My 2004 F150 with the 4.6 blew the motor tonight, so I'm out looking for a new set of wheels. Thinking I'm might go for an Expy this time instead of a truck. I need a long vehicle to hold out 7" long tandem bicycle.

There's a 2010 Expy for sale neary by with 120k and it has the 5.4l motor. I know the F150's had a bad history with the cam phasers and spark plugs. Was it still an issue with the 2010 models or is this a different engine?

 

FWIW I had the cam phaser issue on my 2010 at 50k.

 

Thanks. That's enough info for me to avoid the Expy's.

 

Not all years have the phasers.

 

Almost 190,000 miles on our 2008. Nothing done to engine except change plugs at 100,000 and again recently. Mobil 1 5/20 ever 5,000.

 

90K on my wife's 2011. Spark plugs changed at around 55K. Tuned & no problems other than the A/C blend doors. You are going to run the risk of running into that on just about all Ford trucks and large SUV's though.

 

I would hope there are no major issues after only 90K. Major issues under 200K and I'm sending the vehicle to the scrap pile. Really.

I had the blend door issue on my Mountaineer as well. It was the one buried in the dash and wasn't worth fixing as it occurred when the vehicle was 10-11 years old. I just stuck a valve on there and turned the heat on/off by season.

 

I have a 2010 Limited. We bought it used on July 4th 2014 with 114k on the clock. I have changed the oil, and replaced the Idler pulley and tensioner. Nothing else. It now has 155k. I'm only one data point but in my mind the truck has been terrific.

 

Had a 2006 Navi with the 5.4. It decided to throw a rod through the side of the block, likely due to a crap injector that filled the cylinder (at least, that is what the shop told me). That has given me an irrational fear of the 5.4 - not sure I could bring myself to buy another one.

 

I just asked a friend that is an F&I manager at a Ford dealership to run the vin of my new-to-me 2011 Navigator L and see if he can find out if my truck could have the cam phaser issue, or was it "fixed" by Ford by 2011. His service manager told him 2010+ 5.4's are all good, so I am okay. Unfortunately post #2 of this thread clearly shows that it happened to a 2010 with 50k miles, so now I don't know if I should feel too safe.

I have read that letting oil changes go past the recommended intervals can play a role in this becoming a problem. I don't know if that is true but my truck has 66k miles and has had 13 oil changes, so pretty regular 5k changes. I do not know what kind of oil was used but judging by the short interval I imagine it was not a full synthetic. For the next change I plan to use Mobil 1 full synthetic and maybe the extra protection of a full synthetic will help in some way.

 

Not only did it happen to my 2010 it is happening on my 2012. I'm religious about oil changes and always do it early using FoMoCo suggested products.

 

Oh NO! I am sorry to hear that. What oil do you use?

My truck is still under the factory 6yr/70k powertrain warranty for another 3k miles or so. I don't think that I hear any engine noise that would be considered out of the ordinary, but I am not a mechanic. Should I bring it in to have the cam phasers checked before it runs out of warranty?

 

I use the Motorcraft 5W-20 synthetic blend. I can't imagine they are going to do anything if you don't have any symptoms. To physically check them you would have to take the front of the motor apart.

 

Fair enough. I will just ask them to listen to it when I bring it in for the transmssion flush & filter change and defroster issue next week. It sounds like the defrost is stuck on full blast, so from what I've read it may be one of the blend doors. This will actually be the very first time that it has ever been in to a Ford dealership since new because this is the first thing that has ever gone wrong. Just regular oil changes at the local indy shop. Not too bad for a 2011 with 66k I guess.