PSA: Coolant LEAK (Possibly recall related)

[me32]

Doesn't sound good

 

[XuperXero]

Update:

Car wouldn't start this morning, kept cranking. Gave it 3/4 throttle gas and it fired up. Idled rough for a few seconds then settled down. My first guess was coolant in combustion chamber. I prayed it to be not true.

But no, my worse fear was confirmed later on when I had to drive it again and this time it started without gas but with some sputtering and rough idle then... huge pile of white smoke behind me (I didn't notice or pay attention in first start up because my underground parking is too dark). Sounds like head gasket's gone. Drove it to a shop, now I'm deciding what to do.

The shop informed me that for aluminum engines, the head is most likely warped when I told them I hit 120C twice (248F). They're suggesting I do an engine swap. But at 120C the cluster temp gauge is 7/8 bar which isn't all the way overheated, anybody know if 120C is enough to warp the head?

 

[me32]

Update:

Car wouldn't start this morning, kept cranking. Gave it 3/4 throttle gas and it fired up. Idled rough for a few seconds then settled down. My first guess was coolant in combustion chamber. I prayed it to be not true.

But no, my worse fear was confirmed later on when I had to drive it again and this time it started without gas but with some sputtering and rough idle then... huge pile of white smoke behind me (I didn't notice or pay attention in first start up because my underground parking is too dark). Sounds like head gasket's gone. Drove it to a shop, now I'm deciding what to do.

The shop informed me that for aluminum engines, the head is most likely warped when I told them I hit 120C twice (248F). They're suggesting I do an engine swap. But at 120C the cluster temp gauge is 7/8 bar which isn't all the way overheated, anybody know if 120C is enough to warp the head?

Depends how long

 

[XuperXero]

Depends how long

Max 5 minutes.

 

[me32]

Max 5 minutes.

Well if it's been an on going thing without you knowing it could warp. Only way to really be sure is to pull the head.

 

[XuperXero]

Currently 79,500 km on this engine. But just ordered second hand engine, not worth the labor cost to pull the head and check, getting the timing right is also a big concern due to lack of proper support, knowledge and tools here. So I just went with a long block, said to be between 20k-30k km.
$500 for the swap or $1000 just to pull the head and check. Long block $1300.
Made more sense to just do the long block for $1800 and not worry about what else is damaged in this engine aside from head gasket.

But I'll be disassembling the original engine myself to satisfy my curiosity after the swap. Maybe I'll wire cut it to expose the internals and fix a glass on top, would make a neat coffee table.

This is the first time I've heard of engine failure below 100k all because of the coolant loss, and momentarily overheating. Ford actually engineered this to run at 99C for emissions purpose with very little room of safety in case the cooling system failed. This is not funny and unnecessary waste of my money. The engine was running perfectly fine before all this. Could have been easily avoided if Ford had done it right in the first place with quality parts and maybe some larger margin for cluster gauge temp. Consider me very disappointed.

Check your coolant lines, tank and level regularly guys.

 

[me32]

Currently 79,500 km on this engine. But just ordered second hand engine, not worth the labor cost to pull the head and check, getting the timing right is also a big concern due to lack of proper support, knowledge and tools here. So I just went with a long block, said to be between 20k-30k km.
$500 for the swap or $1000 just to pull the head and check. Long block $1300.
Made more sense to just do the long block for $1800 and not worry about what else is damaged in this engine aside from head gasket.

But I'll be disassembling the original engine myself to satisfy my curiosity after the swap. Maybe I'll wire cut it to expose the internals and fix a glass on top, would make a neat coffee table.

This is the first time I've heard of engine failure below 100k all because of the coolant loss, and momentarily overheating. Ford actually engineered this to run at 99C for emissions purpose with very little room of safety in case the cooling system failed. This is not funny and unnecessary waste of my money. The engine was running perfectly fine before all this. Could have been easily avoided if Ford had done it right in the first place with quality parts and maybe some larger margin for cluster gauge temp. Consider me very disappointed.

Check your coolant lines, tank and level regularly guys.

Well don't you have a 1st year run of this engine? Much like the fusion and escape. Just like Any thing it's a learning experience. Unfortunately for us customers we are basically the tester and when things fail we end up paying for it while the manufacturer learns to improve it. Good advice for all us to regularly check our fluids. I was taught at a young age to always check your fluids, tire pressure, etc every couple weeks or when getting gas. People forget things like that. Even in our dmv hand book in ca it says to always check your car and make sure everything is working every couple weeks. For commercial you gotta check every thing every time before you can drive a truck.