Hi Gopher,

Let's say it again: I won't quote a rate, because I CANNOT do so with any kind of accuracy or validity, and NO ONE here (including you) can.

In another thread, you claimed to be a hydrologist with a working knowledge of stastistics. Perhaps then you could explain the concept of determining confidence intervals and p-values, and their importance to stastistical inference?

For those who haven't had statistics, there are excepted standards and calculations that must be performed on data to check reliability BEFORE you can draw any conclusions or try to infer anything meaningful from the data.

There's an old saying by Mark Twain, "there's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's stastistics." He was referring to junk science, or people improperly using faux scientific approaches to try to prove their point (like saying, "the incidence of blown plugs is 0.01%, based on accounts posted here vs total registered users, so don't worry about it"). Any fool can state any number (*and they often DO*) in an attempt to appear credible, but repeating a questionable claim makes it no more meaningful or reliable, unless it's derived using valid methods.....

You need to understand the huge conceptual difference and vastly different requirements between making a stastistical claim (what you're doing), and providing anecdotal, yet compelling, evidence (what I'm doing). You also need to understand the difference between opinion and fact: everything on the forum is opinion at this point (including mine). The difference is, I know my words are opinion, while some of you guys don't.

I know the significance of that carries little weight or makes little sense to some of you, and there's probably no use trying to convince those who already have adopted an adenda. Speaking of which, I clearly stated my agenda (raising awareness): what is your goal? Why deny? Do you all work for Ford or something, or think of yourselves as Ford Insiders after getting the F-150online discount?

No one makes my decisions for me, but you guys seem to want to force your opinion of the magnitude of this problem on others, WITHOUT being able to do it in a compelling or valid manner....

You said you want to avoid paranoia, but don't you think all F-150 owners who read here have the basic right and capability to read the same accounts, and arrive at THEIR OWN conclusions, based on the compelling circumstantial or anecdotal evidence? If you were driving around on a heli-coil or noticed sounds warning of an impending blown plug, don't you think you'd have a right to be a bit paranoid about it, hopefully doing something about it?

Remember: the reason we don't more valid stats on incidence (like you're trying to claim) is because Ford and the NHTSA haven't provided any, and they're the ones who have easy access to data and resources in order to do this evaluation in a valid manner.

Which yet again raises the question: why hasn't Ford provided any assistance or guidance on this matter? Why must F-150 owners look to people with names like "Feefer" and "Gopher" for their opinions of the magnitude of the problem?

Chris

 

Feefer, I'll ask one more time: In your research, what is the total number of people who have the blown spark plug problem? ( I believe this is the fifth time I have asked you.)

You still have not answered that simple of a question. I'm not looking for statistical rates or confidence intervals or anything else like that.

I did that (and found 33 individual owners on this site and others, all 5.4l, 5.4l lightning engines,and 6.8l V10's.), and I have a list of individual names (which you don't seem interested in).

To give an idea of the magnitude of the issue, I provided a rate, that as you say, is full of holes and statistical noise. Yet you have provided no backdrop to the issue, other than you are PO'd it happened to you. My number is a junk number and has no sampling, statistical, and or scientific basis, but based on the information it came from, it is a fact.

You only response is that there is a lot of engines with the problem.

I've pointed it out ten times: MY NUMBER IS JUNK SCIENCE, but based on the information availble, is what there is to go on.

Good luck.

 

Hi Gopher,

Feefer, I'll ask one more time: In your research, what is the total number of people who have the blown spark plug problem? ( I believe this is the fifth time I have asked you.)


I am not God: presumably only God knows the total number of people who have experienced this problem.

But if you really mean to ask "what the total number of accounts posted on F150online.com forums are" or "total number of such accounts you've seen posted anywhere", then now you're getting somewhere.

Yes, you can honestly and properly say, "I've counted xx names of people who've personally reported this problem on the F150online.forum, as of today." That fine, as long as you don't try to jump to conclusions or try to make claims about the overall incidence of the problem, since that requires ascertaining a valid denominator, and that's impossible to do with this data. You and others were getting onto very shaky ground by trying to conclude, "therefore, the incidence is ...."

While that total number of posted accounts found thru counting may not be useful to make any statistical inference with, at least it's a valid, verifiable statement about the number of posts found on this forum; some readers may (or may not) find that compelling enough to suggest that a problem requiring further investigation exists or not. An investigation would have to use random sampling to be valid, so they'd be right to doubt validity.

It's exactly that kind of inconclusiveness that generates a 'garbage' statistic, but at least you're now realizing and admitting it as such, which is cool. The problem with garbage stats is they fail to resolve the issue in a conclusive manner (which quite frankly, is a very difficult process: that's why you need an independent evaluation by those using accepted stat methods to resolve the issue, much like how the Crown Vic police cruisers were recently cleared of charges of exploding gas tanks by NHTSA investigation).

But regardless, we can look at this as an exercise......

Now if I didn't trust your methods (i.e. your ability to find posts using the search engine, and then count them), I could easily repeat your count to verify your findings, as is often done in science. All scientific claims have to be repeatable and verifiable to be significant.

For instance, I counted 18 reports alone on just the first page of this one thread in the Lightning forum (and that took only 1 minute):

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...threadid=53172

Of course, the thread I started is here:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...threadid=88853

And there's some unknown number of folks who've posted of the problem in other threads, but who didn't add their names to any of these lists (STVGirl's thread is just one example, and has a number of such posts). A search using multiple search terms should find most of these.

