thoughts on Ecoboost

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Here is a great video on the EcoBoost.

The guy does a great job of talking about the good and the problems with this engine.

When this guy talks about this being a high performance engine he is a 100% correct. This engine needs to be thought of as pretty much a race engine. As mentioned, race engines need impeccable maintenance.

Another thing about this engine and engines like this. They don't have much duty cycle. That's why class 8 diesels have a big CID displacement in them. We can make big power with a little engine but when the weather turns hot and the mountains get steep you need that big mass to displace the heat the engine produces.

In short, if you are going to pound on this engine day in and day out up steep mountains in hot weather this engine is not for you IMHO.

If you are a weekend warrior and pull a trailer now and then in easy or moderate conditions this might be a great engine for you.

The 3.5 EcoBoost came out 11 years ago and there are a bunch of them on the road now but I rarely hear first hand complaints about its reliability. Timing chain stretch on 2014 and earlier seems to be a problem but I don't hear much about that anymore. I just had to have the timing chain replaced for the first time on a 2013 model with 144,000 miles on it and quite a few of those miles were pulling a loaded three horse trailer.

Unfortunately, the mechanic my daughter took it to for the timing chains turned out to be incompetent The truck still doesn't run right after 3 weeks of work. The guy even destroyed the running boards while he had the truck.

Yesterday he told us that it was in perfect running order and to take it home but it immediately started throwing a variety of error codes and the turbos don't work. We took it away from him and will take it somewhere else to try to get it straightened out. I am over 60 and that is by far the worst performance I have ever seen by a mechanic.