2015 F53 Chassis V10 self destructs

[TheCatsRV]

Maybe it's my style of driving but I find it very easy to and almost always keep my engine speed under 4,000 under power, e.g., by crawling up hills (lots of passes on the first >1 nt trip - crossing BC both ways - which was our 2nd in the RV) at or under 60 Km/h/40 mph. Maybe 1 minute of loaded engine speed above 4,000 in the 1 year I've had this RV and ~ 4,200-5,000 Km/3,000 miles of travel.


And this in a lightly-loaded (8 tons max.) 30-valve motor with full Banks Powerpack (and Ottomind tunes).


Downhills are another story but I keep speeds low too by creeping down hills.

[AITG]

Originally Posted by TheCatsRV

Maybe it's my style of driving but I find it very easy to and almost always keep my engine speed under 4,000 under power, e.g., by crawling up hills (lots of passes on the first >1 nt trip - crossing BC both ways - which was our 2nd in the RV) at or under 60 Km/h/40 mph. Maybe 1 minute of loaded engine speed above 4,000 in the 1 year I've had this RV and ~ 4,200-5,000 Km/3,000 miles of travel.

I have crossed the Rockies several times, both on I-70 and US 50. If you control your speed at the start of the descent, the transmission will do a good job of controlling your speed with just occasional brake applications. If I get to 4000 rpm it's for only a few seconds. It's always a better choice to start downhill too slowly than too fast.

[TheCatsRV]

Originally Posted by AITG

I have crossed the Rockies several times, both on I-70 and US 50. If you control your speed at the start of the descent, the transmission will do a good job of controlling your speed with just occasional brake applications. If I get to 4000 rpm it's for only a few seconds. It's always a better choice to start downhill too slowly than too fast.

Controlling one's speed: That's the important lesson I learned here before I drove the rig (other than home, or to/from the mechanic). Of course a bit of a learning curve as it was my first time in the rig doing longer/steep descents. The "over speeds" (above 4,000 but under red line) were the first steep downhills or where the descent was steeper than I had anticipated or there were no warning signs. Quickly learned so that was only in the first few days.


On the first real long descent (BC 3 descending to Princeton from Hope) with several twisty sections, we came across 2 loads evidently shedded by trucks, and near the bottom, the remains of a totally-wrecked U-Haul truck (so presumably a sister F53 chassis) with the renters (looks like the survived with no/minimal injuries) salvaging their belongings while a highway crew flagged the area.



The last mile to my house has several steep sections rising over 140' and I'm surprised the rig will easily climb them at just 2,000 rpm (doesn't want to go any higher).

[D Gardiner]

Any engine can fail, Period.

You hope it never happens to you. Failures come in all shapes and sizes.
Poor welds, were the valve stem meets the valve head.
Lifters that have inadequate hardening.
Bearings that are not substancial enough for the engine stress. (BMW M3)
You name it.

To date I have had four engine failures since 1983.
1. Brand new engine, that ran 5 minutes, before the lifter bottom sheared off.
Diagnosis was a bad set of lifters. Covered under warranty with a new cam and lifters.

2. Carburetor linkage (small piece 1/4" x 1'2") left the choke and found its way into cylinder #2. Made one hell of a racket, with a big misfire. Luckily no substantial damage, but the head had to come off to determine what happened.

3. Blown ring lands on cylinder #3. The engine smoked like mad, and the made it home on 3 cylinders. Turned out that the cruise fuel setting was too lean, destroying the pistons.

4. Timing chain rail failure. '05 Ford 4.0L V6. Common failure.

As a mechanic:
I've seen spun rods, shattered pistons, holes in blocks, scattered timing chains, and even one broken crankshafts. 1986 Mustang 5.0. Plus countless Buick V6 engines that needed head gaskets.

No engine is bullet-proof.
The Ford 6.8L V10 is no exception.

