Sometimes you just have to scream at them!!!!

TallTom

TallTom

Registered
Engineers.

Engineers that come up with a bad idea.

Ford Engineers that came up with the 100,000 spark-plug on the 3 valve Triton engine.

Ford Spark-plugs engineers that design a plug that is about 9 inches long and come in 3 pieces.

Spark-plugs that weld themselves to the head in about 65,000.

Spark-Plugs that don't like to come out unless the greatest amount of perfect circumstances exist. Which is a rare occurrence.

Spark-plugs that when broken off, require an engineer to engineer a special tool to remove the broken off plugs. An engineer for which I am now ready to offer my first born child to.

Then the worst part. The engineer that decided to place the last 2 plugs on the passenger side of the engine, out of sight, under a PCM, and air conditioner lines, with ZERO room to put anything on it straight, no matter how contorted you think your hands can get. Or should I scream at the engineer that placed these items over these back 2 plugs?!!? Doesn't matter I was screaming at them all as I disassembled a good amount of that side of the engine bay, to catch a glimpse, nay get a socket to anything.

Either way I spent 2 days changing these coming up with and yelling words that didn't even exist until Ford came up with this. Actually 4 hours of one day removing a broken off one and the rest in the miraculous event of removing and replacing the other and not breaking them.

I broke one out of 8 off. From what I'm told, that is a pretty fabulous outcome. You could have fooled me. Thank GOD this will be the one and only time that I will have to do this.

My hands and arms up to my elbow are scraped, gashed and bloody. My knees don't work. My back is in traction. And I'm not entirely sure yet but I think I have a 3rd testicle that has appeared. In about a week I may be able to bend at the waist to actually see what happened down there.

But I have 8 new plugs in my Triton 5.4 engine.

SCREW you Ford quoting me $750 to change my plugs!!!!!!


Oh and P.S. Step 1 of instructions. The head is to be at operating temperature as you remove plugs. That adds a whole new level of hell to the job. Burn your body parts, change the plug, stop to warm up the engine. I didn't believe this part. Peshaw I said. Figured that was just some engineer acting silly. The one I broke off, broke off because I let the head cool down thinking the whole idea of a 350 degree head was just plain silly. That was plug No. 2 of the 8.

Whoever came up with this probably works for Porsche or BMW now!!

If any of you ever get involved in this or have a friend that is doing this. Please do not call me. I don't ever want to see one again.
 
I have felt your pain!

You got to experience one on the worst engines ever to change spark plugs on... The fact that you only broke 1 off is luck, you should buy a lottery ticket or not,, all your luck for the next month is used up!

I have the lisle tool for pulling the broken off ground electrode. I never could figure out why the plugs that are easy to access never break, always the buried ones leave the ground shell in the head!:banghead:
 
when it comes to cars or trucks.

its 3years and switch..

engineers have taken all the fun of working on these machines.. i gave up about 6 yrs ago..

hopefully our 2 wheel beasts will not suffer the same fate anytime soon...

and for your cuts and bruises.. hear ya go

:beerchug:

for you.jpg
 
i had a 2006 king ranch...i feel your pain....i knew of this problem before i attempted mine....i got it hot, took wd40 and shot all the plugs full of it, set over night warmed it again, sprayed again, set for few hours to cool and they all magically came out thank god. Ford quoted me 1000 plus for mine and said if they broke it would be another 1000. I told em to get fu@#$#.
 
Im going to give you some extremely useful advice here so please take it to heart as I am the previous owner of a 108,000 mile 07 Triton 5.4 V8 F150. Ford did a few terrible things to your truck when they built it...The first you have already discovered the dreaded 100k mile spark plug change, my professional mechanic friend broke 3 of my 8 taking them out so I give you props for the great job you did on removing yours...Hopefully when you replaced yours you went ahead and replaced the coils as well since at their $2.50 a piece price tag is very cheap and will help out with other issues down the road.

Now here is the worst thing Ford did to your motor. They installed a severely undersized internal oil pump inside your motor. This thing is going to fail on you between 100k-125k miles and blow your seals, as far as I know their is no way of determining when your fail point is going to be.

To deal with this your best hope of extending the fail point as its not a matter of if its going to go out and blow your motor its just a matter of when. Immediately switch to a full synthetic heavy duty oil like royal purple, disregard Ford's 5k mile oil change suggestion and go to 3k miles, keep a close eye on your oil levels, your almost better off adding a bit extra oil compared to normal to assist. Lastly start thinking of your best method of replacing your truck prior to blowing your head seals or begin looking at getting a rebuilt/replacement motor.

A bit of research will quickly show you how much of an issue this is on the 04-08 5.4 Triton V8 Ford motors. Their is a class action lawsuit slowly being assembled against ford on this issue, I would make sure to call and get your name on the list for when this happens.

Sorry to be the bearer of this bad news if you are not already aware of it. My Ford dealership was well aware of the issue and the owner of the dealership bent over backwards to keep my business and gave me full excellent condition trade in value towards the new 2013 XLT F-150 Eco Boost I had to buy the day my motor blew at 108,210 miles on my 07 F150. I had just spent close to the $1000 in 100k mile maintenance services on mine prior to this, Transmission service and inspection, spark plugs, coils, wires, air filter, cabin airfilter etc...

Good luck going forward...
 
