My 97 4.2 blew up back in July with 125000. The anti freeze and motor oil were living together in sin. In the end I was dumping straight 50w in there to hold it together. The truck had 3 miles on it when I bought it and it was my second FORD truck. I took/take awesome care of it.
To those of you who are happy Ford owners, I say this: You are only happy because this gasket problem didn't happen to you. Your FORD hasn't failed. You are "fat, dumb, and happy," if you'll pardon the expression. Will FORD be there for you if your FORD fails? I think not. If FORD had done right thing and replaced both gaskets during the recall instead taking the easy way out, I'm pretty sure this column would be a lot less stressful and we'd all be returning costumers. As it is though, we paid good money for a product we expected to perform. It has not. I wonder how many folks out there got stiffed on the Leaf Spring issue, have had several spark plug wire failures, are on their third coil pack? I digress. My 97 has now been rebuilt. I was without my truck for 5 weeks. I'm grateful I own a motorcycle. To this day, I still have lilttle faith or confidence in my FORD even though the rebuild seems to be a success. When the rebuild warranty is up I'm moving to another company.
FORD is guilty, a GOOGLE search will prove it. The loss on resale reflects the publics loss of confidence and I THINK it is completely justified.