This is the same thing that the Audi 2.0's have been having issues with:

 

I think the issues are only with the smaller EB's and not the 3.5.

 

This is why i have never used seafoam crap or any other "valve cleaning garbage snake oil"

and i don't plan to, ever. Ford has designed our wonderful cars to run on fuel, and fresh clean filtered air. Oil changes and not over-reving will keep our cars on the road a long long time.

also drive safe and do not touch that cellphone when driving

 

On direct injected engines, the backs of the intake valves do not see any fuel, and the "clean filtered air" they get also has exhaust gas (from EGR) and oil vapors (from the PCV system) in it.

I have been concerned about EB and frankly all direct injected engines for this reason. I know Toyota adds port injectors to its DI engines to spray fuel on the backs on intake valves--this adds complexity and cost but is a viable solution.

I ain't in the DI camp yet. However, on a non-turbocharged engine, you could conceivably use Seafoam or other cleaners without crapping up the exhaust side of your turbos. I am NOT a fan of Seafoam and cleaners like that, but they would be cheaper than a new cylinder head.

As for your "not over-revving", it was my guess that the test EB that Ford ran thru Baja, and then pulled trailers with at full throttle, etc, probably stayed cleaner than an engine that slogs around and gets repeated cold starts (and rich mixtures) without a long run time.

Good luck to EB owners. I want them to work out and be great, but I have my doubts.

George

 

From what I've been reading, Ford will be likely be incorporating dual injectors on their boosted engines in the future.

 

See? This is why I read these forums. Sure if you quized me I could reply pcv and egr would also go through the intake valves and muck them up. But I wasn't able to put 2 + 2 together to see how they would hurt the cylinder heads on an direct injected engine...

This problem makes more sense to me now, but still I wont use seafoam ever LOL. And yes you are probably right about more time at open throttle being good for the cars to clean the cylinder head, compared to constant cold starts..

Lots of good info!

 

What does this have to do with a 2015 F-150?

 

Um, the Ecoboost engines have direct injection without aux injectors to clean the intake valves. So this has nothing to do with oohing and aahing at a shiny new truck and plunking down big cash. But 100k miles down the road you may need new cylinder heads... Most people don't think that far down the road...they just look at shiny new trucks.

George

 

Exactly, shiny trucks with wierd intake issues?? sell. It is actually a pretty epic thing from ford. Ford warranty is 5 years/60k miles, so ford will pay to fix the engine before that. But it sounds like this mucked up intake will occur after that time/mileage. ford still makes the best engine and i have ford cars pushing 30+ years on the road. I do not trust them in the hands of bull**** mechanics. I trust only ford dealership to fix my cars.

 

I love Fords but I don't know if their modern engines are the best. The 4.6/5.4 plug shooting issues did not give me a lot of faith in their cyl head designers although I LOVE my 4.6 in my '02 van. Except it needed new heads at 42k miles (on my extended warranty--original was 3/36 in 2002). It was the early Romeo PI heads that had cooling problems at the rear of the heads and caused the exhaust valve stems to carbon up. So that was a $4200 job that I paid a $100 deductible for.

Follow that with the 2004 3V 5.4 with the sticking plugs that would not be a problem until the 100k plug change when they broke off in the heads.

For best engines I would say Honda in this day and age. It seems they have a grasp on making complex valvetrains and aluminum engines that stand the test of time. After all, they supplied all IRL race engines for a number of years without a single engine failure.

I would not hesitate to buy a new Ford with, say, the 3.5 or 3.7 V6 in normally aspirated form, or the 5.0 V8. But in terms of direct injection, I am not trusting anyone right now.

As I said, I hope Ford can stand the test of time with their new engines, but shiny new vehicles that won't go 200k miles without major engine work (like new turbos, gummed up intake valves, etc.) are a different story.

Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst if I put out my dollars...

George

 

They don't see exhaust gasses, these engines do not have an EGR system.


Seems like every day my doubts get reduced. There are a lot of these engines out there, and they don't seem to be having many issues. The video the OP posted was for a problem with the smaller engines, but I haven't read about an F150 with this issue. Not saying it hasn't happened, just that if it has it's not very common at this point.

 

Although it is cooled, there is definitely EGR on the EB engines from what I recall; here is an article on it specifically talking about EGR:

DailyTech - With the Addition of Cooled EGR, Ford Has a Gas Engine to Rival Diesels


You may feel better about the EB "every day"...for me to feel better, it will take years because that is how things work in the automotive world. How many years was it after the 2004 intro that the 3V spark plug break-off issues were well known? And with all the turbo plumbing, sensors, and other parts, an EB has a lot of stuff that can fail.

As I said, good luck to Ford,
George

 

Not on currently produced engines there isn't. I remember seeing some good files that were released a few years ago talking about the next generation EcoBoost engines and cooled EGR, and that may or may not make it into the 2015 engines.

Didn't take that long. I bought my '07 F150 brand new, and that's what brought me back to FTE. That was early '07, and they were midway through broken plug hysteria at the time.

 

the problem is that by the time issues are made aware of and fixed the engine is outdated and being replaced with something else. With everyone demanding to have the latest and greatest from all the car companies they have to keep changing things up and that allows for very little time to iron bugs out.
I wish we could go back to the days where a company would use the same basic engine for 10-15yrs, but those days are long gone. If a person waits for an engine to be "debugged" they will never own anything new.

The eco boost has been in the F150 for what, three or four models years now and I've never heard of anyone having the issues described in the video. And I know there are a lot of high mileage EB trucks out there. The problems in the video seemed to start when Ford started making the smaller EB engines.

I admit the EB isn't a perfect engine, but it's hardly the problem child some people make it out to be.

 

I admit that there is clearly no basis to currently call the 3.5 EB anything like a problem child. I recall early reports of intercooler icing but I also saw the torn down EB at the Detroit auto show after it towed stuff for a lot of miles and then raced Baja. It looked really good internally. So I am quite certain about its basic strength. My wife also had a Duratec Sable and drove it well over 100k miles so I have much faith in the basic design.

Some engine problems take physical lengths of time and certain kinds of driving patterns to show themselves. I am hoping we don't see any of these problems with any Ford engines.

Take care,
George