Help me stay a Ford man

[bigcars]

Overheated engine. Serpentine belt completely shredded. Oil all over the place. I had higher expectations of a 2015 Expedition EL with mileage just getting into the 60Ks. Granted, as a Ford Certified used vehicle it does has a Powertrain Warranty. But there’s lots of fine print. Any thoughts?

 

[Copper93]

Do you know what started the problem? Sounds like a cascading effect? Belt break and lead to the other issues?

 

[bigcars]

Not sure what started things. We were towing an RV on a hot day. Everything running good as usual. An overheating warning and a check charging system warning came on at the same time. Got right off the road. I could see that it had spit out some coolant. Then I saw the shredded belt and oil on the ground. Not sure how the oil fits into the picture.

 

[powerboatr]

so big question, did you change the belt and start her up to see if everything is normal
ecm has many fail safes, was coolant expelling from the surge tank or somewhere else?
belts fail, your geographic location, 60k is good for a belt considering all the wintry crap you deal with.
is the tension-er smooth and working

 

[Habbibie]

Assuming you over heated the motor for a while before you realized the belt has shredded off, seeing the belt keeps the alternator (charging system), water pump (cooling system) working. Not sure about the oil maybe it's your power steering?

 

[bigcars]

so big question, did you change the belt and start her up to see if everything is normal
ecm has many fail safes, was coolant expelling from the surge tank or somewhere else?
belts fail, your geographic location, 60k is good for a belt considering all the wintry crap you deal with.
is the tension-er smooth and working

It did look like the coolant expelled from the surge tank. I was pretty far from home and with the warranty I had it towed to a Ford dealer. I didn’t even try getting into anything. I figured Ford would be frown on messing with it yourself.

 

[bigcars]

Assuming you over heated the motor for a while before you realized the belt has shredded off, seeing the belt keeps the alternator (charging system), water pump (cooling system) working. Not sure about the oil maybe it's your power steering?

The alternator and the water pump makes sense. Wishing it was the power steering fluid. But it’s motor oil.

 

[powerboatr]

engine brain should have noticed right away if alternator stopped turning or charging. triggering lights and warnings.
water pump stopped pretty fast as well and this should also trigger the wrench light.

in my bus, i blew a clamp on the coolant hose, it sprayed coolant everywhere from under the hose clamp, and set off a LOW coolant light( my first indication), which tripped off cruise, and engine brake then the dreaded DANGER will Robinson shut off the engine light , followed by RED stop now lights, never did engine temp go above 212F.
replaced clamp and refilled the 2 quarts of fluid loss and off we went

do you remember if the temp spiked or was it all just warning lights
yes let warranty take over. I know they can plug in and see if any temps were exceeded. sucks to have road problems.

 

[Boostedbus]

I don’t think you can lose faith in any make over a belt failure if that was the culprit. You can pick up debris on highway that could kick a belt off. I guess not as likely with the diaper underneath. Maybe the oil leak came first and wet the belt causing it to slip and fail.i guess the dealer will diagnose what happened in what order.

 

[Habbibie]

Well when my belt shredded on my expy before I immediately knew, I lost the AC immediately and when I went to pull over I noticed the steering required two hands and some muscle to turn it, those are usually the first indicators before the motor detects under charging or over heating

 

[Boostedbus]

Well when my belt shredded on my expy before I immediately knew, I lost the AC immediately and when I went to pull over I noticed the steering required two hands and some muscle to turn it, those are usually the first indicators before the motor detects under charging or over heating

. Yeah I think the 15-17’s have electric steering

 

[bigcars]

engine brain should have noticed right away if alternator stopped turning or charging. triggering lights and warnings.
water pump stopped pretty fast as well and this should also trigger the wrench light.

in my bus, i blew a clamp on the coolant hose, it sprayed coolant everywhere from under the hose clamp, and set off a LOW coolant light( my first indication), which tripped off cruise, and engine brake then the dreaded DANGER will Robinson shut off the engine light , followed by RED stop now lights, never did engine temp go above 212F.
replaced clamp and refilled the 2 quarts of fluid loss and off we went

do you remember if the temp spiked or was it all just warning lights
yes let warranty take over. I know they can plug in and see if any temps were exceeded. sucks to have road problems.

Well, there’s something I don’t like about the Type 3 information display. You have to cycle through to get to the stuff you’d like to have up all the time. I’d like to be able to see the OIL PRESSURE, OIL TEMP, TRANSMISSION TEMP, and ENGINE COOLANT TEMP all the time. But you lose these when you view other features.

I didn’t have the ENGINE COOLANT TEMP displayed, so I didn’t note how quick it climbed. So I’d say “it was all just warning lights” out of the blue.

 

[bigcars]

I don’t think you can lose faith in any make over a belt failure if that was the culprit. You can pick up debris on highway that could kick a belt off. I guess not as likely with the diaper underneath. Maybe the oil leak came first and wet the belt causing it to slip and fail.i guess the dealer will diagnose what happened in what order.

Perhaps I’m just frazzled because my anti-Ford “friends” went straight to the worst case. Like something with the turbo, or something simple happened and it may have damaged the turbo.

 

[bigcars]

. Yeah I think the 15-17’s have electric steering

That must be the case. The steering was ok the whole time.

 

[Boostedbus]

I wonder if the belt damaged the oil filter when it shredded.... it’s right next to it.... could be the oil leak

 

[coolzzy]

The turbos are cooled by oil and coolant I believe. You could have overheated the turbo or blown an oil cooler line. Either way, the certified warranty will cover it, there should be no deductible if you have less than 60k miles, $100 bucks if you are over 60k. CPO covers the turbos water pump, and all internally lubricated parts, 5/60 original powertrain covers it all so you should be fine except for being out a tow vehicle while they fix it.

 

[bigcars]

I wonder if the belt damaged the oil filter when it shredded.... it’s right next to it.... could be the oil leak

Hoping for something simple like that

 

[bigcars]

The turbos are cooled by oil and coolant I believe. You could have overheated the turbo or blown an oil cooler line. Either way, the certified warranty will cover it, there should be no deductible if you have less than 60k miles, $100 bucks if you are over 60k. CPO covers the turbos water pump, and all internally lubricated parts, 5/60 original powertrain covers it all so you should be fine except for being out a tow vehicle while they fix it.

That doesn’t sound too bad. Ultimately I’ll be interested not only in what happened, but why. I’m a little over 60K, and that just seems too new to be getting stranded. Maybe I’m just used to the Town Cars and Crown Vics. I don’t recall any breakdowns until well past 100K. Of course, I wasn’t doing any towing with them either.

 

[Boostedbus]

That doesn’t sound too bad. Ultimately I’ll be interested not only in what happened, but why. I’m a little over 60K, and that just seems too new to be getting stranded. Maybe I’m just used to the Town Cars and Crown Vics. I don’t recall any breakdowns until well past 100K. Of course, I wasn’t doing any towing with them either.

Yeah towing on a hot day with accessories on like front and rear A/C making the Compressor pull hard will sometimes make the weak link show up.In this case I believe it was just belt failure and I’d bet it Wacked the oil filter, it’s right in the line of Fire.

 

[J_82]

Certified pre owned just get it fixed shouldn’t be a problem.