I recently had my EGR cooler replaced on my 2006 F250 Diesel at the local Ford dealer. The day that I picked it up it started missing and blowing out black and white smoke. The dealer tore the engine apart and discovered that one of my cylinders was destroyed. The valves and top of the piston look like a grenade went off.

My extended warranty doesn't want to cover it because they say Ford must have dropped something in the intake when they did the cooler and of course Ford says that's not possible.

My question is, who should I be harrassing, Ford or the warranty people. Is it possible for something to get dropped into the intake when replacing the EGR cooler? If so, that seems like the most likely scenario since the engine blew the same day that I got it back from Ford.

Thanks for any comments you may have!

Glenn

 

Sure it's possible, but if a bolt was dropped in, you'd see thread marks mashed into the head's or the pistons. I've seen what a piston looks like with bolts mashed in. What probably happened is the EGR cooler being bad let water/coolant leak in everywhere into the intake, down into combustion chambers. It corrodes the valve guides and causes the valves to stick, then pistons make contact, whack valves, bend pushrods, break valves, valve pieces destroy cylinders...

My buddy had an 04 that did this exact same thing.


Actually the more I think about the cooler replacement, it'd be nearly impossible for a bolt to get in, especially if they didn't take the intake manifold off at all. It can be loosened up, and lifted slightly without removing it. The EGR cooler attaches to the BOTTOM of the intake manifold, so for a bolt to drop down, bounce off the valley of the block and up IN to the intake... I say bull.

I'd be siding with Ford on this, and going after your warranty company, IMO.

 

Thanks for the comments. It's hard to know who I should be harrassing. I'm looking at $11,000 for a new block so I can't just let it go and eat the cost. In my opinion, the warranty company should have to show me some evidence of a foreign object if they believe that was the cause. Dealing with insurance/warranty companies sucks! In case anyone is curious, my warranty is with MotorSilk.

Glenn

 

WOW. what a mess, I think the most important thing is what were the symptoms before Ford did the work? were they the same? I would think they would remove the intake for a cooler replacement, its quicker then trying to remove bolts that are impossible to get to, also if you have to lift the intake a little it is just as easy to take it out, my boy and I can do this in about 4 hours start to finish, so I think that a true Ford mechanic can do it just as fast.
Just as a note we had to tare down my sisters truck a second time because when we went to put the coolant bottle back on we could not find one of the bolts that holds it in place, we always put the bolts back in the holes but it wasn't there, so we did the safe thing and tore it down, We used magnets/mirrors/shop-van/fingers/everything to make sure the bolt was not in the intake port of the head, after we were sure we replaced everything and put a new bolt in for the missing one, we spent more time on that than the original repair/ now would the Ford guy do that? after all that would of been on HIS time.......

 

The symptoms were not the same. Before I took it to Ford my only real symptom was that the "wrench" was lighting up on the dashboard for limp home mode. The symptoms were totally different after I picked it up from Ford.

 

Thats crazy, i wish i knew how to post pics. 2 years ago i had my oil cooler replaced at the dealer "sanderson ford", after the tech put the engine back together he took it for a test drive. He said the truck sounded like it popped an intercooler boot so he pulled over and checked and saw nothing so the stupid *** hopped back in my truck and headed back so he could figure out what was wrong. On the way back the truck got knocking louder and louder and started to smoke out the tail pipe but he kept driving back to the dealer.To make a long story short he dropped the nut to the clamp for the turbo down the pipe to my exhaust manifold. My #8 piston looked exactly the same as yours, and suprisingly the tech admitted fault and i got a used motor with 17000 miles out of the whole ordeal and they waived my deductible

 

It definitely sounds like the warranty company is just trying to get out of paying. That's usually how they work.

 

Im sorry about what happend to your engine. I just want to chime in on your problem, that appears to be a dealership issue and not a warranty issue. Warranty deals with part failures, if you have a valve ( For example ) that dropped, broke etc.. evidence would be the failed valve and you could put the pieces together (so to speek). A couple of questions if i could, Is the original mechanic the one that worked on it the second time? And what did thay find that caused all the destruction? or did thay not find anything. What kind of experience did the mechanic have that worked on your truck? These are all valid questions i would be asking the dealership. I would be leaning on the dealership and not the warranty dept.

 

Yeah after re-reading this, it is awfully coincidental that it happend the day you picked it up at the dealer.

Did the dealer road test this truck at all or what?