Major Ecoboost repair, long delays

[Groover]

My daughter parked her 2013 F150 Ecoboost with about 140,000 miles on it back in mid-May. When she started it back up it would barely run and was very rough. To make a long story short it was parked at the location of her medical school graduation and after graduation she had about 7 weeks to move from San Antonio to Dayton Ohio for the 5 year residency period. That included buying a house and moving her stuff and her horses. The truck was required to move the gooseneck horse trailer.

She took it to a local mechanic that seemed to have a good reputation but also he was the only one that would take the truck in quickly. The mechanic diagnosed the problem as a failed electric vacuum pump that had self destructed and some of the debris got sucked into the engine. The debris made a mess of the passenger side head. After working on it for about 2 weeks he told her that it was fixed and to take it away. It was far from fixed but did make to my house in Tennessee where I borrowed a truck with a gooseneck hitch to get her horses the rest of the way to Dayton.

The truck has been sitting at the local Ford dealer ever since waiting on a factory reconditioned long block. I was first told the long block would be there in August which was by far the best delivery promise that I could find plus it would come with a 3 year Ford warrantee. In August the delivery promise got changed to October 27th and I was advised that I was the 104th customer in line. Well, I still don't have long block but I have moved up to the 84th customer in line. At that rate I expect to get the truck back around Christmas, 2023. The place that rebuilds engines for Ford says that they can't get parts and are only filling high priority orders. The dealer told me that mine is a high priority but even that obviously isn't helping.

I have heard that there are various impediments to making new vehicles but those seem to center around electronic items, not engines.

I am trying to figure out if I have any viable options. I found some taken out of wrecks on the internet but looked up reviews for those places and they were awful. I got the impression that less than one in four of the engines they shipped actually worked.

If anyone has any good ideas I would love to hear them. I do want to be able to have confidence in the truck after the repair since my daughter plans to drive it for the next 5 years. To me that is going to take a long block or better but I don't know where to find one with a reasonable delivery.

Oh yeah, the electric vacuum pump seems to be there in case you need to apply the brakes while the turbo charger has the intake manifold pressurized. So it connected to the manifold via the brake vacuum booster and debris can be sucked through. Apparently, failures of the electric pumps are not uncommon. The amount of damage that my daughter's truck suffered is. That is what the mechanic told us but based on some other issues that have come up I don't put a lot of stock in what that guy told us but the bottom line is that I still need a good engine.

[Groover]

JRscooby wrote:
Is the block damaged? Or are you dealing with parts changers? If the block is good, and you are looking at months more downtime might be best to rebuild, just replace damaged parts.

I am trying to get answers to that question. The promise of a three year warrantee honored at any Ford dealer was very attractive and at the time they told me that the long block would be delivered in 10 weeks.

The truck was valued at $20,000 at the time so the repair was going to be well worth the investment. Now I am not so sure.

[bgum]

When you find yourself in a hole quit digging. Time to look for a suitable replacement.

[mkirsch]

BB_TX wrote:
Don’t know anything about them but as noted above, a possibility.

https://www.jasperengines.com/stock-replacement-engines

If Ford can't get parts, what makes you think Jasper can?

Plus, Jasper is the FIRST place that any self-respecting mechanic goes looking for a rebuilt engine when they can't get one from Ford.

[JRscooby]

Is the block damaged? Or are you dealing with parts changers? If the block is good, and you are looking at months more downtime might be best to rebuild, just replace damaged parts.

[Pbutler97]

When those ecopukes puke, all you're doing with a 10 yr old truck is throwing good money after bad. They're great engines for about the first 100K miles. After that it's a crapshoot.

[valhalla360]

Groover wrote:

Retired JSO wrote:
With 130k on the clock, I’d be visiting a junkyard looking for an engine.

There are not many junk yards in my county and I am not about to buy one without seeing it first but I am about ready to start hunting one.

In another thread I saw a remark that Ford has 30,000 trucks sitting in lots waiting for computer chips. If they can afford to have that many engines tied up sitting in parking lots I would think that they could spare enough parts to get a few hundred customer trucks back on the road.

How much are they telling you for the new engine installed? Might be cheaper to look on the used market for a new-used truck of similar vintage.

Pulling a motor off the assembly line is not as simple as it sounds and as soon as those chips come in, it's probably a 15min job to install them and then they are out to the dealers where they generate a few thousand in profits per truck vs what? A few hundred on a crate motor?

[BB_TX]

Don’t know anything about them but as noted above, a possibility.

https://www.jasperengines.com/stock-replacement-engines

[shelbyfv]

Pondering situations like this helped me decide to trade my 2011 F150 with 120,000 miles. It ran fine and the body was close to perfect. But.... the unknowns of potential major repairs kept worrying me. You've mentioned parts supply but in addition I've had problems getting competent service. I've lost confidence in both of the two nearest Ford dealers and the good independent shops that folks love don't seem to exist near me. At that age and mileage, that truck doesn't owe her anything. I'd sell it for whatever it's worth as a fixer upper and let someone else deal with it. If she can afford to keep horses, she can buy a new truck! JMO, of course.

[FishOnOne]

May want to check with Jasper rebuilt engines

[Groover]

Retired JSO wrote:
With 130k on the clock, I’d be visiting a junkyard looking for an engine.

There are not many junk yards in my county and I am not about to buy one without seeing it first but I am about ready to start hunting one.

In another thread I saw a remark that Ford has 30,000 trucks sitting in lots waiting for computer chips. If they can afford to have that many engines tied up sitting in parking lots I would think that they could spare enough parts to get a few hundred customer trucks back on the road.

[Lwiddis]

And the truck is nine years old.

[Retired_JSO]

With 130k on the clock, I’d be visiting a junkyard looking for an engine.