I recently bought a 2002 Ranger 2WD 2.3L A/C 99,000 from a wholesare dealer and at the first fill-up the ‘Check Engine’ light came on. The little truck would not pass my state's smog check (code said "Intake Manifold Runner"). I took the truck to the local Ford dealership (good reputation - I'd never been there before) to let them tell me what the trouble was.

Although their service department diagnosed the trouble as a cracked intake manifold ($830+ r&r) the wholesale dealer had his mechanic look at the truck and he found a broken vacuum hose which he replaced. The ‘Check Engine’ light went out, I passed the smog check and as three weeks later, the light is still out even though I have not replaced the intake manifold – the truck runs great.

Here's my questions (sorry to take so long) Am I done with this problem or do you think the intake manifold might actually be cracked? Does the dealer owe me the diagnostics fee ($155)?

 

If you do in fact have a cracked intake manifold, you will have other signs. Your antifreeze will get burned off somewhere. Either leaking where you can visually see it or it will burn off through the exhaust. Either way, your coolant level will drop. Check it and if the level drops then you have a problem. You can also see the coolant foaming inside the radiator. You can also pull the dip stick and see if there is any water in the oil. Other than that you should be OK. I would talk to the dealer and see if they eye-balled it or actually pressure tested the system. Just my 2 cents. Good luck.

ondgas
Runnin AMucK Motorsports

 

Welcome to FTE jondowd. Im glad you chose the best site on the net for Ford-Trucks! See you around the boards!!

Matt

 

Well. As I mentioned above, the local dealer diagnosed my 'check engine light' trouble as a cracked intake manifold, but the seller found a broken vacuum line an solved the problem. I wondered if the dealer owed me the the fee I paid for his mis-diagnosis and wrote him in plain detail about it in the 'customer service' questionaire they sent me. Well today's mail brought a check repaying me for the entire visit! For every bad experience we read about seems like there is seldom good news like this, but this dealer has gone a long way towards making friends with me : - )

 

Excellent, When you go to buy a new vehicle, give him a chance at it.
Dave

 

That is good news, and I totally agree with Dave, that dealer has earned a chance to have your business, both for buying another vehicle and for service. Not many will do something like that, and when they do they are showing that honesty is more important than a couple of bucks.

 

I'd give this dealer another chance, but I'd still be a little wary. This is a pretty bad misdiagnosis and what you can't tell is if what happened here was a technician attempting to get a large job instead of a small one. This kind of thing goes on all the time and vehicles are so sophisticated these days most customers won't have the savvy to know to question if someone has looked beyond the computer or to check for classic secondary symptoms [or someone who does that for them, here the wholesaler's mechanic]. Unfortunately these days with improved vehicle reliability it is more difficult for some techs to get the big jobs that make for better pay. They don't make much money doing oil changes and rotating tires. So sometimes you see this kind of thing happen on purpose rather than by accident. Your quick refund check could have been for that reason. The service manager might have snuffed it out after being tipped off from what you wrote.

In fact, it is not always the just the techs either. There is more pressure for the back end of the dealership to make money than ever before, given the low margins there are on new vehicle sales. There are commissions and incentives in some service departments. I hope this was an honest oversight. I'd be interested in how busy this service department is [the busier the better, happy techs have lots of cars to work on] and how long the techs have been on the job at that dealer [high turnover is an indicator of issues in the department]. I'd give this dealer the benefit of the doubt too, but I'd still be inquisitive at this stage. My two cents.

 

Welcome to FTE! Glad to hear it all worked out well for you. Thanks for posting the problem and it's resolution. I have an 04 Ranger with the 2.3L I4 so I'll keep it in mind if I ever have a similar problem.

Personally I cringe whenever I have to let someone else work on one of my vehicles. Too many bad experiences of my own and too many stories like this one.

 

Always pays to get a second opinion, I would have asked to see the crack. If you had taken their word for it you would have been out about 1000 bucks for nothing. Be suspicious of this guy.

 

If it were me, I'd be running as fast and long as you could away from this dealership. Cracked intake manifold vs. broken vacuum line? What kind of idiots are they employing that would miss that one?

Now, taking the assumption that the intake manifold actually is cracked, it's doubtful your truck would run well at all, so much depends on the vacuum created by the intake manifold that you'd see failures across the board. Heck on my 2000, the intake manifold controls vacuum for the FI, the EGR, the brake booster, you name it. Think of the havoc that would play with your truck to lose that many systems.

 

Think about it for a second. Would you send your elderly aunt there for service? She wouldn't know an intake from a grommet. "Oh, your frambulator is perzifatzed. You need a new one and we happen to have the last one made in stock. Boy are you lucky. We also have to change the air in your tires...."
No thanks. VERY poor diagnosis, with a very fat bottom line for the dealer & mech. They did not do what they should have, which is do a full inspection before coming up with the most expensive diagnosis they could. I'd be leery, very leery. They just (maybe) got caught trying something, and coughed up the refund because it was too obvious to check vacuum hoses before checking a manifold.
Just my 2 cents.
tom