[sibe]

Being a motorhead and ford guy.. actually a motor is cool regardless, I have built saturday nite backyard specials all the way to $40000 cylinder heads (alongside a legend)..
Thinks can go bad.. years back it was a lot shallower pool of expectations and choices.. If you got 60-80K on your work truck without a rebuild you were livin'... Technology has made huge gains, metallurgy is better, tolerances in machining are better,faster and more stable,..
I mentioned the old ford workhorse 460, debuted in 68 as a 429 luxury motor and the new mustang Boss.. I still have an attic full of its predecessor FE motor 360/390/428 as well as 429 thunder jets and CJ parts.. Along with my famed 406 Tri power police engine.. ALL this COOL stuff and it bare lasted 60K until it burned oil.. yeah a few hit 100K barely after a timing chain, valve job or set of bearing..
Dang I would do a set of crank / rod bearing in a SB Chevy after school on an out door lift at a gas station I worked,, start at 3:30 done by 10 pm. made $40 cash.. I was a hero at 16.. LOL

Now we have a Triton V10 spawned from the 4.6/5.4 tech that was awesome except for spark plugs and timing chains/follower/Oil viscosity sensitive..and couple oddities,
Ford made many many in 14 years ,, 100's of thousands.. towards its end of life the use was in Trucks and then RV's.. and the RV market GREW as did the use of V10's in the RV's... So what once was a bad egg or fail every 40000 made spread over a range of use got condensed into the harshest use that the V10 could be put into..
Lets Face it Ford build a box truck.. with V10 or FLatbed.. It is heavy 8K empty 1150 loaded or Medium 14K empty 23.5K loaded. Used local or innerstate.. It leaves heavy, come home empty,, easy routes and roads. speeds are similar..
then a majority of the USE is the RV,, that is build at 80-90% of it GVW,, 14500 GVW and it sits dry at 12600.. or Class A that is 18K dry and 21500 GVW, NOW we take them at sustained Highway speeds,, and then to scenic places that most normal trucks NEVER see, long down hills be we can in a near overloaded Rig.. |
Plus many RV, sit for longer times,, the motors have different work hardining effects that a constant use motor,, Motor that are used more frequently at a similar generally last longer that one that is used now and then... IMO and practice,

NOT trying to justify or band a drum,, maybe LOL,, Just saying this is normal to see a few fails, I see big rigs broken all over, I have a good friend young, TOP Diesel guy, Rebuilds CAT motors all day from 80K to 800K to 1mil.. depends.. ....

[RayChez1]

Originally Posted by sibe

Being a motorhead and ford guy.. actually a motor is cool regardless, I have built saturday nite backyard specials all the way to $40000 cylinder heads (alongside a legend)..
Thinks can go bad.. years back it was a lot shallower pool of expectations and choices.. If you got 60-80K on your work truck without a rebuild you were livin'... Technology has made huge gains, metallurgy is better, tolerances in machining are better,faster and more stable,..
I mentioned the old ford workhorse 460, debuted in 68 as a 429 luxury motor and the new mustang Boss.. I still have an attic full of its predecessor FE motor 360/390/428 as well as 429 thunder jets and CJ parts.. Along with my famed 406 Tri power police engine.. ALL this COOL stuff and it bare lasted 60K until it burned oil.. yeah a few hit 100K barely after a timing chain, valve job or set of bearing..
Dang I would do a set of crank / rod bearing in a SB Chevy after school on an out door lift at a gas station I worked,, start at 3:30 done by 10 pm. made $40 cash.. I was a hero at 16.. LOL

Now we have a Triton V10 spawned from the 4.6/5.4 tech that was awesome except for spark plugs and timing chains/follower/Oil viscosity sensitive..and couple oddities,
Ford made many many in 14 years ,, 100's of thousands.. towards its end of life the use was in Trucks and then RV's.. and the RV market GREW as did the use of V10's in the RV's... So what once was a bad egg or fail every 40000 made spread over a range of use got condensed into the harshest use that the V10 could be put into..
Lets Face it Ford build a box truck.. with V10 or FLatbed.. It is heavy 8K empty 1150 loaded or Medium 14K empty 23.5K loaded. Used local or innerstate.. It leaves heavy, come home empty,, easy routes and roads. speeds are similar..
then a majority of the USE is the RV,, that is build at 80-90% of it GVW,, 14500 GVW and it sits dry at 12600.. or Class A that is 18K dry and 21500 GVW, NOW we take them at sustained Highway speeds,, and then to scenic places that most normal trucks NEVER see, long down hills be we can in a near overloaded Rig.. |
Plus many RV, sit for longer times,, the motors have different work hardining effects that a constant use motor,, Motor that are used more frequently at a similar generally last longer that one that is used now and then... IMO and practice,

NOT trying to justify or band a drum,, maybe LOL,, Just saying this is normal to see a few fails, I see big rigs broken all over, I have a good friend young, TOP Diesel guy, Rebuilds CAT motors all day from 80K to 800K to 1mil.. depends.. ....

