I'm was told my motor is ruined....help
 

Well I brought a perfectly running truck into a dealership and what I received was a burnt piston.

To finalize the sale of my truck I was supposed to bring it to a ford dealer and have it inspected. I don't know all of what they did but they did clean the throttle body. What I told them to do was inspect the truck and give it a clean bill of health for the new owner. When I picked it up later that day it ran kinda rough as soon as I started it up, but I thought that was due to that fact that they put some cleaners or something in the system to clean the throttle body. While driving back to work, it just got worse and started smoking a little. After about 30 miles I stopped and called the dealer and told them it was running very rough and had no power. I was told that sometimes the computer needs to be adjusted or something, it should be fine bring it back the next day.

I dropped it off in the morning and got a call back just before lunch telling me that I had a burnt #2 piston and that I needed a new motor for $4200. (not #7 or #8 that can happen due to wiring problems.

They said these things happen and fork over the money for a new motor, it's not our fault!

After I picked the truck up the first time I had to drive about 45 miles home that night and I think that drive did the damage. I think they must have done something but I don’t know what. The truck didn’t really burn oil, smoke or rattle before that day.

This is an 1993 F-150 supercab 4x4 5.0L manual transmission. This is the second motor for the vehicle. The first motor had a head gasket leak at 36K and I insisted a new FORD motor be installed not a remanufactured. I got the new Ford motor. This new motor (that’s ruined) had about 38k when I brought it to the dealer. About a year ago I had Gibson shorty headers installed because the originals had a crack. (not on the same side as the burnt piston). I also had a K&N mass flow air filter installed and a JET performance computer chip installed. This truck has always run fine with no problems. Now all of a sudden it's worthless.

I would like to know if anyone has any information that I can use against the dealership to get them to pay for the repairs. They say there is nothing they could have done to cause that damage. Since the service ticket only says they removed and replaced the throttle body there is not much to point at. I assume they hooked the truck up to the computer but I have never seen the diagnostic they did.

Any information would be appreciated.

Oh I also heard that a burnt piston is caused by severe detonation. Well what causes that?? Maybe something related to what they did.


Thanks,
Thomas


[This message has been edited by Thomas12 (edited 04-13-2001).]

A burnt piston is caused by a too lean fuel mixture or detonation in that cylinder. Is that related to what the dealer did? I dont know, but it could just be coincidence.

I would guess the dealer is going to lay blame on the aftermarket chip for leaning out the mixture too much or advancing the timing too far or both. I guess you can have someone else independently investigate the motor and see what a 2nd opinion says.


Good luck

I had the same problem with my '92 302. Only I had a burnt piston in #8 and #4 was harmed also. THey blamed mine on plugged up catalatyic converters and they caused heat to back up on the engine and burn the holes in the pistons. THen they tried to blame it on my cat-back exhaust, then they said it was my spark plugs.

I don't know what caused it but I sold the pickup.

Did they pull the head?, or just do a compression test?Is it possible you blew a head gasket?If they pulled the head and saw a bad piston, usally a piston subject to severe heat (lean mixture) will have all the carbon burnt off the top and will start to fail around the edges by the ring lands. A piston that started to fail on the crown is more a sign of detonation. This isn't always the case, however it is a pretty good indicator.Fords are known for blowing head gaskets, and with detonation you can expect to see some very impressive cylinder pressures, enough, I think to blow the gasket way before a piston failure, but in 93 the change was made to the Hyperuteric(cast) pistons.Talking to engine builders, the magin of failure between the two is about .5 seconds under the same conditions.This would be the case with a quailty cast version, most likely not the bean counter specials that were used in production. The spark plug is worth looking at also, detonation will destroy a plug.A lean mixture can cause detonation also. I'd love to look at those pistons myself, I'd get a professional opnion from an quailified engine builder.

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2001 F-150 XLT S-CAB 4.6 "Fully equipt, and Superchip'd!"
96 Taurus GL
93 Kenne-Bell Supercharged Mustang
"Injection is nice, but I perfer being blown!"

86 Kawasaki ZG 1000 A-1 Concours

They didn't pull head they first compression tested it and #2 came up 0. They scoped it and said they saw a hole burned in the piston. I was told all the other plugs looked good even the cylinder that was burnt had a decent plug so I'm told. I'm still waiting for them to produce the old plugs and give me information on the compression test so that I can compare it to the test that was done a week earlier by the guy who was going to buy the truck.

I'm still thinking that the damage has something to do with the work they did. Maybe they loosened some carbon or used too much cleaner or something. I guess my next step is litigation although small claims in Washington is only $2500. That wouldn't cover a new motor.

Thanks for the help

Thomas