said:

 

Ford Cyclone 3.7 - am I to understand correctly that the waterpump issue is only on FWD variants?

 

It looks like the RWD 3.7 has a traditional belt driven water pump.

If so, wonder why the 3.5EB uses the chain setup.

When one of those rods they said were indestructible, self-immolates....

A lot of parts became "wear items"

In reply to bentwrench :

well thats excessive

The update is Ford is gathering information, has assigned a case number, has nice people calling me gathering information, working with the dealership on doing a teardown, I guess to verify that the engine was not abused .   They are saying they may want oil change receipts but no decision on that yet.

The Ford person I just spoke to is talking possible "participation" in the cost.    So its on going.  I am letting their investigation process proceed, remaining polite, and letting them know of my disappointment at this happening.

I have authorized the dealership to order the new long block and proceed with the work as Mrs Jharry3 needs this vehicle for work.    I requested a Ford "cutsheet" of the new engine so I will know what it comes with.   A "longblock" can mean different things to different people.

My plan is to see what they offer, ask for more, and see what they say.   If I get enough I'm done. 

Meanwhile, as several above pointed out,  after the engine exchange I will have a Ford Edge that needed an engine replacement, may need another engine replacement according to one poster, and because its high mileage its already worth 1/2 what we paid for it even without engine problems.       My wife drives a lot for work and in the last 20 years we have had several vehicles go to 250,000 miles due to my constant attention to maintenance and regular oil changes with premium oil.  My expectation for this Ford Edge was the same - now I have doubts about it lasting another 60,000 miles on this "brand new" engine.

As to going the route of changing it myself - I am capable of doing that but I do not have the time to do all that entails and my wife needs this done now.  Fortunately I have a new NIssan pickup truck she can drive and I am driving my Miata to work, this is the fun car I don't usually daily drive, but its there for situation like this.      Funny thing is I was seriously considering a new Ford Ranger but then, since its a brand new combo of that 2.3 liter turbo in a fairly heavy truck, I decided I didn't want to trust that engine in that application until it proved itself.      I thought Ford had the Edge engine sorted out because they had a similar problem a few years ago with Ford Edge turbo 4's that was supposed to be solved.   

In reply to jharry3 :

I suspect the engine failure is a random anomaly vs being indicative of some design failure. 

Knurled. said:

wonnder why the 3.5EB uses the chain setup.

My guess is platform simplification- having the same setup for FWD and RWD keeps manufacturing costs down.

In reply to z31maniac :

Ford put out a Technical Service Bulletin, TSB 19-2208, stating that water leaking into the cylinders is a known issue and the recommended repair is a new long block.

In reply to jharry3 :

Crazy. I wonder if it's anything like the wrong headgasket on the Focus RS? 

Either way, it's a crummy situation. Hopefully they will come through.

slowbird said:

In reply to ddavidv :

I knew someone who had a Hyundai that had a major engine failure before 100,000 miles. They acknowledged a design/manufacturing fault, but they wanted every single oil change receipt before they would replace the engine. Well this guy had done his own oil changes, so they weren't going to do it. But eventually, they did agree to fix it after months of back-and-forth.

Subaru did this to me when my WRX spun a bearing at 9k miles. I was like "seriously, I have done one oil change since clearly it's not the stock filter on the car (it was a larger-capacity Subaru Legacy filter)". It was pretty dumb, since even if I hadn't, 9k miles on oil is not going to make it break down to the degree of killing an engine. 

But, I did have a receipt for it. 

The one thing that I'm learning here is that if / when I buy a vehicle with a powertrain warranty on it, keep all of my receipts as I do most all services myself.  Which kind of makes me wonder - if you buy a certified pre-owned, with and extended factory provided warranty, and you have a powertrain issue that leads to a request for all service receipts, are you only on the hook for providing those from the day you bought it?  

DirtyBird222 said:

OP - unfortunate to hear that happened to you, here's to hoping you get that squared away with little affect to your wallet. 

Ford Cyclone 3.7 - am I to understand correctly that the waterpump issue is only on FWD variants? I've been eyeballing a 3.7 V6 Mustang for a potential "crapcan" racer. Finding a thrashed version is pretty easy and the fact it can consume 87 octane and there are tons of them out there makes it a lucrative idea. Plus the aftermarket for Mustangs is close to infinite. 

