Yes, they did a relative compression test, not a leak down test. Cyl 7 was 8% lower than the rest, while cyl 4 & 7 were randomly misfiring. New plugs & coil on #7 didn't fix the problem and I didn't know about the issues with #4 until I got the report back from the dealership.
I had done some reading and there was some piston slap issues on cyl #8. The Ford dealership felt it was a value related issue, but they just replace...not repair. Hence the big price tag. A couple of smaller shops suggested valve jobs on both heads, but that wasn't gonna be cheap either. I thought about just pulling the entire engine and rebuilding it and putting a little big more HP in it, but a set of cams alone were over $1500...dang. A Ford crate engine is pushing 6K, plus the costs to install.
I didn't want to put that kinda money in a 6 year old truck with 125K miles on it...kinda figured "what's next" Got a fair offer for a trade in with them knowing everything wrong. Buddy is the used car manager and I didn't want any bad karma coming back on me if I tried to downplay the issue.
I literally did everything I could..plugs, coil, cleaned the throttle body & MAF sensor, PCV valve and checked to make sure the EVAP canister purge valve wasn't the fault. The guy at the Ford store said the tech could see some tell tell signs of problems when he pulled the plug and looked down the cyl. Probably just needed a valve job...but I didn't want to spend that kinda money and risk causing ring problems down the road and needing a complete rebuild.
