Sell or Part Out 2002 V10 Excurs?
 

V10, 4x4. It has ~150k on it, with a misfire on cylinder 1, which may have been the cause of three separate dyings at stoplights.
We do not have the money to diagnose at a mechanic. Very reputable, they said the intake would have to come off to find the cause. At least $1000.
Have had several calls on it, but nobody wants to buy an unreliable vehicle they would have to fix.
Would parting it out get more $$ than the whole thing? Is anyone even in the market for Excursion parts to that extent?

Opinions? What would you all do?
I am very mechanical (no pro tools though), but the modular complexities scare me too much to attempt any disassembly myself. Also lack of garage space for working.

Thanks,
Andrew

I would hate to get rid of it without knowing at least what would be an estimate to repair. If you just get rid of it what will you replace it with? It may be cheaper to fix what you have rather than buy someone else's problem, unless you don't need the capability of the x and have something else to drive.

The estimate was ~$1000 simply for diagnosis of misfire. Then repairs after that.
We have the trusty old F-350 '04 crew cab V10. So that gets us by, though the wife does not favor driving the kids around in it. (I drive a Mule less than a mile to work, so that helps!)

Seems harsh to remove the intake to diagnose a misfire. Seems even harsher to part it out because of a misfire.

Have you entertained the idea of just possibly needing a new COP? They can be had on ebay for cheap.

The shop has been very honest with previous work on other vehicles, so I do trust what they say the diagnosis would entail.
I have done several COPs already on other cylinders prior to this and they tried that as well on the misfiring cylinder.

Yes, the parting out seems extreme to me as well, yet I just wonder who wants to buy a semi-reliable vehicle in such state. Hence, the opinion poll.

Here's what I would do. Take this with a grain of salt, because I'm no modular expert, but try this:

Clear all codes with a code reader. Find cylinder #1. Remove coil. Find cylinder #2. Remove coil. Install #2 cylinder's coil on cylinder #1's plug. Install cylinder #1's coil on cylinder #2's plug. Start vehicle. Look for MIL to illuminate. If it does, check the code. See if code followed the plug (if it now reads misfire #2 cylinder). If it didn't, try the same thing with the spark plugs, swapping the #2 spark plug into the #1 cylinder.

Basically, eliminate the variable. If you can self-diagnose the problem by moving ignition components from your dead or misfiring cylinder to a known good cylinder and see if the problems follow the component swap, you may be able to avoid paying $1000 for a shop to simply diagnose a problem.

Just my 2 cents.

Ah, I came in after your reply. Sorry.

Is it just me or does $1000 to only diagnose something unbelievably high?

I agree with slowlanemcvane, try to eliminate the simple things first, you should be able to at least narrow down the issue to 2-3 items that you might be able to swap or replace hopefully without costing you too much.

As far as parting out a vehicle, usually the cars are worth much more in parts than as a whole, the reason chop shops exist :D

BUT

What normally happens is people pick the most popular parts first and then you're stuck with the leftovers for who knows how long. If you have the room to have EX parts lying around indefinitely then it shouldn't be an issue. Most of us don't have that luxury or care to drag out the experience.

[EDIT]

I also wanted to add that around my neck of the woods (Ontario, Canada) you can find a V10 "parts" truck for around $1500/2000. At the auction you can get a truck in decent shape generally for $2500 to $5000

At the time, I was so shocked at the thought of a bill of that amount, I missed a bit of what they said. Something (engine, I presume?) needed to be dropped or lowered in order to get the intake, etc off to inspect heads and make sure it was not a valve train issue. That was the main point of cost, I believe.
Does that procedure sound correct for that diagnosis? All I have ever done are early(good ol' days) carbureted Ford big blocks.

Go to a different shop.

Could also be a fuel injector issue. I've run into this before, where an intermittently faulty injector would randomly fail and it would cause a misfire condition.

No reason why the shop would be looking at doing a body lift or engine drop without first ruling out the stuff that they can test with the engine or body in place.

As jayjjcc said, find a different shop, this one is trying to give you the once-over.

I would call a Ford Dealer and ask them how they would diagnose a misfire. Their diagnostic services are usually a few hundred. I'm not saying you get it repaired there but at least have them identify the problem. I would be very surprised if they couldn't just hook up the car to their computers/tools and tell you what the problem is. Remove the intake is way extreme to figure out a misfire. I also seriously doubt that the valve train is causing the misfire. That's the last place I'd look.

I agree with wrxin, pulling the intake seems extreme! Try a different shop.

Go with the coil swap... Free way of checking COP. I've never heard of removing the intake for a misfire...

Post on the V10 forum for more ideas.


$1000 diagnosis tells me they don't want to work on the truck.