Ford Ecoboost engine replacement required after only 21,000 miles & Just out of warranty

motormad99

My wife's 3-year old Focus AciveX auto, developed a missfire and Ford has diagnosed "Cylinder 3 massive drop on compression, suspect valves have failed causing major compression loss. Vehicle requires engine replacement to rectify".

They mentioned that it would be too costly to strip down the engine to confirm the root cause of the failure..... So gone are the days when you could replace a valve or head gasket??

As the car is 7-months out of warranty, even though it has full Ford service history and has only done 21,000 miles, Ford's original "Goodwill" offer was only £1480 (18.5% of the cost of a new engine from Ford).

After another email to Ford they increased their offer to £4300 (54%), but they have said it is their final offer and gave us the contact details of the Motor Ombudsman.

My wife phoned the Ombudsman and they recommended taking the final offer, as the fault did not occur during warranty period.

So it looks like my wife will have to find £3600 towards the final cost of the engine replacement (£8000 by Ford with a 1-year warranty), this after paying £20,000 for the car in March.....unless anyone has any ideas?

Mark_d

£20k is a lot to spend on a 3 year old Ford.  Bad luck happens and it's unfortunate that your wife has this huge repair bill.  Personally I've never spent more than £5k on a car but if I had £20k for a new/nearly new car then I would consider long-term rental schemes.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Ford Ecoboost engine

Isn't this the engine that fails on an industrial scale?

AKMG

So sorry you find yourself in that expensive position.

Ex Ecoboost owner here (Not a Focus however), your situation is exactly why I part exchanged it recently, despite it being low mileage and fully serviced by authorised Ford garages.

Mine was an older manual, but during my research while I was still deciding whether to keep it or not, I came across some information regarding Ford USA covering engine replacements on automatic variants, and I mean full, comprehensive cost cover, it wasn’t applicable to my vehicle however so I didn’t read much into it, but just thought you might want to do some further digging before accepting any offers, specially if it’s not an offer with an expiry date.

Hope everything works out well for you in the end.

AKMG

The recalls/engine replacements I read about included vehicles that were out of standard warranty by the way, as long as they were serviced by Ford (Again, going by memory, not solid information).

facade

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Ford Ecoboost engine

Isn't this the engine that fails on an industrial scale?

Yes, but Ford have made gazillions of them, so there are many that give faultless service.

The Big Flaw with them now they can keep the water inside is not using the ever so special oil, and changing it regularly so contaminants don't build up and damage the wet belt.

Ones that have been looked after often get to the (horrendously expensive) belt change interval without a problem, and the belt is still in good condition (as opposed to blocking the oil ways).

Ones with full ford service history coming up to belt change are bought by traders for cheap money as the owners won't pay £2000 for a belt change, but if you can get the belt changed at "mates rates - £800 or so, they can be punted out at a tidy profit with "brand new wet belt".

Anyway, back to the OP

A brand new engine that you can ensure is regularly serviced by Ford is actually A Good Idea if the car is a keeper.

£3600 is a lot of money, but it will also help the resale value, whereas an engine from the scrappy that is "a good 'un" (possibly) won't!

I doubt if it can be repaired for much less than £3600 at a garage, pity Ford won't stump up £4300 cash, then a repair or a scrapyard engine would be a better bet as you'd have change.

(Cynically, all Ford are really offering is to supply & fit an engine at "mates rates", I'd be surprised if you aren't covering their costs with £3600)

AKMG

facade said:

Yes, but Ford have made gazillions of them, so there are many that give faultless service.

The Big Flaw with them now they can keep the water inside is not using the ever so special oil, and changing it regularly so contaminants don't build up and damage the wet belt.

Ones that have been looked after often get to the (horrendously expensive) belt change interval without a problem, and the belt is still in good condition (as opposed to blocking the oil ways).

Ones with full ford service history coming up to belt change are bought by traders for cheap money as the owners won't pay £2000 for a belt change, but if you can get the belt changed at "mates rates - £800 or so, they can be punted out at a tidy profit with "brand new wet belt".

Anyway, back to the OP

A brand new engine that you can ensure is regularly serviced by Ford is actually A Good Idea if the car is a keeper.

£3600 is a lot of money, but it will also help the resale value, whereas an engine from the scrappy that is "a good 'un" (possibly) won't!

I doubt if it can be repaired for much less than £3600 at a garage, pity Ford won't stump up £4300 cash, then a repair or a scrapyard engine would be a better bet as you'd have change.

(Cynically, all Ford are really offering is to supply & fit an engine at "mates rates", I'd be surprised if you aren't covering their costs with £3600)

The wet belt itself wouldn’t have been a huge problem if:

A- Means to inspect the belt without having to preform a brain surgery on the engine was taken into consideration during the design process.

B- The cost of the belt replacement wasn’t a considerable chunk of the value of the vehicle by the time that service is due, it’s just commercially unviable, unless someone is happy to keep an ageing vehicle for even longer.

And yes, millions of them are on the road with no issues whatsoever, sadly not the one the OP got.

fatbelly

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Ford Ecoboost engine

Isn't this the engine that fails on an industrial scale?

I thought that was just the 1.0 engine

Mildly_Miffed

facade said:

Ones with full ford service history coming up to belt change are bought by traders for cheap money as the owners won't pay £2000 for a belt change, but if you can get the belt changed at "mates rates - £800 or so, they can be punted out at a tidy profit with "brand new wet belt".

The belt kit is £200-odd.
There is no way on this earth that there is anything close to 20 hours of labour required.

Alanp

I had my engine replaced in my 2020 puma, fortunately it was still under warranty, it didn’t fail spectacularly it just made a noise from the top end which, the dealer, nor Ford could get the parts for so it was cheaper and quicker to replace with a brand new complete engine, afaik, the latest ecoboost engines are chain driven, I think the problem is the oil pump is also belt driven, this tends to break up and block the oil strainer which then starves the engine of oil, the early failures were with the degas pipes that corroded and lost the coolant which caused the engine to overheat and fail…

facade

Mildly_Miffed said:

facade said:

Ones with full ford service history coming up to belt change are bought by traders for cheap money as the owners won't pay £2000 for a belt change, but if you can get the belt changed at "mates rates - £800 or so, they can be punted out at a tidy profit with "brand new wet belt".

The belt kit is £200-odd.
There is no way on this earth that there is anything close to 20 hours of labour required.

I wouldn't touch one.

Ford charge £2000 inc VAT

An independent charges nearer £1200 (£1000 + VAT)

"Mates rates" are about £800 (£640 + VAT), and a trader won't pay the VAT (Actually they will, as they pay VAT on the mark up, and the repair came out of the mark up).

An FSH car needing a belt is worth £2000 below normal trade as the owner knows full well that it costs £2000 to change it so there is a decent profit in FSH cars to traders, and they make good cars when they are done.