 

I will saying hearing the abundance of issues with ecoboost engines throughout their lineup makes me skeptical to consider one either new or used. A CPO would be my first choise if I considered a Ford because of the 100k warranty. 

Haven't raced it, but my 3.7 Mustang has 190k trouble free miles

In reply to einy :

You would think so.

FWIW, the indie where I work, and the indie where I used to work, will upload service records to Carfax.  No need to keep your own records.

No, you need to keep your own records.

einy said:

The one thing that I'm learning here is that if / when I buy a vehicle with a powertrain warranty on it, keep all of my receipts as I do most all services myself.  Which kind of makes me wonder - if you buy a certified pre-owned, with and extended factory provided warranty, and you have a powertrain issue that leads to a request for all service receipts, are you only on the hook for providing those from the day you bought it?  

I've decided the next new car I buy, assuming I'm going to keep it stock, I'll just let the dealer handle all the fluid changes. It's what I did with my BRZ and once I figured in the cost of buying the oil filter, the time to do it, time to dispose of the oil, etc. It was basically the same price. 

And then of course if there was a problem they couldn't blame me.

Look like if your replacement long block was made after May 2019 you may be OK.

I think it may be a flaw in the manufacturing methods for those blocks.

I may have missed it, but where/how does the water leak into the cylinders - does it crack somewhere?  I'm wondering if a sleeved cylinder would be a faster and less expensive fix.

In reply to stuart in mn :

Sleeving is never fast or inexpensive.  It might be a good repair option in 2049 when people are trying to restore a Focus ST, but not when there are blocks widely available.

slowbird said:

In reply to ddavidv :

I knew someone who had a Hyundai that had a major engine failure before 100,000 miles. They acknowledged a design/manufacturing fault, but they wanted every single oil change receipt before they would replace the engine. Well this guy had done his own oil changes, so they weren't going to do it. But eventually, they did agree to fix it after months of back-and-forth.

Yeah, I think that Hyundai/Kia uses paper mache for their connecting rods, because I've seen more Hyunda/Kia engines randomly wing a rod through the block before 100k than any other brand,.

I just recently started witnessing white smoke (steam) on startup of my '13 Focus ST after it sits for a few days.  It also started showing that it is reaching operating temp instantly immediately after start.   Car still runs well, but approaching 90k hard run miles, I was suspecting the head gasket might be failing.  Now I'm worried the block might be cracked.  berkeley.

To recap the original post: My wife's 2017 Ford Edge, 2.0 liter turbo 4 cylinder,  with 65,000 miles on it was over the mileage warranty by 5000 miles.  The original warranty was 3 years/60,000 miles. The original engine failed at 2 years, 65,000 miles with a major crack in the block.     This happened with no warning until  water and steam started shooting out the exhaust one morning when my wife started it.  I brought it to a Ford dealer, they knew exactly what the problem was, and showed me a Ford Technical Service Bulletin which indicated to put in a new engine long block if this occurs. 

Conclusion:  In the interest of customer satisfaction, and as a good will gesture,  Ford gave me a new engine and almost all the parts needed for the swap.

It is a new and re-designed engine, some of the old parts like the idler pulley and a few others from the old engine did not fit on the new engine so I had to buy those.   The dealer, but not Ford, told me engines have a defect.

Additionally they charged me the labor rate that Ford pays for warranty claims, this is a lower rate than the standard dealer rate.

At the end of the day my bill was $1,100, not the original $8,100 that was quoted.

Ford's customer service was excellent, responded quickly, and I am very pleased that I have a new engine with a 3 year unlimited mileage warranty.  I kept all conversations and emails polite, positive, kept the theme of my disappointment in having a block cracking failure, noted it was only 2 years into the 3 year warranty and only 5000 miles out of warranty.      So other than the inconvenience of being without a vehicle for close to a month Ford did right as far as I am concerned.     Fortunately I have a  spare car to drive, a Miata, so we did not have to rent a car during this time period. 

Good on them for standing behind their product even though it was out of warranty.