I have an 04' Expedition with the 5.4L 2V. Was not aware of the plug blowout problem before I saw it on consumeraffairs.com. There are 139 pages of people complaining about it. Have to say it has me a bit concerned. I want to keep it till the wheels fall off but don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere if it does happen. Would appreciate hearing from anyone with alot of miles and no problems. Please feel free to brag!

 

Even 139 pages of people complaining about it amounts to a pretty small number of people. No doubt, the plug blowout issue is "too common", and even if using prevantative maintenance can keep the plugs happily in the engine that is an engineering screw-up that Ford should not have allowed out the door. Still, though, I find it hard to believe that even 10% of owners will ever have a problem. One friend of mine has a '00 F-150 with a 5.4 in it and 150k on the clock. He hadn't even heard of the plug blow-out issue until I mentioned it to him. Obviously he hasn't had any problems. My experience is that is the rule rather than the exception.

I would absolutely get the V10 over the 5.4. You'll be glad you got the extra power, trust me on that. As to the gears, I have an Excursion with 4.30s. It really isn't bad. The thing does rev higher than I would like, but it is not noisy, and the engine actually loves to rev anyway, so allowing it to do so is better for it. The thing has a lot of go with the gearing. If you ever plan on towing, it's the better option.

 

Thanks for your reply! I already have the 5.4 in my Expedition, no option for the V10, which I'm sure you're aware. I only have 56k on it, but I plan on having the plug torque checked at my next service.

Even though there have been only about a thousand complaints on that site, there must be many more that haven't posted. It's a big enough issue, in my opinion, that Ford should instruct their dealers to check the torque at a specified maintenance interval (60k, maybe). Any mechanics out there think this is a bad idea?

I know Ford is aware of this problem, since there are businesses springing up to address this issue (fulltorque.com/sparkplugins and blownoutsparkplug.com to name two).

As I had stated before, I plan on keeping my truck for a long time, but even a 5 or 10% chance of this happening is too much. Ford needs to do something about it.

 

At 56k I would have the plugs changed. Plugs are about done for at 50k even with platinum plugs. With the tens of thousands of modular motors out there even 500 people with plug problems ain't bad. Tons of people neglect there vehicles, especially things like plugs and etc.

Regular maint. will keep your 5.4l in top shape, able to squeeze out over 200k miles.

The entire earlier modular family was affected. (4.6l, 5.4l and 6.8l)

 

Hmm! funny you should pick #3 plug, that's the one that went ballistic on me, 1300 miles from home. I got it repaired before going home but it was a few hours driving to get to a dealer that would repair it. Other than the noise driving with the OD locked out it wasn't too bad.

As I posted above, I don't particularly want to have that experience again. I planned to buy a Timesert kit 5553 in case it happened again. I'm quite capable of doing the work myself. I priced a Timesert kit for the Triton engines here in Can. they wanted $800 for it (ridiculous) it can be purchased on eBay for $400, Ah! well!

Your statement of Time and the heat cycles. I hadn't considered that, but it makes a lot of sense to me. We have a camper (B+ motor home on an E350 Super Duty cut away) and if prevention rather than repair is possible I'd much rather go that way. To use nickel based anti-seize on the plug threads and torque them to the recommend specs. at the beginning of each season would be a lot less work than repairing a spark plug blow out on a E350.
The max miles I'd put on this Motor home would be about 4000 mi. a year. so mileage will not be my indicator for a plug change or check. Would you have any suggestions as to how often I should apply anti-seize and re-torque the plugs.

I wonder if a poll would prove anything, I'd bet the commonest SP blowouts on the E series would be #3 and #8 (most heat concentration) and the F series at the rear locations.
Cheers Willis