dlewis_nepean

Hi all,

I'm just looking for some opinions here. I have a 2011 F150 Lariat with the Ecoboost in it. I absolutely love the truck. Had very little trouble with it until recently.

Over the last 10 days (and about 4000 miles) or so I have managed to go through almost 2 gallons of coolant. Some is on the garage floor some isn't. It appears that the driver side turbo is leaking internally. I have about 160,000 Miles on the truck now.

I've been talking to different mechanics and I know and trust and of course I have a bunch of different suggestions.

1) trade the truck ( I don't think I want to embark on new payments right
now unless I have to)
2) replace one turbo
3) replace both turbo's (since they have been both spinning about just as
long) somewhere around $1K each turbo (Canadian) (I can get jobber
pricing from Ford retail is more) plus labour and whatever else I need
once we get into the job.
4) replace both turbo's with ones of a wreck that has low miles. (probably
around $600-700 total for both plus the labor and possible parts)
5) and lastly I have a possibility of replacing the entire motor with a
complete one out of a wreck that has about 60K miles on it. The cost of
the motor is only about $1K more than the price of the new turbo's (and
of course there is the labor on that too)

The idea of changing the motor sort of came about with the fact that I do 4 or 5 long trips a year with it and the mileage is starting to get up there a bit.

The rest of the truck is in good shape, no body issues, no rust, mechanically it seems solid.

So here's the question. What would a fellow owner do ? Some say only change what you know is wrong, why put more in it. Some say change both because if one is done the other might not be far behind and you're already in there, and of course there is the full swap due to the higher millage. I'm sort of leaning towards the full motor swap but of course I have no idea how hard that motor has been beat on either.

I welcome any comments/suggestions.

donk_316

Check kijiji dude, lots of full motors and parts for sale.
If i was you I would change out turbos.

But Personally, I would buy a new truck.

RSJ

I also have a F150 ECO. 70,000 k on it, I have had both turbos replaced, cam phazers and chains replaced, and the list goes on and on and on. Sell the truck and run. These problems should not be happening with relatively new vehicles.
Sorry for the poor advertising on a Ford enthusiast site

randypreksta

My 2011 F150 Lariat with ecoboost also has leaky lines. Does anyone know if the lines can be replace without having to replace the turbos?

Atlee

I also have a 3.5L EB in a 2014 truck. Ford has replaced a throttle body (36,204), and both turbos, cam phazers and timing chains (53,258). Fortunately, it's all been on Ford's dime. I still have the balance of a 84 month, 100,000 mile ESP plan from Ford in effect.

Silverback007

Similar to the OP, I had a coolant leak and started to hear a whine from one of the turbos. Only 83,000 miles on this engine. All service had been done by my Ford dealer, including an oil change and multipoint check right before problems were noticed. And my extended warranty expired about 2 months prior to this problem. Now I'm stuck with a major repair bill for a truck that I had expected would see 200,000 miles without serious problems based on all the hype I had heard about it. At the moment I'm not a happy owner but trading it in will have to wait for a while. Although I've been happy with the performance of this engine it's quality has been a huge disappointment. When I spoke to an independent mechanic about the problem he was not surprised and I was even more disappointed to find out that apparently this is a common problem.

acdii

If you were inclined to DIY, a turbo upgrade costs $2300, but needs to be tuned to take advantage of them, or go with stock aftermarkets for under $1000. Replacement isn't too hard, the hardest part is removing one line behind the turbo, but it does take a lot of time to disassemble everything to get the turbo out.

Danny Tew

Yes they csn be it not to hard if u are anyway mechanically inclined