Does anyone have access to any hard facts on this subject?

A. How many V-10 Fords are out there??

B. How many of them have blown out one or more spark plugs?

C. What percentage of the V-10 engines are we talking about?
5%, 10% or what.

I am not trying to poke the hornets nest or anything, I'm just curious!

 

I would like to see the numbers myself. I'm willing to bet it is a low precentage of the V10/V8 equipt Ford vehicles.

Remember V10s went into a few other vehicles besides the trucks.

 

Same here. If I were to bet I would say 1 to 2% max.

 

What aroused my curiosity was this. I stopped by an independant after market auto parts store for an item for the Buick. As soon as the counterman saw my pick-up with the V-10 emblems, he tried his darndest to sell me a $600 heli-coil kit. He made it sound as if it were only a matter of time until I would need it. He would even send other folks who needed the same thing to me.

I understand working on commision and all that, but it really made me question the numbers. I've seen lots of posts from folks with this problem, and lots of opinion that Ford should stand behind it. (wouldn't argue that point at all) I would would just like to see some hard facts (not opinions) on how many engines we are talking about.

 

The only one with that info is Ford and they will never let it go without force. Ford keeps saying there is no problem but how many here have had it happen? Let's face it if 1 blows out something is wrong, when many blow out???

I had a 91 Cougar and the rotors warpped in less than a month of driving, Ford changed them and I had the same problem. After 6 trips to the dealership I saw many many other cougars and t-birds there. I called the Ford rep and he came to look at my car and told me they had never seen this problem before and I was the only warranty claim. I walked to the service managers desk and demanded to know how many car were there at that moment for rotors, there were 5! I asked him to putt the # of cars they had replaced rotors on there, 50 to that point. I then asked the rep where he got his #'s? I said that I was going to file a class acction suit. He bought my car back "in the interest of good customer relations". Yeah they wanted to make sure no one else suied them. Ford never admitted to a problem then and they will not now!

 

GMs engines the new vortecs 99 and up have been known to have an issue called piston slap. First they said the sound was normal and would do nothing about it. Now there supposed to have fixed it but ther still having problems. GM Ford and dodge are guilty of this as well. The spark blowout issue is not as common as you think. A low percentage I believe. People believe that if one person has it everybody has it not so.

 

Well, why not start a poll here, to see how many members on this site have had a blowout? Granted, we may make up a small majority of V10 owners, but it would at least give some idea.

 

Never said ford was alone here but we were talking about Ford, the point is that it is not in the best interest of any mfg to just fess up, they will never own up to a mistake until made to. As for it beinf one? You must have been under a rock, try a search and you will see how many people have had issues.

 

[QUOTE=boody101]What aroused my curiosity was this. I stopped by an independant after market auto parts store for an item for the Buick. As soon as the counterman saw my pick-up with the V-10 emblems, he tried his darndest to sell me a $600 heli-coil kit. He made it sound as if it were only a matter of time until I would need it. He would even send other folks who needed the same thing to me.

I understand working on commision and all that, but it really made me question the numbers. QUOTE]

Wowzers !!! $600, INCREDIBLE !!! I'd be pushing those on everybody too, no matter what kind of car they drove. Since a heli-coil kit is probably, what, $30 ? I would be very suspect from now on with anything this guys, I bet less than 1% of V-10 and less than .5% of all mod V-8's (it was only some 4.6's and V-10 from one of Ford's plants that had the potential problem) had any sparkplug blow-out. In he 3 years I've been here on this board I've seen 2 guys who actually had a problem. There's been lots asking, you knew a guy, who knew a guy, who's brother's wife's cousin knew a guy who had a V-10 with a blown out plug. But I can remember 2 actual people saying it happened to them. 1 guy got gooned into replacing a very expensive head, and the other guy put in a $5 heli-coil.

 

Well, thankfully I have not had this problem yet, but.... I know for a fact that the dealer here has fixed a few of these at least. When I ask the service people about the issue, they all say they have never heard of it happening. This makes me think that Ford has told dealers in no uncertain terms to keep quiet on this issue.

I say this because this dealer is usually very good about finding out about any problems pertaining to our cars and trucks and fixing them without hassle. We have numerous tsb fixes and a few recalls fixed there over the years. Even have had them fix things that were not tsb's, but should not have broken. Once I remember they did it on my 89, long out of warranty for free, another time discounted the charge significantly. I would rate this dealer as very good about getting as much coverage out of Ford as possible for their customers, but they do not seem to want to talk about the plug bow out issue.

 

Actually, I have seen many more than 2 people here say they have had it happen. I think there is also a poll here somewhere for which plug actually went. I remember at least one person who had it happen twice.

I have not seen the fact that it was only at one Ford plant before. Which plant was it, and what time frame?

[QUOTE=ken04]

 

There was a poll about it but I could not find it, I spoke with a few friends (sales and mechs) at 2 local dealerships and they have fixed 10 between them so I called and asked for the service manager at both places and asked and was told they had never seen the problem before. So I agree with Shepard in that Ford is trying to hide it.

As for my brothers cousin etc I had 1 fixed on a truck that I bought to resell and I saw another truck at a sale that was trying to be dumped off. As for 1%, I am guessing you were throwing that out to show how small a #? That is 1 out of every 100 trucks made 10 out of a 1000 etc and Ford only made what a few million? so 10,000 out of every million buyers are paying for a Ford screw up and some think that is OK and the way it should be done?

Again it looks like I am bashing Ford but I don't care who made it, if there was a mistake made it is there responsibility to fix it not mine or yours.

Why am I so ****ed? Because I had Yamaha issue a recall on my motorcycle, Why? because someone got killed when the trans locked up so to avoid futhure issue they issued a recall. Now the first recall was only on this one and that one even though the knew they were using the same parts on all of them. So when forced they took action but of course the problems I was having had never been heard of. Then they recall my motorcycle and I bring it in. 4 months later I get it back, but the warranty ran out while in the shop and Yamaha said they would not extend it and were true ****** about it. Turns out that they built the 2004 bikes with the new parts then started fixing the bikes they had sold. Big companies think that because they have the money they can screw you any time they want and what kills me is that there are blind brand loyal sheep who will defend them. I am sueing Yamaha over the deal because I am tired of being taken advantage of, I ride my bike a lot so try being without your truck for 4 months and Ford saying SO! Or try paying out 3 grand to fix Fords problem and see how you like it.

 

Hey, hey, hey, relax amigo, you took that whole deal wrong. I wasn't covering for Ford, nor anyone else. If you'll recall from previous posts I've always been one to harp on "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" so if you're having a warranty issue don't let them off the hook, make them responsible. I think if you pay $XXX thousands for a vehicle if should perform AS PROMISED. I mean why else would you buy it ? I think it sucks that Ford had sparkplug blow out problems and is trying to hide it. If it happened to me at any mileage I'd hire an attorney and chase them to the ends of the earth, and I think anyone who has a legitimate beef should do the same, or the big companies do get away with it. I was saying that I'd bet the percentage of sparkplug blow-out was way less than everyone thinks. It's probably less than .1%, I don't know. On the other side of this coin is when a company is accused of something it really wasn't guilty of, and you know that happens too, think of the Suzuki rollover accusations and/or the Audi unintended acceleration fiasco. So for me to say it's Ford's fault, it's Suzuki's fault, it's Yamaha's fault, I can't. Maybe you can, if you have more info than I do. But I do not. I merely said the percentage was probably pretty low, I didn't pick a side. Peace, Ken

 

I had one blow out on my 99 v10. third cylinder back on the left side

 

The 5.4 is known for it too. The whole mod family is prone. Nothing a good insert won't fix.