This is about my 2009 5.4L (135K miles).
So, driving home from work, engine gets REAL rough, stumbling badly, and the engine light comes on. I take it directly to an autolab near my house for a quick scan for codes.
Yep, a P300 (random misfire), plus a P304 (misfire on 4). Hundreds of forums on this topic and many ways the story can go, but none like mine (that I've seen)..... which I am about to tell you.....
So, the troubleshooting begins...... I was pressed for time that night, so I paid the autolab to do a full diagnostic. Through the course of their diagnosis, the misfire codes increased to 303 and 308. They found nothing wrong with the airflow, or the COPS, and their conclusion was that the plugs were bad so their recommendation to me was to do a tune up. Now, they did not know that I had just gotten a tune up (plugs and fuel system clean and bunch of other regular maintenance) almost 1 year ago exactly by a Ford Dealer. Once I told them this, they were unsure what else it could be, but they recommended that I take it back to Dealer that did the tune up since I had 1 yr warranty. Before that, I asked them if they could do a cylinder compression test, but they did not have the right adapter to do this. (I was a little bothered about this, but later found out that it is VERY difficult to get your hands on a compression tester that has an adapter that fit into Ford's 5.4L 3V spark plug bore). So I paid them the 100 bucks diagnostic fee and took it over to the Ford Dealer that did my tune up.
The Ford Dealer basically told me that I would have to pay them to do a diagnostic even after I described my issue and after they verified the work that I had done their last year... they did confirm that the plugs were under warranty and if plugs were found to be the issue, they would be covered.
So, I reluctantly went forward with another diagnosis. But the customer service rep said "at least here at the dealer we have 'specialized equipment' to check the cylinders". I later found out that they don't do a traditional compression test on cylinders, they now do what's called a power balance test with their scan tools.....
Anyway, so I get a voice mail the next day from the service guy....."Hey it's me.....from Ford.... unfortunately it looks like your gonna need some engine work...... please call back......"
So I call the guy back and he says very casually...... "Yeah, you got engine failure, your #4 cylinder is completely dead. You need a new engine"..... To which I ask, "say what?.....a new engine? that's expensive isn't it?"..... to which he replies (again very casually)...."Yeah, it's about 8 Grand..... so, do you want us to order it?"........ I just laughed sarcastically and hung up.....
After I cooled off I called the guy back and told him I would just pick it up.... no way in hell I'm gonna pay a dealer that kind of money for a new engine. You can get a re-man for about $3000-$3500 and most sellers will help you find a reliable place to install it. I was thinking $4,500 worst case, or maybe just push the old girl into a river..... but I wasn't gonna do that, she's in really nice shape.
Now, fortunately, I have some totally awesome friends and relatives which I shared my experience. They love this kind of stuff, so they offered their help, and they assured me that there was "NO WAY I needed a NEW ENGINE!!!!". They came over and started troubleshooting and diagnosing, looking at you tube and forums, etc... at one point, my buddy starts feeling the intake and notices it's VERY hot in the back (right over top of #4!). He deduces that there's a valve issue at bank #4 and that the exhaust is blowing back up into the intake making it hot and causing the misfire. Now bank 3 and 8 (which also were throwing mis-fire codes) are adjacent to 4, so he goes on to deduce that the exhaust blow back is crossing over to the those 2 banks causing them to misfire......
So, we start making plans to go as far as pulling off the head on the passenger side thinking we'll get it machined and replace any damaged parts. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very difficult and there wasn't too much to pull out of the engine compartment to get access to pull the valve cover off the passenger side. Once the intake was out, there was plenty of access.
To our amazement, as soon as the valve cover came off, one of my buddies immediately points and says, "hey look, you got a broken spring".....
A BROKEN SPRING!!!!! NO Kidding!! A 4 DOLLAR SPRING!!!!! Can you believe that?..... OK, I could go on and share with you some of the calamity that occurred while replacing that spring, it wasn't a completely simple task because thanks to Ford it took a very very special tool to remove the old broken one and install the new one (which we spent days tracking one down), but I will spare you that. I was also lucky that the valve and stem was not bent. The good news, with spring replaced and putting all back together, a few new gaskets, new plugs (yeah, went ahead and replaced 'em all again since 3 of them were fouled out from the exhaust), at the expense of a couple nights in my garage with my buddies and about 100 bucks worth of parts/cleaner/fresh coolant and miscellaneous..... all went well and we are running smoothly!
Now, you've read my story, and my only question to all you fine folks..... what would you say to the guy at the Dealer that told me I needed a new engine for $8000?