VIPERWHITEBUSA said:
i had a 2006 king ranch...i feel your pain....i knew of this problem before i attempted mine....i got it hot, took wd40 and shot all the plugs full of it, set over night warmed it again, sprayed again, set for few hours to cool and they all magically came out thank god. Ford quoted me 1000 plus for mine and said if they broke it would be another 1000. I told em to get fu@#$#.
Click to expand...

I knew they had a reputation for being a problem. I studied up on it for a few days on and off learning from others experience. I then thought, "What The Heck, Call Ford , How bad can it be?" They first quoted $750 PLUS an extra $80 for any they broke off. I was like well Hell if Ford can't do it without them breaking them..........

I did the impact gun method, on all but the backing F%^&* 2 on the passenger side. Those were turn it out a 1/4, back in an 1/8, back out 1/2, back in 1/4.

And prior to the job, I also ran a high end concentrate of combustion chamber cleaner. The plugs weren't actually too bad looking as far as carbon. Oddly it looked like RUST that was bonding them in. I applied a high copper anti-seize compound. If, God Forbid, they ever need to come out again, they should come easy. Why Ford didn't apply any anti-seize is beyond me.

It is the stupidest design I have seen in awhile.

I replaced the plugs with Champion single piece open electrode plugs. $12 a piece! But you can tell by looking at them they are a superior plug design.
 
My brother had this problem. The dealer pulls the engine to get them out that's why it's so expensive.

I don't have that problem, I have a Chevy. A pre- Government Motors model...
 
TallTom said:
Engineers.

Engineers that come up with a bad idea.

Ford Engineers that came up with the 100,000 spark-plug on the 3 valve Triton engine.

Ford Spark-plugs engineers that design a plug that is about 9 inches long and come in 3 pieces.

Spark-plugs that weld themselves to the head in about 65,000.

Spark-Plugs that don't like to come out unless the greatest amount of perfect circumstances exist. Which is a rare occurrence.

Spark-plugs that when broken off, require an engineer to engineer a special tool to remove the broken off plugs. An engineer for which I am now ready to offer my first born child to.

Then the worst part. The engineer that decided to place the last 2 plugs on the passenger side of the engine, out of sight, under a PCM, and air conditioner lines, with ZERO room to put anything on it straight, no matter how contorted you think your hands can get. Or should I scream at the engineer that placed these items over these back 2 plugs?!!? Doesn't matter I was screaming at them all as I disassembled a good amount of that side of the engine bay, to catch a glimpse, nay get a socket to anything.

Either way I spent 2 days changing these coming up with and yelling words that didn't even exist until Ford came up with this. Actually 4 hours of one day removing a broken off one and the rest in the miraculous event of removing and replacing the other and not breaking them.

I broke one out of 8 off. From what I'm told, that is a pretty fabulous outcome. You could have fooled me. Thank GOD this will be the one and only time that I will have to do this.

My hands and arms up to my elbow are scraped, gashed and bloody. My knees don't work. My back is in traction. And I'm not entirely sure yet but I think I have a 3rd testicle that has appeared. In about a week I may be able to bend at the waist to actually see what happened down there.

But I have 8 new plugs in my Triton 5.4 engine.

SCREW you Ford quoting me $750 to change my plugs!!!!!!


Oh and P.S. Step 1 of instructions. The head is to be at operating temperature as you remove plugs. That adds a whole new level of hell to the job. Burn your body parts, change the plug, stop to warm up the engine. I didn't believe this part. Peshaw I said. Figured that was just some engineer acting silly. The one I broke off, broke off because I let the head cool down thinking the whole idea of a 350 degree head was just plain silly. That was plug No. 2 of the 8.

Whoever came up with this probably works for Porsche or BMW now!!

If any of you ever get involved in this or have a friend that is doing this. Please do not call me. I don't ever want to see one again.
Click to expand...

\\Given the same situation, would you have rather paid someone the $750 to do it for you?

-D
 
You got off easy. I tried every method out there and still broke all 8. I didn't change them until 150K so partially my fault. Took just over 8 hours for me.

My most recent dealing with Ford engineering is an oil leak that developed about 6 months ago. Appeared to be the oil pan gasket or rear main but turns out it was the oil filter adapter gasket. Takes 4-5 hours including oil change and coolant flush to change the $12 gasket. :banghead:

I still love my truck though :thumbsup:
 
i switched and will never ever buy another ford again truck that is. I was so mad and disappointed with them. I told them i will never do business with them again after having done so for the past 20 years.
 
I have a '98 F-250, the plugs were done before I bought it, and it even has shiny yellow Accel coilpacks:laugh:
A job I'de hate to do(former Ford mechanic myself...former). The truck now has 254k miles on it, and still runs great.
It doesn't have any leaks or smoke, but it does use a little oil, maybe a quart in a thousand miles(I don't drive it much).
So, fortunately I shouldn't have to change plugs in this one, I'll just put new ones in if I have to replace the engine:laugh:
 
I'm so glad someone else said it first - anti-seize! dont own a ford- dont want to- but i swear by anti-seize... almost as great as q-tips... almost...
 
wow, that sounds like a nightmare...I struggled with a Camaro I had one time changing plugs. It was not as bad. lol, change them hot :laugh:


I went from F150's to the Sierra after dropping the tranny twice to change the slave cylinder due to another one of Ford's better ideas, the "doughnut slave Cylinder"

The Sierra is great, the instructions for changing headlight bulbs were intimidating, but I found an easier approach.
 
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