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There is a fix for the rattle, turn up your radio!!! the imfamous rattle is over rated and over stated. ford fixed it in 03 i believe. but even before 03, not all 4.0"s had the problem, just a few. some people can hear a rattle in a cottonball. joking aside i feel for those who had the problem, cause ford denied any malfunction on thier part, but yet they finally fixed it. i just don"t want people to be afraid of sohc 4.0, it"s a good soild power plant. i have not had any problem with my 04. my buddy has an 03 with over a 100,000 miles on his, no rattle. others on this site will chime in ,and i hope they will have a good report as well. It is a very good motor.
I have a 2001 SOHC with 50,000 mi on it. It's a very sporty engine in the light fanger. I haven't had any problems with the engine. The check engine light came on once, Ford fixed it for free because it was emissions related, but my spending 500 on the brakes might have something to do with it.
I've got an 01, and had the timing chain TSB done under warranty. Still makes a slight noise when the engine is cold. Since the "repair" I've had 32,000 trouble free miles.