I want to do a survey. owners of 5.4L 3v motors. If you have changed or had your spark plugs changed did you have the broken plug problem? yes/no

 

I pulled all mine out.. cleaned em off and put em back in.

almost 40K on the clock. I went out oneday and unplugged all the Coil-on-plugs.. sprayed some penetrating oil down in each hole and put the coils back on. Came back 2 days later and changed em on a fairly warm/hot engine. They didn't want to come out, but they did, with no problems.

I'm actually gonna replace them sometime after christmas.. after my bank account recovers.

 

yes....I'm currently trying to get two broken plugs out right now. These broke even following the TBS, my truck has 36K miles. I picked up the removal tool off Ebay but I'm having a very difficult time trying to the porcelin insulator out and at the point where I have to chisel it out.

 

no problems. changed at ~20k

 

2004 XLT 5.4L 53K mi and yes, the dealership broke 3 of 8 plugs. I waited so long b/c I wanted to feel confident the dealerships had a handle on the situation. I talked to them prior and was assured they were capable of doing it, and had the broken plug tool. They still ended up removing my eng/trans to remove the pieces left behind, AND tried to charge me $2400 for it! If you search this site for "broken sparkplugs" you'll read my whole story. Good Luck

 

Did mine at 25K to replace to lower heatrange plugs and all came out fine.

 

Mine were changed at 4k by the dealer, no problems. TSB called for the change after a injector hung up on me. Hopefully this will solve the problem for me later on.

 

hopefuly first of the year i will get the guts to take it in and have the plugs done.

 

how many miles do you have now?

 

No.

 

I hate the fact that i'm fully capable and willing to change my own spark plugs, but to damn scared to break one off in the engine... What is the average cost for the dealership to change plugs?

 

IMO the thing to do is just break them loose, spray some Blaster in around them, Wait 30 min. and work them out (back and forth) a very little at a time. If you try to turn them right out they will bind around the shield and break off there. Once the Blaster gets down PAST the threads and breaks the scuz loose fron the plug extension, you're good to go. Just got mine out with only 13G and two wanted to get ugly but came on out easy once the Blaster go down there. Nothing to get scared of if you take your time and are aware of what you are doing. I will say this also...It is much different that what we are use to! Ford needs to fire the guy/gal that designed this!

 

if they do break....the Rotunda removal tool works great but it only works on getting the metal shield out, the difficultly is getting the porcelain insulator out. I actually had to chisel mine out. Ford should develop some type of extractor for the insulators as well.

 

i'm in the same boat as you..just rolled 50k and want to get it done just because of the problems i'm hearing....think i'll try and tackle it in the spring though....and try everyone's idea and of course the tsb...but mainly just take my time as it was stated above.....

damn, my other vehicles never gave me this much problem...hell, my time chain on my car was of less a hassle then this...oh well...i still love my truck!

oh, and to answer the question for this thread, no, not yet...but i'll post up in the spring

 

So what about the cost at the dealership to change the plugs? Anyone know what most have been paying or can expect to pay?