...DETROIT (AP) — U.S. auto safety investigators have expanded a probe into Ford Motor Co. engine failures to include nearly 709,000 vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said in documents posted Monday on its website that it upgraded the investigation to an engineering analysis, a step closer to a recall.

The investigation now covers Ford's F-150 pickup truck, as well as Explorer, Bronco and Edge SUVs and Lincoln Nautilus and Aviator SUVs. All are from the 2021 and 2022 model years and are equipped with 2.7-liter or 3.0-liter V6 turbocharged engines.

The agency says that under normal driving conditions the engines can lose power due to catastrophic engine failure related to allegedly faulty valves.

The agency opened its initial investigation in May of last year after getting three letters from owners. Initially the probe was looking at failure of the 2.7-liter engine on Broncos.

Since then, Ford reported 861 customer complaints, warranty claims and engine replacements including the other models. No crashes or injuries were reported.

The company told the agency in documents that defective intake valves generally fail early in a vehicle's life, and most of the failures have already happened. The company told NHTSA said it made a valve design change in October of 2021.

 

Bad news indeed. It seems that build quality has fallen quite a bit in recent years. Ford made a statement not too long ago about how the cost of warranty claims was getting out of control. Build a better vehicle and those issues wont happen. Combine this with the failure of the Lightning, and the many YouTube videos of QC issues relating to build quality. Even Toyota has been experiencing an unacceptably high number of engine failures with their 3.5 Twin Turbo in the Tundras.

Not every company can be ran as sloppy as Tesla, who have publicly stated that production comes first and QC issues can be taken care of under warranty. Tesla doesn't use franchised dealers and the cost paid for warranty issues is a direct expense vs a billed expense. But anyway, Tesla earns more buy selling carbon credits than they do cars.

I would hate to be in the market for a new truck right now, seems like a crap shoot. Why is quality such a huge issue industry wide? It can't be blamed on unions, as there are very similar issues in UAW and non union manufacturers.

 

Good thing I decided to go with the V8.

 

Didn’t they just make the 2.7L the base engine for the F150?

 

Yes, the base 3.3 NA V6 is no longer offered, even on the most basic F150. That's part of the reason for the 2024 base price increase.