Great post and a lot of truth in your post. I completely agree with you that years back, the life of a gasoline engine before it started using oil was around 100K miles. Now the engineering that has gone into these new engines is amazing and it is nothing unusual to get double or more then what the older engines used to get. And that is because of the synthetic oils and just better engineering.

[HingedThink]

Originally Posted by sibe

Being a motorhead and ford guy.. actually a motor is cool regardless, I have built saturday nite backyard specials all the way to $40000 cylinder heads (alongside a legend)..
Thinks can go bad.. years back it was a lot shallower pool of expectations and choices.. If you got 60-80K on your work truck without a rebuild you were livin'... Technology has made huge gains, metallurgy is better, tolerances in machining are better,faster and more stable,..
I mentioned the old ford workhorse 460, debuted in 68 as a 429 luxury motor and the new mustang Boss.. I still have an attic full of its predecessor FE motor 360/390/428 as well as 429 thunder jets and CJ parts.. Along with my famed 406 Tri power police engine.. ALL this COOL stuff and it bare lasted 60K until it burned oil.. yeah a few hit 100K barely after a timing chain, valve job or set of bearing..
Dang I would do a set of crank / rod bearing in a SB Chevy after school on an out door lift at a gas station I worked,, start at 3:30 done by 10 pm. made $40 cash.. I was a hero at 16.. LOL

Now we have a Triton V10 spawned from the 4.6/5.4 tech that was awesome except for spark plugs and timing chains/follower/Oil viscosity sensitive..and couple oddities,
Ford made many many in 14 years ,, 100's of thousands.. towards its end of life the use was in Trucks and then RV's.. and the RV market GREW as did the use of V10's in the RV's... So what once was a bad egg or fail every 40000 made spread over a range of use got condensed into the harshest use that the V10 could be put into..
Lets Face it Ford build a box truck.. with V10 or FLatbed.. It is heavy 8K empty 1150 loaded or Medium 14K empty 23.5K loaded. Used local or innerstate.. It leaves heavy, come home empty,, easy routes and roads. speeds are similar..
then a majority of the USE is the RV,, that is build at 80-90% of it GVW,, 14500 GVW and it sits dry at 12600.. or Class A that is 18K dry and 21500 GVW, NOW we take them at sustained Highway speeds,, and then to scenic places that most normal trucks NEVER see, long down hills be we can in a near overloaded Rig.. |
Plus many RV, sit for longer times,, the motors have different work hardining effects that a constant use motor,, Motor that are used more frequently at a similar generally last longer that one that is used now and then... IMO and practice,

NOT trying to justify or band a drum,, maybe LOL,, Just saying this is normal to see a few fails, I see big rigs broken all over, I have a good friend young, TOP Diesel guy, Rebuilds CAT motors all day from 80K to 800K to 1mil.. depends.. ....

Actually this is a great post and part of my hypothesis is that with the GCWR on the class A RVs not leaving much weight for cargo, combined with questionable RV engineering, leads to common overloading. I think overloading or max loads exceeds the design parameters of the V10 on an RV chassis. Resulting in excess failures that Ford nor manufacturers will acknowledge. As per usual for the RV industry leaving consumers with the burden.

Mine never saw above 4500 rpm. But it exploded going downhill at 4k. I was watching it closely while balancing with braking. I may have been overloaded though. Odd though because was only towing a utility trailer with two four wheelers.

[Americanrascal]

I'm about too disgusted and frustrated to write much about this, but here is my update. After $4000 of towing across Alabama and Georgia over 3 weeks to a place that can at least address and deal with the rig, I got my first information on findings. As suspected all along no. 10 cylinder is damaged (heavily grooved and scoured) and valves are seriously damaged but unclear to what extent yet. Cylinder was bore scoped and significant damage to cylinder wall was observed. No compression to speak of out of No. 10. Based on these findings alone Ford service recommends engine replacement. Good Sam insurance/ service contract says the engine in fact may need replacement but refuses to authorize a replacement until the engine is disassembled to find the point of origin. They won't pay- I have to eat that cost plus my deductible- and who knows- they may not step up in the end.

At least 1 more week until they can start to get it torn down- estimate 20 hours labor? Then if they can nail it down and satisfy Good Sam's they may authorize replacement. Then a 4 1/2 month wait on a reman engine.

