I have a 2000 Expedition purchased new in October 2000. It was manufactured in March of 2003 and I have been very pleased with the performance to date.

Since I am approaching the 3Yr mark, Ford sent me an e-mail offering an extended warranty. I typically do not consider extended warranties, but the vehicle only has 28,000 miles on it and any trouble may not have surfaced yet. So, I began investigating extended warranties on the web from other vendors. During my search, I came accross two potential problem areas with the Expedition and the 5.4L engine: head gasket issues and spark plug blowout issues.

My question is very simple with regard to the two -- Are these actual problems with the 5.4L engine? Or, does the internet allow the unfortunate folks that just happened to get a bad apple a way to communicate this to the masses? I certainly feel their pain as I would not want either of these issues happening to me, but I would like to believe they are only a few isolated incidents.

From what I can tell, 1999 seems to be a bad year for both of these issues. I am not sure if these items were a problem and Ford possibly corrected them. Ford supposedly redesigned the head to elleviate the spark plug blowout issue. Can anyone confirm this? When did that actually take place?

The sparkplug blowout issue is particalarly troubling if true. I would never expect this to happen in a properly engineered and manufactured engine. I'm not sure how many 5.4L engines Ford manufactures, but I would suspect it is tens of thousands per year. Is hearing about 15 or 20 problems cause for alarm?

Thank you.

 

Tough call on the extended warranty. Ford has acknowledged and admits a problem with the head gasket situation, but probably not the spark plug issue (which I really wouldn't and don't worry about). There have been millions of these modular motors produced and I'd bet less than 1/2 of 1% have had the spark plug problem. Sure you might hear of a case or two on these boards, but think about the majority of those around here (aside from us junkies). Yep, it's the guy who has an isolated problem, asks for advice once or twice and is gone forever.

 

Worth every penny IMO. So far I've got a new engine at 31K ($7500) and sunroof ($1650) and I'm not even into my EXTENDED warranty period! I'm supercharging next and my dealership says they will honor the extended warranty.