Lemons exist. I'm guessing that your blown diff didn't have anything to do with the ecoboost.

With over 900,000 3.5L ecoboost trucks sold since 2011 making up over 60% of all F-150's sold and yet the 5.0L is still reporting serious internal issues. Sadly some engines just go bad, and no, I'm not OK with that either.

I want Ford to succeed no matter which engine is used.

 

Yes......................

Although the engine by engineering standards is exceptional, this is a very complex engine system which is going to be difficult to maintain and repair as far as cost effectiveness goes.......the other issue with the complexity is as long as everything is right, it will run strong, but the variance for deviation in the operational controls is tight...very tight and "deviation" will typically lead to catastrophic failure....you will not see this with a normally aspirated engine.

 

So you're saying that the 5.0L V-8 isn't a complex engine with tight controls? The 5.0L makes a portion of the 40% of non ecoboost trucks sold and yet it appears to be no more reliable than the ecoboost.

My '88 f-150 with the 5.8L V-8 developed 3 cracks in the block somewhere between the time it was built and 101,000 miles. The block had to be thrown away. That doesn't make the whole family of 5.8L engines bad, just that one.

Sadly the 2004 - 2008 and possibly to 2010 F-150 with the 5.4L is on a 10 worst used vehicles list while the 2011 to current f-150 carries an above average reliability rating from consumer reports and the 2015+ trucks are expected to last 200,000 miles or more based on past reliability.

Too many naysayers.

 

By comparison.....the eco-boost is much more complicated than the 5.0

the 5.0 is much more complicated than the 1965 289's

and when your boosting an engine at almost double atmospheric pressue (as compared to the aftermarket and whats been done in the Detroit world of oe turbo/supercharged engines which is 50% less), yes, operational controls must be much tighter ....this is different than quality control....as an example, with a N/A engine, slight detonation 9pinging) not an issue....the heads, pistons, etc. can handle that, the ECM can retard the timing a couple of degrees to mitigate....but in a turbo/blown engine, a single detonation event will almost always lead to component failure...piston burn through, broken rods, etc.....and that is seen with the Eco-boost...not with most any N/A engine.

With regards to quality control

By SAE standards, 1% failure rate is unacceptable in US production standards (this is also ISO, Sigma, TQM, TPM, I could go on).....the US standard is 1% internal (not external ie customer), Chinese standard for example is 15% failure rate (internal). This does not nor should be implied to say that this should mean there should be no failure at the customer level, that is just not realistic as everyone would agree. But let's assume that Ford's 1% failure rate in the marketplace is acceptable, by comparison this would mean every day 100,000 prescriptions would be incorrectly delivered to customers (statistics provided by FDA & Harvard).......would this be acceptable to anyone- of course not. Per both GM & Ford, if each production run of any single vehicle series was built 99% to standard (ie 1% failure rate @ market/consumer deliverable), no less than each vehicle would have on average 15 defect's (published data available). Now before anyone says it, I will- yeah, we all know of certain vehicles that everyone considered "lemons" and everyone has known more than one person who bought one of these that had at least 15 defects of more. In summary, consumer's simply do not accept 1% failure rate in any significance of large scale consumer population.....and I agree.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Concerning failure rates whether it be 3.5L eco or 5.0L V-8, one variable that you left out is the sheer number of engines that have been aftermarket tuned by any number of our providers. Scour the 2009+ and the 2015+ F-150 forums and you'll shake your head at the sheer number of guys asking about tunes. These tunes seem to be a large contributor to ecoboost failures. That's certainly not a manufacturing issue but rather an irresponsible choice made by the owner.

With over 900,000 3.5L ecoboost F-150's on the road since 2011, that would mean that over 9000 engines would have failed. I have no idea where to even find that info.

 

I completely agree!!!!!!!!! The aftermarket "tuners" are typically non-engineers and non-ASE certified in anything but their own minds with little to no diagnostic capabilities beyond what most better equipped repair centers possess!........

A close relative of mine just bought an Explorer with the EB engine....hot-rodded by the dealer who and I quote "Installed a chip with their own custom programming". Ok, I'm not going to doubt that the dealer did something......but I would really be 'uncomfortable" with a dealer doing anything like this. On my own truck (5.4), yes I got an aftermarket programmer but, I 1st learned everything I could about the ECM/tranny programming.......I spoke directly with software provider, who was a little miffed that a retailer would allow such a phone call, but after they cooled down, realized what I was asking for and why....they even agreed, they had never looked at things from that perspective before......they are just use to "doing" what they have done before & knew worked & in writing, stated exactly what I wanted done (I'm talking specific fuel curve & timing adjustment) but most importantly I required the oem tranny program was to remain untouched. The tranny will respond to the engine.....if the engine is performing/responding faster, the tranny will respond likewise.....and it does.