So, driving home from work, engine gets REAL rough, stumbling badly, and the engine light comes on. I take it directly to an autolab near my house for a quick scan for codes.
Yep, a P300 (random misfire), plus a P304 (misfire on 4). Hundreds of forums on this topic and many ways the story can go, but none like mine (that I've seen)..... which I am about to tell you.....
So, the troubleshooting begins...... I was pressed for time that night, so I paid the autolab to do a full diagnostic. Through the course of their diagnosis, the misfire codes increased to 303 and 308. They found nothing wrong with the airflow, or the COPS, and their conclusion was that the plugs were bad so their recommendation to me was to do a tune up. Now, they did not know that I had just gotten a tune up (plugs and fuel system clean and bunch of other regular maintenance) almost 1 year ago exactly by a Ford Dealer. Once I told them this, they were unsure what else it could be, but they recommended that I take it back to Dealer that did the tune up since I had 1 yr warranty. Before that, I asked them if they could do a cylinder compression test, but they did not have the right adapter to do this. (I was a little bothered about this, but later found out that it is VERY difficult to get your hands on a compression tester that has an adapter that fit into Ford's 5.4L 3V spark plug bore). So I paid them the 100 bucks diagnostic fee and took it over to the Ford Dealer that did my tune up.
The Ford Dealer basically told me that I would have to pay them to do a diagnostic even after I described my issue and after they verified the work that I had done their last year... they did confirm that the plugs were under warranty and if plugs were found to be the issue, they would be covered.
So, I reluctantly went forward with another diagnosis. But the customer service rep said "at least here at the dealer we have 'specialized equipment' to check the cylinders". I later found out that they don't do a traditional compression test on cylinders, they now do what's called a power balance test with their scan tools.....
Anyway, so I get a voice mail the next day from the service guy....."Hey it's me.....from Ford.... unfortunately it looks like your gonna need some engine work...... please call back......"
So I call the guy back and he says very casually...... "Yeah, you got engine failure, your #4 cylinder is completely dead. You need a new engine"..... To which I ask, "say what?.....a new engine? that's expensive isn't it?"..... to which he replies (again very casually)...."Yeah, it's about 8 Grand..... so, do you want us to order it?"........ I just laughed sarcastically and hung up.....
After I cooled off I called the guy back and told him I would just pick it up.... no way in hell I'm gonna pay a dealer that kind of money for a new engine. You can get a re-man for about $3000-$3500 and most sellers will help you find a reliable place to install it. I was thinking $4,500 worst case, or maybe just push the old girl into a river..... but I wasn't gonna do that, she's in really nice shape.
Now, fortunately, I have some totally awesome friends and relatives which I shared my experience. They love this kind of stuff, so they offered their help, and they assured me that there was "NO WAY I needed a NEW ENGINE!!!!". They came over and started troubleshooting and diagnosing, looking at you tube and forums, etc... at one point, my buddy starts feeling the intake and notices it's VERY hot in the back (right over top of #4!). He deduces that there's a valve issue at bank #4 and that the exhaust is blowing back up into the intake making it hot and causing the misfire. Now bank 3 and 8 (which also were throwing mis-fire codes) are adjacent to 4, so he goes on to deduce that the exhaust blow back is crossing over to the those 2 banks causing them to misfire......
So, we start making plans to go as far as pulling off the head on the passenger side thinking we'll get it machined and replace any damaged parts. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very difficult and there wasn't too much to pull out of the engine compartment to get access to pull the valve cover off the passenger side. Once the intake was out, there was plenty of access.
To our amazement, as soon as the valve cover came off, one of my buddies immediately points and says, "hey look, you got a broken spring".....
A BROKEN SPRING!!!!! NO Kidding!! A 4 DOLLAR SPRING!!!!! Can you believe that?..... OK, I could go on and share with you some of the calamity that occurred while replacing that spring, it wasn't a completely simple task because thanks to Ford it took a very very special tool to remove the old broken one and install the new one (which we spent days tracking one down), but I will spare you that. I was also lucky that the valve and stem was not bent. The good news, with spring replaced and putting all back together, a few new gaskets, new plugs (yeah, went ahead and replaced 'em all again since 3 of them were fouled out from the exhaust), at the expense of a couple nights in my garage with my buddies and about 100 bucks worth of parts/cleaner/fresh coolant and miscellaneous..... all went well and we are running smoothly!
Now, you've read my story, and my only question to all you fine folks..... what would you say to the guy at the Dealer that told me I needed a new engine for $8000?
