Well, I decided to put all my feelings on here to vent...I have a 2004 F150 FX4 5.4L and it has been nothing but a pain in the bank account lately. 5 weeks ago I went camping 3 hours south of my home city. The trucks cam phazers called it quits there. towed it to a dealer in the small town, needed cam phazers, and timing belt tensioners. 3 week wait for parts so. i was truckless for that time. In the midst of that repair they busted my power steering hose. more waiting. Finally I got it back, and just last saturday my alternator died. Fixed that. Then my truck started idleing way to low, and stalling at red lights etc. Now, my check engine light turned on with P0430. Catallyst emission system bank 2 or whatever. Needless to say, im getting frustrated. is all this coincidence? ive owned truck for 3 years and nothing ever went wrong. now...its hell breaking lose in my engine. Love the truck, beginning to hate the engine. it has 195000km on it. and well maintained.

 

121K miles (I converted) is going to be the time that things start to go. Depending on how much preventive maintenance was done on the truck, or weather conditions (I'm guessing your in Canada?), this can all play a factor.

What I do is purchase good used OEM parts from the junkyards to have onhand as spares. I have an alternator and starter I bought from a 30K wrecked truck, so I'm prepared if one of those fail. The cats, well mine are still good, but if the truck is run out of tune, raw gas can distroy those too.

Sorry you're having all this bad luck back to back. Hopefully it's done for a long while!

 

I have an Edge Evo tuner. could some faulty setting cause the cats to go? im running on 94octane gas.

 

How did your cam phasers call it quits?

Hopefully the P0430 is something easy like an 02 Sensor. If it's a clogged cat, you should be able to find aftermarket parts significantly (like 1/10th) cheaper.

 

94 octane? We can't even get that around here.

I'm no mechanic, but I doubt it's necessary or a good idea. (but then again...I was wrong once)

 

I can't get over 91 octant here...

I'd fix it and keep on trucking, especially if its paid for. I've had a few cars/trucks that have had their string of issues. You'll get through it.

 

The cats and cam Phazers could go hand and hand once they quit could of filled the cats full of raw fuel few day-weeks later burning them up. Buddy of mine had a 5.4l still under warranty drop a coil I belive and it loaded up his cats and burned them up. But the tritons are strong engines keep trucking... Btw if you dropped an alternator check your battery bad battery can fry a alternator happend to me.

 

Well, i had both of my cats changed yesterday. Magnaflow high performance. Very happy with them. Check engine light is off so thats a good thing, however my mechanic also told me that he strongly suggests i change sparkplugs. Which is 500 bucks or so. I really dont want to spend more money, yet anyway.

 

If you've always owned the truck and never had them done, you should get them done. IIRC, it is a 100,000 mile plug...

 

I'm going to ask the question again...

how did your cam phasers 'let go'

Cam phasers dont 'let go' unless they destroy the motor..

They may stop working but that simply just retards the motor and makes it run like a dog with 8-12 mpg... not 'stop working and let go'

If they would 'let go' your cam would lose time and piston says hello to valve and nobody wins.....(read kaboom catastropic failure)

My cam phasers are now banging away but I just did a 500 mile trip no issue(sounds like garbage... but parts are on the way...)

Funny about the 3 week wait... rock auto had all my parts including new spark plugs and the lisle tool for $700ish in 3 days shipped... (Canada maybe?)

Keep on.. the bottoms of these motors are bulldozers and will just keep pushing...