So, before you and others start quoting "33" conclusively as the total number of such accounts to be found on this BBS, how confident are you in your ability to search and count? Are you willing to put your reputation on the line with that number? I say that, as I suspect I could easily find more than 33 accounts with little effort, but then I wouldn't know for sure until I tried.

Chris

 

For every1 truck that has a sparkplug blow out; ther is probrably 1000 that don't.

 

Chris - You will note I have offered that exact information to you in every post. I can easily provide it if you would like it. I'm not worried about my reputation. If you dispute that number, thats fine - thats all I have asked for all along.

 

Hi Gopher,

While I appreciate the offer of your list and the time it took you to compile it, such a list has no useful value to me, for just the same reason that me saying that I personally would estimate that I've seen or heard of 150 accounts of blown plugs on Ford products has little use.

I'm not organizing a class-action lawsuit, a petition to Ford or NHTSA, a mailing list to effected users, etc.

The ONLY thing that counts here is Ford deciding to issue a statement on the issue, or barring that, for effected users to file a complaint with the NHTSA so they will investigate. The number of complaints filed with NHTSA is the ONLY number that truly matters in getting this properly resolved.

Does that make sense?

Tell you what: please post your list in this thread here, so we all can see it.

Chris

 

lmao No, that's what he's been telling you all along, your just now actually reading what was said instead of making assumption after assumption of what was intended (but never at any point mentioned!) You wouldn't possibly be an ENGINEER would you???

 

Someone should set up a survey. Just like the one for the door crack and get some real data.

 

 

For ever truck that gets a door crack there are probably 1.5 that dont

 

I think that the 33,000 members quoted is probably meaningless, due to the fact that some may register and never come back, not own a newer ford, never own any ford, not own a truck, sold their truck etc.....


I myself registered twice because I forgot my user info.


I won't fight to the death about this, but even if the number is 1 in 1000, its too much if you're the 1.

You all say don't worry about it, but you don't know when 1 could blow out. My plug blew out at a time when I at least was close to home, although I have missed days of work being a contractor with a truck full of tools. It would have been worse had it been a week earlier and I was hunting two hours from anything. Or in the summer with my whole family in the truck and my camper on the back.

So thats why I really don't know what to do with my truck at this point. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I want a reliable truck.

 

You all say don't worry about it, but you don't know when 1 could blow out. My plug blew out at a time when I at least was close to home, although I have missed days of work being a contractor with a truck full of tools. It would have been worse had it been a week earlier and I was hunting two hours from anything. Or in the summer with my whole family in the truck and my camper on the back.



When my plug blew, I drove it 20 miles to a ford dealer. It drove like normal except for a small vibration I could feel through the steering wheel . I have read other posts where people disconected the fuel injector wire to the damaged cylinder and drove hundreds of miles. I have a van so it's like impossible to reach the injector wire.
I don't know if driving it like this could damage it, I'm just throwing this out to see if anybody see's anything wrong with it.
When it happens, it sounds like you have a bad muffler so you might get a ticket for a noisey muffler and have a really BAD DAY !

Maybe if you look at this from another angle, you will worry about it less. Let's face it, we could probably all drive trucks with 6 cylinders. Yes, we won't have the same speed but it will get you there. So if you have a V8, you are really driving with 2 extra cylinders and even if you blow 1 plug, you still have 1 extra.

Now all we have to do , is solve the problem of getting a ticket for a noisey muffler.

 

Maybe, but it my case my plug was kinda smashed on the bottom, and there was some debris in the cylinder. I shut it down and the cylinder looks good. I don't know if driving it like that would have damaged anything further or not.

 

feefer and those who want to argue statistics. At this point in the game a thread like this is more beneficial to those that look at theis sight. How you ask, it makes us aware of a potential problem no matter how rare. It gives us the information so that if it happens ford or the dealer cant say Wow..never seen that happen before. It also makes us aware how much attention must be paid to a normal spark plug change. iF THE MANUAL SAYS CHANGE THE PLUGS AT 100,000, but you are from the old school that says change at 30,000, you might reconsider the change. If the "garbage" statistics help 1 in 1000 either negtiate with ford and the dealer or keep someone from having the same problem, then it was worth it, (this sight is FREE!) feefer dont jump all over my 1 in 1000 as i have not had an audit to come up with this number, its a guess.

Just about every good (or bad) idea started with a few (dont ask me to define "few") people comparing thoughts, ideas and making guesses, based on rough data, on how to solve a situation or make it better. Going to NHTSA is probalby a good idea, however I doubt most of us who look at this sight will check with them like we do this sight, daily and until something is done, the people who dont look a sights like this have not got a clue about this situation. Does anyone know how long a NHTSA investigation takes considering that, to my knowledge , know one has lost a life?

 

I just came back from my friendly auto parts store.
I was wondering if ford changed to a spark plug with more than 6 threads on it.
for the 5.4L v8 1998 to 2002 has the same plug (6 threads)
Their computer dosen't have 2003 in it yet.

I had read a few posts that said this problem is only in 1999 and 2000 , so I checked thinking that they changed plugs.

I think it's just to early to get failures from 2001 & 2002 .