first thanks this forum is great. i have a problem hopefully someone can help me. i have 99 expedition and i am leaving a small drop of oil everytime when i shut it off. the local mech says it is my headgasket and i called my local ford service and he siad it is a huge pain to fix and is very costly. he said if i check my oil on a regular bases and keep it at max i will be ok as long as the leak doesnt get any worse. i love my ford and have had them my whole life. my question is this true what he said, if i monitor it, it will be ok. it is just oil no coolant. the truck runs awesome and the only other problem i have is sometimes when i fill her up it goes to 430 miles till empty then i go the next time and it say 330 . it is running like new and i have 87,000 on her. i dont want to get rid of her and the headgasket is to costly for a single father of 3 small kids. so please somebody help me if you can. i am desperate. bill (bmadsen69@msn.com)

 

did your mechanic actually look at it or is he guessing? if it's just a few drips of oil i wouldn't worry about it. just keep an eye on your oil level.

 

Search for oil head gasket leak, there are hundreds of threads on this. It had to do with a machining flaw way back when it was made. Either cough up 1000 dollars or live with it. It is annoying because it drips on the exhaust. I added a heat blanket that welders and plumbers use above the exhaust to collect the drips. To my surprise it has never become saturated or even shown signs of burning.

Dave

 

Ford publicly recognized this problem several years ago and then did absolutely nothing about it (I guess that happens when your company is drowning in red ink). Any way, cars and trucks have been leaking oil and other fluids since the day they were invented. That said, I'd just live with it and monitor the situation to make sure it doesn't get any worse.

 

Well I wouldn't say they did "absolutely nothing" about it. They replaced a lot of headgaskets under warranty...which then ALSO leaked. And if you were out of warranty they explained that you were totally hosed. So that's something...just something negative.
On the positive side: mine leaks and I just ignore it. As I recall the folks who really were screwed had coolant-oil leak problems...

 

Beg to differ. At 48K I whined to Corporate Customer Service about my 99 leaking oil. The dealer is not going to do anything for you without Corporate forcing them. They paid 2/3d's of the head gasket replacement which was 40K ago. So far, so good. That's 2/3d's of an estimated $2K. They called it a good faith warranty extension since I had occasionally used the selling dealer for service. I referred to this site and the numerous head gasket oil leak threads and got some satisfaction. I'm presently fighting with Subaru about a similar issue - head gasket leaking coolant externally at 144K. They are willing to pay 1/3d of the repair cost because that issue is also well documented on the web. I'm a bit over warranty there also. You need to argue your point with the right people and don't give up easily.

 

Thats great you got some help with the leak. For those of us that didnt want to pay somebody 50 bucks to change our oil, they refused to do anything. They made it perfectly clear at the dealership that had I "used their maintenance services" they might be able to help me out. That is such a bunch of crap I cant believe it.

 

I change my own oil and filter every 3K - not the dealer. They saw the truck for warranty recalls and did a brake job because I had a weak moment. I did have them change trans and transfer case fluid every 15K to get rid of the shudder on take-off. I'd do that job too if there was a drain plug and you didn't have to drop the whole pan. If I spent $800.00 total that was a lot before the head gasket leak. I'm not defending Ford or Ford quality, just stating that for whatever reason I got some satisfaction from Corporate.

 

I should have used your dealership, I didnt get near that kind of action from mine. I think they were going to throw me out.

 

I am happy to stand corrected. Mine was fixxed once and still leaks a little. But if anybody is getting a post warranty period response...then I salute that dealer, or corporate, whoever was responsible.