Wanting to get some advice about my truck.
Starting back in 2025 I had Ford do a routine maintenance on my truck. From purchase in Sept 2019 all the upto this point in early 25, every maintenance had been done by a Ford Fleet service. Early 2025 I took the truck in for routine maintenance for an oil change and to have the brakes checked. On the call to pick the truck up they tell me the truck has a rattle in the engine on startup. Well, I was aware of that but had no idea what it was, and the truck never had any engine issues upto this point. They tell me it is the cam phasers failing and that the timing system would need to be replaced. I asked them why this had never been brought up before in any other maintenance. The truck had been making that should for 3 years, and they had serviced the truck at minimum of 2-3 times every year. Just so happened now that they brought it up to me, the truck is outside the warranty. They tell me this is going to cost me 8-9000. I end up taking the truck to a friend in March 2025 who replaces the timing components, and does a bunch of other work for on the truck as well.

Not even 3 months later the cam phasers had failed again. His shop was in Arizona, I live in southern CA so I make the decision to have a different local shop that I have had good experiences with on my wifes vehicle do the job. They replace the timing system again. By November, same thing. engine light comes on, same engine code.

The truck is currently in their shop, and they tell me this. I tell them to get started on the tear down and see what is going on. They blame this failure on oil sludge. Well , the truck has 176,000 miles at this point so some oil sludge is expected. They tell me that is why this failed. These phasers only have 21k miles and the truck had 3 oil changes in that time. I ask them if this happened again, same scenario twice in a handful of months there has to be a root cause. They never looked upto this conversation. They then tell me this morning the oil pan and pickup tube is filled with sludge, and now they recommend an entire new engine.

I paid both shops full price to do the work. The 2nd shop did allow me to purchase the parts myself as I have access to a fleet account that cut the part cost significantly. by significantly I mean more than 50%. However, now the shop tells me because I purchased the parts they wont warranty the previous labor.

What can I do here? I feel at this point the second shop should have looked for the root cause before sending the truck back with new parts knowing the 2nd set of phasers failed in a handful of months. These being the new upgraded version that Ford says they never had failure issues with anymore. No one ever checked the oil pan, no one ever mentioned oil sludge at any point in the 2 previous repairs. I feel the work should be done entirely free of charge at this point as paying someone thousands of dollars then having that work fail in a handful of months because they never bothered to inspect for a cause of a failure of a part is a complete failure on their part. Why should I be paying out of pocket again, for a third time, to have my timing components replaced within a little over a year?

I feel like I should be consulting a lawyer at this point.

Also previously before the truck went over 100k miles I had Ford service the transmission and they updated the programming for a new shift map for the 10speed transmission. Well, a handful of months later the transmission completely failed and I ended up replacing it at Ford and paid 8,500 for that, because at that point, I was now out of the warranty and Ford told me they wouldnt do anything on the cost even though they had just recently serviced it and reprogrammed it, and told me it was fine. It wasnt even 5k miles later it was replaced.

Help me out here with some advice. Shop tells me I need a new engine, they claim there is too much sludge to bother repairing or cleaning out this block. I find that incredibly hard to believe, but right now that is the information I have.

 

Cry buddy cry. I do sympathize with you.I've gone through some big disappointments with my truck at less than half the mileage. Here's the kicker... Ford just gave me 65,000 loyalty points for paying up to fix a transmission that is poorly engineered. You laid out your choices but one. Sell the truck for parts and get something else.

 

If I understand your post correctly, you had the truck serviced “2-3” times a year between 2019 and 2025. You drove 176,000 miles during the time. By your numbers you went, best case, approx 10,000 miles between oil changes. Worst case you went over 14,000 miles between oil changes.
That’s too long between oil changes and you probably do have a worn out engine with an oil pan full of sludge.

 

the truck has 176 k now. not in july 2025. the current cam phasers only had 20k miles. truck was serviced before 7500 miles routinely, Not 10k. Did it go over from time to time? sure. The point is even if that is the case, knowing the truck had just had every part of the timing system replaced in March, why wouldnt this issue be found by the shop doing the job again in July? Why did this not get mentioned until I brought it to their attention to have it looked into? You dont just replace a part that recently failed well before its typical life cycle and not search for a cause.

 

There could be some sludge buildup from Motorcraft Synthetic Blend every 7,500 miles. Cam phasers are common problems with the 3.5 Ecoboost. I hope that you were getting the updated phasers. It may be time to unload it. If you want to keep it, put a new crate motor in it.

 

PDA For those reading this now and in the future:

Change your oil every 5,000 miles on the 5,000. Full synthetic oil. Filters get changed every oil change too. They're $10... its worth it not to have to remember when you last did an oil change or last did a filter.

 

There was to many involved over to long a time to do anything about it now.
Trust and competence in what were done caused most of the end results and just stacked up.
Question is, what was the oil pressure over all this time.
Phasers must work on Oil pressure gated into them by the VVT Solenoids to move the Cams and not rattle on start-up on cold oils.
Maybe the Oil Pump was not up to the job and or what oil was used over the whole-time intervals?
Too late to pin it on any part of this and get anywhere with it.
Good luck.

 

The phasers have locking pins that engage when the engine shuts off. Upon startup, before the engine can get sufficient oil pressure to hold the phasers in place, the pins are what maintain position. The original phaser is a flawed design and the pin retainers wear out. At startup, the pins aren't holding the phasers in place and there's not enough oil pressure yet, so the phasers rattle back and forth.

The root cause of the initial design's failure isn't insufficient oil pressure, the root cause is a flawed phaser design.

If he installed the updated phaser design and those failed, then I'd start looking elsewhere as the updated phasers seem to be much more trouble free. There are LOTS of reports of original phasers failing in the 50-90,000 mile range even with perfect maintenance and perfect oil and perfect running conditions, so we can all drop the blaming the owner narrative.

 

$8-9,000 for cam phasers and timing set? That must be the King of Stealerships.

 

^^^^ This...I change my oil between 4-5000 miles ALWAYS a new filter. Ford oil light essentially recommends a 10K oil change and it's all nonsense. This is how they get more sales and they keep their service bays full with high dollar repairs outside of warranty. It's all about creating perpetual buyer demand and planned obsolescence.