^ I'm not even a Ford guy and I'll say that above statement is false.
Yes there were issues. Same with other brands.
The one to avoid IMO, are the spark plug spitters, whatever years those were an issue.
But even that, out of 1000s of Ford Triton trucks at work through that era, I had one V10 that spit 1 plug and I don't recall others.
And since the OP is in the high miles budget range, I'd avoid the spark plug breaking engines too. I just bought one of them, but it was super low miles, never seen rain, 06 Mustang 4.6, and immediately replaced the plugs so that won't happen again, as our son may keep it for a long time. And even those were almost rusted in. Pretty crusty for a 30k mile garaged engine.
If you dig on most any model or brand, you can find reasons to convince yourself they are no good. Same thing with a half full glass approach. (Except 6.0 and 6.4 Powerstrokes. But even those are good for low buck builds, shop class projects and boat anchors.)
