They are now blaming the timing chain failure on my oil change intervals. I do oil changes every 6,000 miles with Amsoil Signature series (the best they make). They are saying regardless of what oil is used it needs to be changed at 5,000 miles as they are seeing more and more timing chain failures due to prolonged oil changes on the 3.5's.
They are still covering it under warranty but who knows how long this one is going to take. I went ahead and ponied up the $1,900 for the premium Ford extended warranty for up to 101,000 miles....
Your dealer is full of it. Of course they are covering it under warranty, they can blame it on your oil change interval all they want, but considering Ford does NOT have a mileage-specific oil change interval unless it doesn’t get reset properly, what possible reason could they give for denying a warranty claim based on the oil change interval Ford recommends? Could this be to cover up the fact that they replaced a turbo for absolutely no reason because they said it was “rusty”? Which basically isn’t even possible on these turbos as nearly all the parts are made of material that doesn’t rust? Your dealer screwed up, and it’s easier to blame it on you and your maintenance habits than it is to accept responsibility for their mistake in not diagnosing it correctly the first time. Any claim they have to knowing about the EcoBoost was lost as soon as they showed their ignorance by blaming a rusty turbo.
There isn’t any variation on the issue of oil change interval. The 2011-18 manuals all say the same thing: change when the computer says to using 5W-30 synthetic or synthetic blend. Ford has never made recommendations to either change the interval of the oil type.
The 5K miles number is due to that being the earliest the computer will tell you to do an oil change based on usage. The 10K miles is the longest it will go. It came from the engineers, not the lawyers.
If you want to change it sooner, have at it. You aren’t wrong. I have 65K miles on a truck with 6 oil changes and my wife has 85K miles on a truck with 8. I’ve read enough about the EB to firmly believe the odds of overly long intervals causing an issue to be small.
The EcoBoost timing chain issue and matching TSB was issued for 2011-14 engines. They revised the timing chain and tensioner design with the update for the 15 F-150 they did. This is the design our trucks have, and I haven’t seen a ton of complaints about timing chains on the 15+ engines. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but everything has a chance of failure. The issue on the earlier engines may not have been as widespread as you’d believe based upon reading forums. You naturally hear about the failures, but extrapolating the total number of failures versus total number of engines is nearly impossible. I wouldn’t live in fear my EB is going to come apart unexpectedly some day.