 

Imo I would buy another one in a heartbeat. 105568 on mine and the only issue was a IWE in the front rt. Which has nothing to do withe the motor. It has been reliable, fairly good on fuel unless I'm in it. Tows wonderful. I tuned mine at 40000 with a livernois tuner and my towing mileage went up plus a considerable change in power.

 

If I was buying an F150 today, it would be the 3.5L Ecoboost. I traded my 2011 with 67K on it, and about 12,000 of that was towing a 10K fifth wheel up and down mountains. The number one issue is spark plugs. That is because the first year or two, they were incorrectly gapped and caused missing which was often misdiagnosed as the "condensation in the intercooler" problem. And the plugs lasted no where close to 100K. I changed my first ones at 40K and 2 had no center electrode remaining. The second set started missing 20K later, replaced by the dealer who over torqued them and cracked the porcelain . I took it in with one missing and got it back with 3 missing, so I personally installed another set.
BTW, it was tuned for most of my time with it, mostly a tow tune.

 

145,000 miles on my 2011. I've replaced the spark plugs twice. One issue with the 2011 and 2012 ecoboost's is the vacuum pump for the brakes. Ford extended this warranty to 150,000 miles on these trucks so keep that in mind when you're looking. I'm waiting for my pump to come in.

 

Sounds like you've gotten exceptional performance out of your plugs. The dealer told me and other forums suggest that ecoboost plugs will not be much good after 50K miles in most cases.

 

Was going great till about 55k blown turbos, and somethingabout a waste gate? Not in the manual probably went when the turbo blew but was charged separately for the diagnosis and repair a week later, whatever I was only pulling 6000lb. Trailer when turbo blew, been haviby problems since and strange noises, just wasted 55k. Should have got a Chevy

 

Unfortunitely, when boosted engines have a hick-up, it typically leads to a very expensive failure (as compared to non-boosted engines)..... and because of the complexity of the engine (EB especially), most of the "Techs" have little to no experience assessing secondary fault or impact areas since most of the time, clients choose to either replace the entire engine or junk the vehicle (via trade-in, etc.), and are simply following the written directives (buried in the 640,000+ page troubleshooting policy).... with an inexperienced tech (or dealer for that matter), follow-on issues are almost likely. I remember a friend of mine had purchased an F series with the international diesel....... he asked what I thought about maintenance...I directed him to go straight to an International truck center in Inglewood, Ca....... he spoke with a mechanic and although the ford recommended service was written by them, the mechanic took a much different viewpoint...he followed those recommendations and had a great truck for the next 10+ years.

What I am trying to convey, yeah, you may get stuck with a bit of a bill, but, find a local mechanic...someone who is experienced with boosted engines ...... someone who likely has a racing background (yeah, there out there...... to take a look at the engine and give you their recommendation......... you can then be armed with the info you need and have a "good" solid intelligent conversation with the dealer.....and have a truck you will have confidence in.

 

There's something wrong here. First post, no truck info and at 55K on the truck, he should have still been under warranty unless the warranty timed out. Apparently we'll never know.

Why did the turbos fail? Did they both fail at once? How well was the truck maintained? Turbo failure is not a common discussion here, not even among those who are trolling the site.

I hope he comes back and answer my questions. Until then, I'd leave this one alone.

 

FYI- there are plenty of postings of turbo related failures going back to 2012........and in other forums, let's just say, a lot of experience with coking and related engine failures as well.

 

Not here on FTE. The number of turbo related failure postings here on FTE since 2011 wouldn't even cause a blip on a radar screen though there are some.

So are FTE members luckier than members of other sites? Certainly there are no restrictions on what gets posted here as long as it's within the guidelines.

By now between the 3.5L and the 2.7L, there must be at least 4 million engines on the road. Each one has two turbos. Do we really have a chronic turbo failure rate?

And yet the OP has still failed to come back and answer my questions. With so many turbos on the road is a defect possible? Sure it is but I'll wager that it more along the lines of a maintenance issue.