8k on the sticker includes free installation, 13k includes R&R labor and parts mark up.

 

Thanks! I totally agree that is a rare case. It was only one of 32 valves that cracked, even though that's all it takes to wipe it out, I would have been really concerned it was mutiple valves. Hopeful this doesn't turn into one of those drama threads like the HPFP one.

 

Happy to share the name of the dealer, it was Watertown Ford, in Watertown, MA. They own three Ford store's in the Boston market area Watertown Ford, Stoneham Ford and Londonderry Ford in NH.

Boston Ford Dealers MA | Watertown Ford | Massachusetts Ford Dealer | New & Used Ford Cars, Trucks & SUVs, MA Ford Dealer
Stoneham Ford--Massachusetts Ford Dealer | Ford Sales, Service, Parts
NH Ford Dealer | Ford of Londonderry | Manchester, Nashua, Concord

 

In or out it shouldn't matter, it's defective or it's not, good customer service and brand loyalty. Rather then spending billions in advertising to attract new customers, how about taken car of the ones that you already have. I have purchased 6 Ford's in the last 10 years and my whole family drives them, how much does it cost them not to take care of me, a lot more than 13k.

Quick story on my wife's 2000 Windstar, I purchased a loaded 2000 Ford Windstar SEL drove it for 60k miles over 5 years and sold it to a friend for 8k, he drove it for 5 more years and ran it up to 150k miles. The majority of real axles on Ford Windstar rusted and split in half, so they either fixed them if they could or bought them back even if you were not the original owner. To they first put my friend in a free rental van for 3 months and then decided to buy the van back from him for $6,500. Not bad, second owner, used the van for 5 years/80k miles and got a free rental for 90 days worth 2k. Bottom line it's a defect, ****ty vendor, ****ty product and they need to step up for brand loyalty.

 

I would love to have an analysis done on the other 31 valves. Particularly the exhaust valves on the side where the post injection takes place. It is likely that this was a preexisting flaw that went undetected, if so it took 103,000 miles to fail under pretty severe use. Any signs of fatigue in the other valves would tend to indicate otherwise although that is the entire purpose of the test program prior to release. It would however close the loop.

 

And over the course of 103,000 miles that exhaust valve opened and closed approx. 100 million times, which is amazing for a valve that supposedly had a flaw at birth.

 

That was a different case because it was a safety recall. These axles were breaking which caused people to lose control of their cars. An engine failure isn't looked at in the same manner by the NHTSA.

By what you just said you would consider any repair out of warranty to be a warranty problem. There are no published service life statistics for cars or trucks, and therefore you could say that any failure is a defect, plain and simple.

 

I have a lot of experience with Ford of Londonderry. Their service department sucks. I could fill a book with their incompetence that I have personally witnessed and they have more than once tried to get out of having something covered under my ESP.

I am very glad your experience with one of their sister dealerships was better and I hope some of that rubs off on the Londonderry shop.

---Aaron

 

Now that is a great point. If there was a batch of improperly tempered valves and this was one of them, what does that say about the good valves? They must be incredibly durable. It's a funny way to learn of the quality of this motor; through a failure that is. It's also great to hear about the remainder of the block being in such good condition after being worked so hard. This is confirmation of all those pre-release videos that showed very little wear under extreme use. It's looking like these motors will be able to go 250 - 400k easily. The 6.7L long block is an amazing piece of engineering.

Now, if all the supporting components can hang in there...

 

Well if was not a defect then we can plan that our trucks will only last 103K under severe conditions? I don't know about you Crazy but for the money these things cost i would like to see a little longer service life. I have been thinking about the longevity of diesel trucks lately. Here is my situation, I bought this truck to make money and I put about 3-4 thousand miles a month on it. What can I expect to get out of the HPFP or the valves. If one of these goes south it's 10grand+ to fix. Now if a person puts 50K on a year for miles they can plan on sticking another 10 grand in the truck after only two years of ownership? That does not sound like a good deal to me and not what I thought I was getting for the $59,000 that I paid the truck. I would expect from Ford or any other manufacture that I could put 3-4 hundred thousand on this truck and then maybe change the HPFP for an insurance policy. As far as valves, We should not have to ever worry about those. So, was it a defective valve? I hope so and think Ford did the right thing this time. How about the next time, will Ford step up to the plate? If not, then there will be a person that has to stick $13K in his one or two year old truck and there will be people on here saying "By what you just said you would consider any repair out of warranty to be a warranty problem". Come on man!! There should be a common sense clause in these warranty's. Like at 150k an exhaust broke and took out your motor,that should be covered under warranty in my opinion. Maybe not a full replacement but something prorated .

 

I hear you but I just don't buy into "the sky is falling" way of thinking. We'll know the sky is falling only after a lot of it has fallen, if you know what I mean. Too many times people will hear of a failure like this and then jump to the conclusion that it is representative of the entire class of vehicles. Then we have others come into the conversation and say hold on, wait until we have more info. Then others come in and seem to just have fun by stirring in a bunch of purely antagonistic comments. This is how rumors start, grow and become legend. It should be just the opposite. People should read about the first failure, look for commonalities and if none are found, you can likely chalk it up as a unique, exceptional, or non-representative failure. This takes time and does not foretell doomsday on the horizon.

I for one like to know about it, what were the circumstances and see if there is anything I can do to mitigate the risk for myself. These threads can be hugely helpful if they don't turn into an academy award nomination for "Best Drama on the Threads" award. Nemo did a great job of walking us through his experience.

 

Sure 103,000 is early and this is a great perspective on the issue.
Not only +/- 100 million times but mostly under increased stress (than mine for example) because the OP is almost always towing something heavy according to his other posts.

Edit: I'm only guessing there's more stress. Would seem to me there would be within the whole engine when towing but I know very little about what goes on in there.

 

Someone mentioned a 150,000 warranty, and would they complain if the valve failed at 153,000 miles? Ford has already sold more then a 1/4 million of these 6.7 trucks and besides a few HPFP failures have a very good track record on their new 6.7 A pacemaker/defibrillator cost a lot more then a Ford diesel engine and you would think their design and construction would be of a much higher standard then your engine, yet their premature failure rate is several per 1,000

 

It was the first generation Duramax "LB7" used in the model years 2001 thru 2004.5 trucks. If memory serves, GM extended the warranty to 200K on them around 2005 when high mileage trucks were beginning to see failures. The problem was that the injectors would leak and would dilute the engine oil, eventually leading to an engine failure if not detected in time. GM replaced engines where that occurred under the 200K warranty program also.

The injectors on those LB7 engines were located under the valve covers (I believe they are on the 6.7 Ford motor too) which made it easy for a leaking injector to fill the crankcase with diesel. GM moved the injectors back outside with the second gen Duramax "LLY" in 2004.5.

 

I am not surprised by how clean the internal parts of the motor was. When I traded my 05 in the dealer said that ohe would rather have my truck that I tow with daily than one that was babied. Diesel trucks need to be worked to keep deposits from building up and it definitely sounds like this one was worked.