Stunning news.

[sibe]

Crappy to hear of these fails in the V10.. as I said the EOF (end of Life) of many production lines can show some ugly faces.. many just fade away but in this case the V10 was savored for lets say a bit of more use in a niche market.. it is a dice roll... GM really had no package answer package to the great success Ford had thru the 460 and V10 in the RV world.. Sure GM had the 454 and a 6.0, 8.0 industrial and the 8.1 vortec.. and Chrysler peaked withe the ole 440..

IMO the Valves in the V10 are so so, they can loose or crack their heads.. heat, vibrations during decelerating, who knows.. the occasional Rod snap,, up, these are production motors .. the balance factors have a wide tolerance I am sure,

ARE ALL v10 a time bomb, NO.. just a what s left in the box deal..

I can go into a failed valve harmonics I helped chase on a single cyl honda race engine.. It took a burly ole school small but record holding builder to find the answer, by the time we had it, honda did a partial redesign but adopted what we found,, never a recall as the design went public and failed, not just race related,, But it faded away.. Honda helped a few that casued a stir and larger dealers helped,, again it became forgotten history and a memory of remember when Honda ........


To the last poster here, GOOD LUCK, You need a Motor.. done deal,, If valve is toasted and Cylinder is grooved,, YEP,, thousands of dropped/broke valved do the same in a lawnmower to a diesel train..
As Far As Good Sam warranties or any Warranty Company.. BEST of LUCK my fellow RV person..

My shop did Mechanical work in late 70's and 80's,, we chased away warranty companies and when we did the work, it was perpetual care for those customers , like we owed something. I stayed FAR FAR away..

[D Gardiner]

Sorry to hear cylinder #10 failed, due to scoring of the piston to cylinder wall.

A leak-down test will confirm if the piston rings are wasted, or if an intake of exhaust valve is the zero compression culprit.
There is a big possibility that fuel injector #10 was spraying too much fuel, washing the oil off of the cylinder wall-causing the piston and bore damage.

A fellow V10 owner, who also had the same engine failure as you, caused by a faulty fuel injector.
It is worth watching!!

Originally Posted by Americanrascal

I'm about too disgusted and frustrated to write much about this, but here is my update. After $4000 of towing across Alabama and Georgia over 3 weeks to a place that can at least address and deal with the rig, I got my first information on findings. As suspected all along no. 10 cylinder is damaged (heavily grooved and scoured) and valves are seriously damaged but unclear to what extent yet. Cylinder was bore scoped and significant damage to cylinder wall was observed. No compression to speak of out of No. 10. Based on these findings alone Ford service recommends engine replacement. Good Sam insurance/ service contract says the engine in fact may need replacement but refuses to authorize a replacement until the engine is disassembled to find the point of origin. They won't pay- I have to eat that cost plus my deductible- and who knows- they may not step up in the end.

At least 1 more week until they can start to get it torn down- estimate 20 hours labor? Then if they can nail it down and satisfy Good Sam's they may authorize replacement. Then a 4 1/2 month wait on a reman engine.

Stunning news.

[Americanrascal]

Yippee! We are headed to Montgomery AL tomorrow to pick up our motorhome. Well I was pleasantly surprised today when the phone rang and the service tech at the Ford Truck Service center at Stivers in Montgomery came on the line and said I could come pick my rig up it was fixed!!!! No 4 month wait for a new engine, no major tear down expense, the rig had been repaired and put back together. They and other mechanics had really thought the engine was shot and a new one was needed. Seems Good Sam's (service contract) insistence on a tear down to the point of failure was the right call and saved everyone a bunch of time and $$$$ with a new engine not being necessary .Turns out after beginning the tear down they found the exhaust valve spring had broken on number 10 cyl. giving the screwy compression reading because of a non functioning exhaust valve. $7.00 part and a whole bunch of labor cost and I am one happy and lucky cowboy. I am spending the night listening to Gene Autry sing : "I'm Back in the Saddle Again!!!!".. I think I'll sing along with him.

[Concord]

This news makes me just happy for you! Congratulations! And give thanks!

[Americanrascal]

[QUOTE=Concord;6370349... And give thanks![/QUOTE]

Absolutely!!!

[Russ Silber]

Originally Posted by Americanrascal

Absolutely!!!

Excellent news. Enjoy life.[emoji106]

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