I was curious how many miles you put on your truck before your first tune-up. I think the Ford manual suggests at 100,000 miles. My 1999 F-150 has 65,000 miles and still runs well, but i'm wondering if i should change wires and plugs anyway.

 

Why spend the money if your truck is running fine? Is your fuel mileage holding up? If it is running fine and mileage is stable, you would probably be wasting your money.

 

preventative maitenance like timing belt around 100K and ect, I have a 2002 F-150 with 84K miles on it now(lots of highway), and its untouched other than routine maitenence. If it aint broke, dont fix it(unless it might break and cause damage).

 

It runs a little sluggish now and then but it idles smoothly and i've never had a check engine light come on. I'll leave it alone! Sometimes i get the itch to work on my truck.

 

I don't think they have timing belts.

 

I'm at 67K and I asked my service guy the other day about a tuneup. He said "Go another 30-40K and we'll talk about it."

There's your answer right there.

And, if I'm not mistaken, the older F150's had timing belts, but I'm not sure that the 97-03 has a timing BELT - I think it's more of a timing CHAIN.

Now, maybe the Mopars or Chevys still have timing belts, but not the Ford.

 

I'm too used to working on my Isuzu Trooper. My dad had a timing chain break apart in his Jeep Cheerokee(lots of damage) and I had a timing belt issue with my Trooper, ended up being the belt tensioner. I just learned to replace them every 100K unless noted otherwise. This site is where I gain a good amount of my knowledge on my F-150.

 

I second that - this BB is absolutely awesome.

 

I'd suggest replacing the Thermostat, if anything. The thing about thermostats is that you don't know you need a new one until it's too late, and by then you end up kicking yourself, a $10 replacement could have saved you hundreds of dollars.

 

I'd step in and say, go ahead and change 'em. I ran my factory plugs and wires until about 70k - I didnt mean to change the wires but the last spark plug wire I pulled off broke... I had no problems before but afterward the engine did seem to idle and rev smoother than before. If it was a difficult job like on the 4.6/5.4 then forget it, but it's so easy on the v6 so why not?

I used the new Motorcraft plug - it's some sort of nickle finewire plug at $4/ea and a set of lifetime Borg-Warner plug wires from O'Reillys. A little bit of anti-sieze and you're good to go!

 

my truck has 108,XXX miles and the only things i have changed were the oil and the transfluid. i think thats it. i finally got a check engine light the other day and it was the oxygen sensor behind the pass. side cat. other than that no probs yet. i think that the clutch is starting to slip a little. when you press the clutch and rev the engine. the truck want to move forward a little.

 

Ok lets kill this "I don't have to do anything until 100.00 miles" nonsense.

Major tune up is UP TO 100,000 meaning this would be considered the maximum.A few bad tanks of gas can really ruin a set of plugs. When in doubt pull one out and inspect it.

We had a 2000 chevy big block come in running poorly. Another shop told them it was probably the PCM. Guess what,worn out plugs!
Even though todays plugs are much better than 20 years ago I've still seen the occcasional bad set at 50,000 miles.

Fuel filters are another good one. If you can't blow through your fuel filter you probably should have changed it 20,000 miles ago. Just think how your fuel pump is working trying to pump through that kind of filter.

Don't forget dirty mass air flow sensors and throttle bodys. Plugged EGR ports is another good one.