More Raptor Issues! Yay!

Y'all will enjoy this. 

Ford gave me a new 2023 Raptor replacement back in October after my Lemon Law saga with the 2022 iteration I had. 

Everything has been working perfectly fine. Then this weekend on Saturday, I took my jetski out for it's first use of the season. As soon as I plugged the trailer wiring in, I got a "Service Vehicle Soon" light on the dash. It went away. 

Sunday, I load up my kayak and take it out for a morning fishing session. Finish up, get in the truck, start it up, and the "Service Vehicle Soon" warning warning pops back up along with the CEL. 

Get home and plug in the code reader and I get this P25B6 DTC "Supercharger/Turbocharger Wastegate B Stuck Closed." 

It was making normal boost and vacuum just fine. Never again am I buying a Ford. 

I have a close friend with one of these and I swear it's in the shop more than it isn't. All sorts of stuff. I suspect he doesn't exercise it enough but still, it shouldn't have as many issues as it does for a dealer serviced truck. 

DirtyBird222 said:

Saturday, I took my jetski out for it's first use of the season. As soon as I plugged the trailer wiring in, I got a "Service Vehicle Soon" light

Sunday, I load up my kayak and take it out for a morning fishing session. Finish up, get in the truck, start it up, and the "Service Vehicle Soon" warning warning pops back up along with the CEL. 

How can we say Ford stands for Fix Or Repair Daily if we're not daily fixing it?

How is the drivetrain different from all of the millions of other 3.5l Ecoboost pickups?  I mean mechanically, not software.

The thing about a twin turbo is the other turbo may pick up the slack for the ineffective one.  I had a 3.5 Ecoboost Flex that drove normally but had the rear turbo shaft broken in half.  It didn't smoke like a freight train because the oil feed line to that turbo was so rusty that it plugged solid, which is probably what killed the turbo.

But it drove fine with one working turbo.

My son has a Raptor with over a 100k trouble free miles. It's a v8 powered one though. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

But it drove fine with one working turbo.

Briefly?  My understanding is that on twin turbo systems (in general, not Ford or Raptor-specific) when one turbo fails the boost control usually can't tell and so starts demanding full boost out of the other one.  That tends to overspeed it and kill it fairly quickly too.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

But it drove fine with one working turbo.

Briefly?  My understanding is that on twin turbo systems (in general, not Ford or Raptor-specific) when one turbo fails the boost control usually can't tell and so starts demanding full boost out of the other one.  That tends to overspeed it and kill it fairly quickly too.

 

This one goes into fail safe mode where it produces max 1-3lbs of boost in the event it detects an issue with the power adder system. So it essentially feels like you're driving around a boat anchor. 

I cleared the code, it drove fine. Code re-appeared, went back into no-boost mode. I got under the hood and started wiggling the wastegate actuator arm and boom the CEL disappeared. So either the actuator is faulty or something is binding up the arm. I have a service scheduled but according to the 3rd Gen Raptor forums, sometimes the fix last 5k miles, sometimes it is fixed long term. Getting to roll the dice on this. Def documenting the E36 M3 out of this in the event I have to go down that lemon law BS againl 

I'm wondering if it has any issues opening the wastegate, it goes into that fail safe mode and doesn't even bother trying to re-engage it. Call me oldschool but I'd much prefer vacuum actuated wastegates vs. electronic. 

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

Call me old school but I prefer boost actuated wastegates. The Mercedes om606 we swapped into our racedcar was vacuum actuated and we couldn't figure out a way to run it without the factory computer. Swapped it to boost actuated and it runs fine like every other older turbo car. 

buzzboy said:

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

Call me old school but I prefer boost actuated wastegates. The Mercedes om606 we swapped into our racedcar was vacuum actuated and we couldn't figure out a way to run it without the factory computer. Swapped it to boost actuated and it runs fine like every other older turbo car. 

That's what I meant TBH. Shop visit scheduled for this weekend when I can gain access to one of the other cars in my fleet. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

How is the drivetrain different from all of the millions of other 3.5l Ecoboost pickups?  I mean mechanically, not software.

 

The thing about a twin turbo is the other turbo may pick up the slack for the ineffective one.  I had a 3.5 Ecoboost Flex that drove normally but had the rear turbo shaft broken in half.  It didn't smoke like a freight train because the oil feed line to that turbo was so rusty that it plugged solid, which is probably what killed the turbo.

But it drove fine with one working turbo.

Redundancy.  It's a great thing.  It's a great thing.

JimS said:

My son has a Raptor with over a 100k trouble free miles. It's a v8 powered one though. 

And from the early to mid aughts - which in hindsight is starting to look like the golden era of performance AND reliability.

Edit: aughts?  Meant teens.  I'm getting too old to even remember my decades.

A 401 CJ said:

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

How is the drivetrain different from all of the millions of other 3.5l Ecoboost pickups?  I mean mechanically, not software.

 

The thing about a twin turbo is the other turbo may pick up the slack for the ineffective one.  I had a 3.5 Ecoboost Flex that drove normally but had the rear turbo shaft broken in half.  It didn't smoke like a freight train because the oil feed line to that turbo was so rusty that it plugged solid, which is probably what killed the turbo.

But it drove fine with one working turbo.

Redundancy.  It's a great thing.  It's a great thing.

Well, as pointed out, at least until one of the turbos overspeeds itself to death, or the flow disparity between the two banks causes other issues...

