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Re: 2007 Ford F150 DG-508 Motorcraft Ignition Coils. 4.6L engine.
I got taken on eBay for 8 DG508 ignition coils last November in 2022. I only realize now that $181.89 for 8 genuine Motorcraft Ignition Coils should have alerted me, but I completely ignored this warning. I installed 7 out of the 8 coils as soon as they came and they did function.
Feeling fairly confident and just carrying along as usual, I ran along a post on a forum on the Internet regarding counterfeit Ignition Coils. The post said to be on the lookout for counterfeit ignition coils and gave tips to spot them by the packaging. But my first thought was that I was too smart to get taken but I began to look closer at what I bought.
Packaging: None of the things I read online appeared on these bags. The Motorcraft bags were sealed, had the vent holes in them and so on. So, after all my research the packaging was perfect and to me qualified as deep fakes. The coils themselves were much more suspicious. A brass ring where the bolt goes in to secure the coil instead of a silver one. No paint mark on the top of the coil and a spring inside the boot that seem a little to short and not secured well to the metal tab at the top of the boot. About half of the springs just came off their terminal at the top with the slightest tug.
Prompted by a post in a forum, I contacted Ford Global Brand Protection. Once Ford made contact with me, I began to email a woman directly at Ford Global Brand Protection and she verified the parts were counterfeit. She asked eBay to remove the items and the seller did remove them. At first, I was surprised by Ford's interest. The seller acted quickly but as a result I could no longer contact the seller about the items I bought or leave feedback for the seller. So, I was out of my original money and the seller had for all intents and purposes cut ties with me and I had zero recourse with eBay as a company no matter how hard I tried. After all of this pain, I emailed the lady at Ford Global Protect and asked if she knew where I could get genuine Ignition Coils or if she could help me in any way. But to my surprise she would no longer reply to any of my emails no matter what I asked. For months I casually asked for her help even asking her to look at some coils on Amazon. Still nothing. It just has me scratching my head over the deep fake parts out there and my stupidity.
I am waiting on my Ford Dealer to get 8 new coils for me. Apparently, they have been on back order. I thought I was smarter than this but I guess I’m never going to be immune to being taken.
I used to appreciate eBay somewhat but now it seems like a dark alley of thieves and robbers lurking in the dark waiting for new prey and I cringe every time I think of eBay.
Deep Fake packaging on Counterfeit Ignition Coils.
Sorry to hear about your terrible experience on eBay. Unfortunately, eBay has gotten much, much worse with scams and shady sellers. However, there are still quite a few good, honest sellers out there. With something like this, where they are easily duplicated, I would only buy from a reputable vendor (Ford, Rock Auto, Advance, AutoZone) that carried the Motorcraft brand or it's OEM for Motorcraft equivalent. Unless of course it was trivial/upgrade.
That lady from Ford Global Protect would've told you to go to your nearest Ford dealer and buy them from the parts counter. Probably why she didn't respond back to you.
I've been scammed before on eBay and I've never had an issue with eBay and Paypal for refunds. Hasn't been a while, but I've slowed down buying stuff because of inflation.
As far as auto parts, I generally stick with Rock Auto, Tasca Ford Parts, and my local Autozone/Advance Auto. With occasionally hitting up my local Ford dealer for a quicky.
One last thing... If I need to buy auto parts on eBay, I try to figure out if they are a dealer or an individual. This can be done by a little bit of Googling or just asking. There are some dealers that are trying to flush surplus parts or just dabble with a small eBay business (like a DBA) to sell parts without a full-fledged parts TradeMotion storefront like Tasca and many other have. FWIW, I found my local Ford dealer on eBay selling parts.
Tasca has DG508, but considerably more expensive than Rock Auto. Still probably a lot cheaper than your local dealer is going to want for them. Autozone, Advance, and O'Reilly all want 80 bucks each, that's more than Ford list price.
I'm a little late to this but if you paid by credit card, you could dispute the charge and get your money back. My CC company is very good about honoring disputes.
Whenever I drove or even thought about my 2007 F150 with 7 counterfeit COPs installed, I felt sick, betrayed and personally contaminated by eBay. Sure, they worked but for how long and when were they going to fail? Well, I'm kind of back where I started, which is an improvement. At least all 8 OEM Ignition Coils now. 7 of which are actually new. I purchased them from the Ford Dealership. I told them my story and they were very generous selling me the 8 coils for $37.07 each. So, my loss of $181 from Ebay + $317 for Ford OEM COPs and $269 for the TopSide Creeper. A total of $767. I'm sure the dealer would have charged me something near that to do it and if I had to choose again, I would have the dealer do it. But hey, I got some good scratches, and experience on how my truck works. While I was at Jim Hudson Ford, I decided to take a look at the new trucks. $93K, 99K and 102K were some of the prices I saw. Beautiful but more than 2.5 times my original mortgage. So, I comforted myself on the fact that in December of 2006, I bought this truck brand new for about $24,500. It's worth the TLC I give it and it's worth continually investing in. A mix of counterfeit and original OEM COPs that I've removed. A total of 14 COPs The Horror TopSide creeper was painful to buy but it actually made access much better.
I changed my plugs at 119k miles on mu 2002 5.4. At that time dealers were charging $220 or $230 labor, $10/plug and fifty something for each cop. I bought Motorcraft plugs from Advance for $2.79 each and changed them myself. Didn't need cops. But now, I'm changing plugs again and cops this time. I bought Denso iridium plugs and Motorcraft cops from rockauto. I've only changed two so far. The plug was causing a misfire on #5 and the cop was bad on #8. Time to get off my duff and do the rest.
... At that time dealers were charging $220 or $230 labor, $10/plug and fifty something for each cop. .
It's hard to get motivated to do maintenance but once I get started, I like to keep going.
I do remember getting a quote from the Ford dealer and it was something like $1,800 or more. But I had fuel filter and oil change in part of that estimate. Nevertheless, I knew the bulk of that estimate was the Plugs and COPs. That's why I decided to do it myself. Turns out my initial problem was excessive dirt and water in one of the plug wells. That's what was causing my misfire on acceleration. I didn't find it until I removed the COP, looked down into the spark plug well and could not see the nut on the plug. It was covered with dirt and water.
