I had a customer stop yesterday. He drives a F350. I think its a 2012 possibly. Hes had it a few years I know. It had 12,000 miles when he bought it. Just drives it locally, logs locally here and runs small farm. He said last week he was driving home the truck started back firing and hitching. He limped it home then to the local ford garage. At 110,000 miles he needed the engine rebuilt. They told him that becouse he drives like granny and never goes over 40 or gets his foot into it its never cleaned out and carbon build up caused the issue.
He takes very good care of his truck. Always synthetic oil changes but he said becouse of the oil he ran it a long time between oil changes. Whats a long time ? he didn't say. But 110,000 doesn't seem like alot for a newer engine. $6200. was the final bill.

 

Proof that you should drive it like you stole it.

 

"engine guys" have known this for years, one simply has to "blow the cobs out" from time to time. I learned this from my dad 50 years ago. On Sunday after church, we'd load up and go make a hell-run to somewhere, and dad would periodically stop and check the tailpipes. Once they turned snow white (from the leaded fuel), he was happy, lol!
Dad taught me to always let the engine and transmission warm up good, check the gauges and then....give it hell!
R.I.P., Dad..

 

Your customer needs a second opinion

 

I have a 2016 F250 6.2L I bought new that I planned to trade in when my new F150 arrived, which the dealer said would be last April, when I ordered it in February. My plan was to trade in the F250 before the warranty expired... then several weeks ago and 3 weeks after the warranty expired on my F250, the engine had a major mechanical failure and my Ford dealer says the engine needs to be replaced - zero compression in one of the cylinders, but they did not tear it down far enough to find the exact failure.

Our 2016 F250 "Super Duty" has only 51,000 miles, was driven normally, mostly on residential roads and highways, well within recommended capacities, never abused, the oil was full, everything was working normally and there was absolutely no indication of a problem. We were driving on a flat 2 lane highway at 55 mph towing 3000 lbs when the truck started running rough and the check engine light came on. We pulled over to the shoulder immediately and called Ford roadside service and had it towed to the Ford service department. The Ford service department has told us there was a manufacturing defect in the engine that caused a catastrophic failure and that it needs a new engine. Ford is charging us $4200 to replace the engine because of our circumstances, but it will take several months to get it back because of parts shortages. We are now in desperate need for a truck and I have tried everything I can think of to increase the priority for our new F150 or decrease the time it takes to repair our F250. I felt that Ford should have covered us fully for engine replacement because it was clearly a manufacturing defect in the engine, and/or sped up our F150 delivery and/or sped up parts delivery for our F250, but nothing more I can do. My sales contacts have been great and reached out to the Ford regional sales manager, and our Ford Customer service rep has reached out to others on the parts delivery side to try and help, but apparently the production side is a separate and impenetrable side of the business that sales and customer service cannot influence..... Our Ford service manager has also been great. I have considered reaching out to publicize my story because I think there are a lot of interesting and compelling sides to it that others may want to know. Also of note I had a 2002 F150 5.4L that I bought new and sold with 120,000 miles on it after 13 years and zero issues through the whole time I owned it, so I have been a Ford proponent for awhile now.

opinions on any of this?

 

Yeah, dont trust the ford dealer for anything. Take it to a second competent mechanic and get them to diagnose the same issue. I have had an exhaust leak on my F150 for over a year. Had a issue towing (Power steering 100% turned off) so I took it in and they tried to charge me $3700 to change out my cam phasors stating that was why the truck was getting an under boost CEL. They stated that because of that, the truck was going to "limp mode" causing the power steering to turn off (Bull****, I'm an engineer; you do not "turn off" critical safety systems for ANY reason). I am positive they made up the cam phasor problem. So I took it from the shop (pissed them off when I did) and took it to my FIL who took off the tire and wheel skirt and BINGO giant ****ing exhast leak at the header on the block (the rear bolt hand entirely sheered off). Fixed that problem and what do you know? Problem went away. So long story short, ALWAYS get a second opinion from somebody that is not tied to charging you as much as possible. Its covid times man, people will milk you for every penny they possibly can. I doubt you need a new motor, just need to find somebody willing to actually do some work on it.

 

Sounds like a bunch of BS to me. Modern N/A engines run so lean they are not going to build up a bunch of carbon because someone doesn't drive it like he stole it. The fact it started happening "all of a sudden" means something failed.

Run away from that shop as fast as you can.

 

Sounds like a broken valve spring which has turned out to be a 6.2 weak spot.

What did you determine? Did you take it elsewhere for another opinion?

 

Ford replaced the engine and split the cost - cost me $4000; Had another local shop quote me $10,000 for a new engine.