Hello, I have a 1997 F150 4.2L V6 2WD that I purchased new. It now has 84,000 miles on it and has been the worst vehicle I have ever owned. After owning it for only a week something burned up in the in-dash wiring harness and that had to be replaced, the dealership had it for more than a week. A year after that my wipers and other elec's failed because of a bad GEM module. At three years old about two months after the warranty expired the A/C compressor went. At 5 years old the same GEM module failed again. My front end was making noise and I ended up having to have front end components replaced due to the fact Ford stopped putting grease fittings on them. And there were more repairs too many to list. But the final blow came yesterday, I went out in the morning to start the truck and it just clicked like it had a bad battery. I tried it a couple times then it started with a bang and HEAVY white steam billowing from the tailpipe. While idling, the internals of the engine now sound like someone is inside with a jackhammer. Called the local Ford dealer, got a service writer on the phone who told me that this was most likely a gasket defect caused problem in these particular engines but that Ford was not taking responsibility for the problem, he said to have it towed in anyway for a look and I did. Later on I received a call from the head service manager, not the service writer that I originally talked to. Unlike his subordinate that I had talked to this guy say's he hasn't really heard of any consistent problems with these engines (no ethics, just blatantly lied to me) and that he concludes just by listening to the engine that in his opinion it was just an unfortunate internal part failure due to wear, I said well an internal part failure would not cause antifreeze to cook out of my tailpipe but a gasket failure would. With that he said well to prove that I will have to charge you $500.00 just to tear down the motor on top of another $6100.00 + Tax for a replacement motor installed. I told him forget it, just tow it back to me. Never in an accident and no rust, the body and paint are in excellent condition, so I am going to try and sell it as is. No more Fords for me though, tomorrow I will be stopping by the Toyota dealer to look at a Tundra. Before I purchased the '97 F150 I had a 4 cyl '84 Toyota pickup for 14 years without one single problem.
At Ford Quality is Job None!