A 401 CJ said:

JimS said:

My son has a Raptor with over a 100k trouble free miles. It's a v8 powered one though. 

And from the early to mid aughts - which in hindsight is starting to look like the golden era of performance AND reliability.

The 6.2L V8 from the old Raptor is in my F-250. It's a great motor, I've now got 90k trouble-free miles on it. The F-250 replaced my old 3.5 Ecoboost F-150, which had a whole menu of nuisance issues by the time I sold it at 60k, mostly related to its unwillingness to keep various fluids inside. 

DirtyBird222 said:

 Never again am I buying a Ford.

My Grandfather was a "Ford or nothin" guy his entire life.  In 1990 he bought a brand new F250 with a 351, and we swore that thing would decide when it wanted to start.

You could go out and it'd start just fine.  Then one day it would decide it didn't want to anymore.  Might take an hour, might take a day, one time it took a month!  The dealer couldn't figure it out, none of the other mechanics could figure it out.  It wasn't like it would stop doing it when it went to the shop or anything, because it 100% would!  But no one could figure out why in the heck the thing wasn't touching off.

Towards the end it'd shut off on ya while you were driving.  That got interesting.

Anyhoo, he bought a first gen Tundra and never looked back.

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

DirtyBird222 said:

 Never again am I buying a Ford.

My Grandfather was a "Ford or nothin" guy his entire life.  In 1990 he bought a brand new F250 with a 351, and we swore that thing would decide when it wanted to start.

You could go out and it'd start just fine.  Then one day it would decide it didn't want to anymore.  Might take an hour, might take a day, one time it took a month!  The dealer couldn't figure it out, none of the other mechanics could figure it out.  It wasn't like it would stop doing it when it went to the shop or anything, because it 100% would!  But no one could figure out why in the heck the thing wasn't touching off.

Towards the end it'd shut off on ya while you were driving.  That got interesting.

Anyhoo, he bought a first gen Tundra and never looked back.

Luckily I have a 1st gen Sequoia that is rock solid as well; however, it's 440 miles away. About to fix that. 

I hate this E36 M3 because it's one of the more comfortable vehicles I've ever owned, with plenty of power, truck capabilities, and generally enjoy driving it. But the problem is FoMoCo being FoMoCo. 

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

oh jeez the hits just keep on hitting. I'm not gonna twist the knife 

A 401 CJ said:

JimS said:

My son has a Raptor with over a 100k trouble free miles. It's a v8 powered one though. 

And from the early to mid aughts - which in hindsight is starting to look like the golden era of performance AND reliability.

Edit: aughts?  Meant teens.  I'm getting too old to even remember my decades.

The golden age is a window that runs about 10-15 years behind the current year. 

fidelity101 said:

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

oh jeez the hits just keep on hitting. I'm not gonna twist the knife 

Who knows. Maybe I'll win the powerball, find a sugarmomma, or something good will be bound to happen. Between this and constantly running into that ex that turned E36 M3 upside down last fall in this small town, I'm ready for wahtever good is bound to happen LOL. 

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

I'm sorry you're having more 3.5EB troubles with a second Raptor. That's got to be infuriating.

When I bought my truck, there were huge arguments between the 3.5EB and 5.0 camps about which was less likely to develop their common problems, and how problematic those issues really were... Both camps agreed that the 2.7EB was less problematic than either, and possibly among the most reliable 1/2 ton truck engines available.

Dumb as it might sound, if I wanted a Raptor type truck, I might actually consider a pre-pandemic 2.7EB 10-spd F150 on a Factory Five XTF kit... Not that this musing helps your situation at all.

Keith Tanner said:

A 401 CJ said:

JimS said:

My son has a Raptor with over a 100k trouble free miles. It's a v8 powered one though. 

And from the early to mid aughts - which in hindsight is starting to look like the golden era of performance AND reliability.

Edit: aughts?  Meant teens.  I'm getting too old to even remember my decades.

The golden age is a window that runs about 10-15 years behind the current year. 

I'm sorry but when it comes to Ford trucks, I must respectfully disagree.  If you've been watching the news you'll know that many many acres of normally empty parking spaces in and around metro Detroit are full of '24 F150s built but not yet shipped due to quality issues and dealer's refusal to accept them.  I don't think this has precedence even in the dark days of malaise.  

In reply to A 401 CJ :

I wasn't aware of that particular story - although all of the Mazdaspeed Proteges got sequestered at the docks when they arrived in the US, purportedly to have a bunch of work done. The only difference is that the F150 factories make more F150s than any other vehicle, so a quality problem hits a lot of vehicles at once.

Just reflecting on "the golden age" comments I've been reading on this forum for years, it always seems to be about cars that are about 10-15 years old. I think that's because we've forgotten about the duds at that point and they're at the bottom of their depreciation curve.

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

My son with the Raptor also has a 96 Bronco with over a 100k on it and a 351. Recently started doing what your grandad's did regarding starting. He fixed it with an electrical part (I don't remember which one). Cheaper than a new Tundra and runs great. 

In reply to A 401 CJ :

That's probably because in the darkest days of malaise, they would have just shipped and sold them.

Then again, it could also be argued that the pandemic was the catalyst that kicked off a neo-malaise era.

This seems to be a common problem across the ecoboost and Raptor Forums. I could just sell off some of my other toys and put it to a Raptor R or just get a Ridgeline since I really don't need all of this truck at the moment. 

I wonder if the F-250s with the 7.3 Godzilla have similar QC issues.