A buddy of mine has a 2006 5.4 F150 with 120,000 miles. He took it to a dealership to have the sparkplugs changed. He even took them the new plugs! They told him worst case scenario, if every spark plug broke, it cost $600.

They called him two days ago, told him every spark plug broke, and they broke an easy out removing one, and that ez out fell in to the engine. They would have to remove the head to retrieve the ez out from the engine, and it would cost $2600!

My first thought was he shouldn't have to pay that! Second, I told him to tow that to my garage, ad we'd just do it. I wonder why they used an ez out and not a lisle tool?

izzy

 

The only thing I can think of is the tech got frustrated and impatient, then started to use other tools to remove the heat shield shank or the lilse tool extractor tip broke off......

I do agree with you that if a tool breaks or something the tech did to cause a head removal that the dealer should be responsible but with these stupidarse plug it seems they have a running tab due to Fords engineering design failure....

 

If he was quoted worst case 600, he should tell them to pound sand the tech screwed up and should fix it on his dime not customers.

 

I agree that there is an engineering mistake with these plugs, and FORD should have to cover it, but in the end, the customer shouldn't have to suffer!!!

 

These plugs are not a life safety event.....so there won't be any funds to cover a recall.....one big headache though for Ford owners....

 

I mean in relation to tool breaking at a Ford Dealer, because of a FORD issue, they should eat the $2600...What do you race, 88?

 

Looks like it's time to start roping in all sort of folks: dealership manager, owner, Ford corporate (regional reps if any), and maybe even send an overnight letter right to Alan Mulally, cc'ing dealership manager/owner, etc..

 

I agree....

I used to race SCCA....now I'm content to race my motorcycle at the local dragstrip....going to try the pickup this season also....

 

A couple of thoughts here. First, there's no doubt that Ford's engineers created a real mess with the head / plug design. Ford then followed that screw up with an absolutely awful policy where they really never admitted that there was a problem and if there was, the customer would just have to pay for it. So much for bashing Ford. I do sometimes wonder what folks on these forums would say if Toyota had a similar problem. Oh wait, they did - with rusted frames. And look how differently they handled that one.

On the other hand, lots of folks (Ford engineers included) dove into the problem and devised ways to get the plugs out 99.9% of the time. They also developed a new head / plug design that pretty much solved the problem. Any Ford Service Technician worth his or her salt will tell you that this plug change is pretty much a non-issue these days.

Why do I bring all this up? It's totally beyond me how any Tech could break all eight plugs, then foul up so completely on extracting the remains as to have to pull the head. Worse yet, making the customer pay for it is absurd. Words fail me.

 

This is one of the reasons I traded in my 2004 for a 2012!

Sorry for your trouble.

Did you get the $600 max in writing? If you didn't get it in writing you might have trouble holding them to it.

 

I have to agree with 2stroked on this one -- crappy engineering aside, the only way I can think of that a tech would break all eight plugs is if he had never touched a 5.4 3V before and never bothered to study up on the protocols to use when changing the plugs on this engine! The internet is literally full of tutorials on how to change these plugs with minimal issues -- how he could have botched all eight of them is beyond me -- especially if he works at a Ford dealership!

 

I would be PISSED and I would refuse to pay $2600. I'm new to the whole truck thing and from the short time I've been on this forum I have learned about the plug problem and am confident I can change them myself. For a so called "mechanic" to break all 8 and have that kind of trouble is unbelievable. If he provided them the plugs I would still refuse to pay $600.

 

Do not except that. They are just trying to make money off of you. Raise your voice if you have to....that is what I had to do to get my truck fixed. I contacted corporate and b****ed to no end.

You can complain about a dealership and usually in one week a regional manager from Ford will contact you to hear your grievance. I eventually took my truck to a small town Ford dealership that also sells ag-equipment because the techs from the larger dealerships with the shiny show rooms didn't know how to fix anything. Everything was rushed and they would never take the time to diagnose the problems the truck was having. The tech scratched the top of my bumper and bent the fins on my AC condenser by leaning over it when replacing my VCT solenoids.