New Ford 7.3L engine problems

[TDeakins]

Originally Posted by Nrabel

As I posted earlier I’ve had cylinder misfire for 45 days on my motorhome. Ford now says they are writing a TSB on the issue. Ford says it’s the RV manufactures fault that the wires are burning out because there isn’t enough airflow over the engine to cool it. Wonder why the Ford truck in the video above has issues. One guess is if you ask Ford it’s not their fault. I wish I could find some wires to purchase myself and get my HM running. I’ve tried to order from a couple places with no luck.

I have a 2020 F350 DRW that developed a “misfire” problem the cause for which remains undetermined. Can’t blame my issue on an RV mfg. I bought the truck from an out of state dealer and, when I drove the 400 or so miles home, I felt the performance I experienced was less than I would expect from a supposed behemoth of an engine like the 7.3. I charged it off to; “it’s new,” “it’s a DRW”, etc. that was May of 2020. 23,000 miles later it was clearly something else. I had it into 5 dealers with a broad complaint of; “…that engine just isn’t right…” There’s no check-box on the service intake form for, engine “just not right”. And, all their tests came up with no issues. At a bit over 24,000 miles I started getting messages on my Ford app that my engine was indicating a “misfire” condition with the probable cause being “bad fuel”. Now, nothing was indicated on the dash panel to suggest I any problem at all. Just the Ford app. I always use top tier fuels, but that was when the pipeline got hacked and gas was sparse, so maybe I sucked-up a bad batch. Still, I only filled from top tier stations. I was pretty low on gas when I got the first message so I filled it with premium (“90 days, same as cash” pricing). Seemed peppier after that, but not for long. I kept getting the app messages with no problems indicated on the dash. That went on for a couple of days then I could feel a misfire followed by, lo and behold, the chk engine light came on. I took it to a local Ford dealer and their initial tests showed a bad coil (coil on plug) condition. Took them about a day to figure out that wasn’t the problem. Next thing I know Ford has the dealer tearing down my engine culminating in them - Ford - shipping a new cylinder head. This is after five weeks of my truck sitting in the dealers service bay waiting on a Ford engineer, then the new head. Well, they installed the new head, put the engine back together and … nothing changed. Back to square one. Ford now wants the dealer to tear the engine down into smaller bits (“dig deeper” is the term used … I’m sure it’s a technical term) and that is estimated to take several more weeks with no estimate on just how many weeks. The dealer wants Ford to send a new engine. Then Ford engineering can play with the old one on their own time and to their heart’s content. Ford doesn’t seem to care about the customer care optics here for whatever reason, so I’m not hearing that a new engine is in route. But, even if they get this beast to run again, will I -can I - trust it? I have to be able to depend on my truck. I am thinking I’m about two weeks away from looking for legal help to solve this. In the meantime, I have an RV sitting in an RV park with no truck to move it to its next site and I had to pay a pro-hauler to get it here. Before Ford is done screwing around with this, I’m going to need a “go-fund-me” campaign.

[Massparanoia]

Originally Posted by TDeakins

I have a 2020 F350 DRW that developed a “misfire” problem the cause for which remains undetermined. Can’t blame my issue on an RV mfg. I bought the truck from an out of state dealer and, when I drove the 400 or so miles home, I felt the performance I experienced was less than I would expect from a supposed behemoth of an engine like the 7.3. I charged it off to; “it’s new,” “it’s a DRW”, etc. that was May of 2020. 23,000 miles later it was clearly something else. I had it into 5 dealers with a broad complaint of; “…that engine just isn’t right…” There’s no check-box on the service intake form for, engine “just not right”. And, all their tests came up with no issues. At a bit over 24,000 miles I started getting messages on my Ford app that my engine was indicating a “misfire” condition with the probable cause being “bad fuel”. Now, nothing was indicated on the dash panel to suggest I any problem at all. Just the Ford app. I always use top tier fuels, but that was when the pipeline got hacked and gas was sparse, so maybe I sucked-up a bad batch. Still, I only filled from top tier stations. I was pretty low on gas when I got the first message so I filled it with premium (“90 days, same as cash” pricing). Seemed peppier after that, but not for long. I kept getting the app messages with no problems indicated on the dash. That went on for a couple of days then I could feel a misfire followed by, lo and behold, the chk engine light came on. I took it to a local Ford dealer and their initial tests showed a bad coil (coil on plug) condition. Took them about a day to figure out that wasn’t the problem. Next thing I know Ford has the dealer tearing down my engine culminating in them - Ford - shipping a new cylinder head. This is after five weeks of my truck sitting in the dealers service bay waiting on a Ford engineer, then the new head. Well, they installed the new head, put the engine back together and … nothing changed. Back to square one. Ford now wants the dealer to tear the engine down into smaller bits (“dig deeper” is the term used … I’m sure it’s a technical term) and that is estimated to take several more weeks with no estimate on just how many weeks. The dealer wants Ford to send a new engine. Then Ford engineering can play with the old one on their own time and to their heart’s content. Ford doesn’t seem to care about the customer care optics here for whatever reason, so I’m not hearing that a new engine is in route. But, even if they get this beast to run again, will I -can I - trust it? I have to be able to depend on my truck. I am thinking I’m about two weeks away from looking for legal help to solve this. In the meantime, I have an RV sitting in an RV park with no truck to move it to its next site and I had to pay a pro-hauler to get it here. Before Ford is done screwing around with this, I’m going to need a “go-fund-me” campaign.

I never understand why people run out and buy the first new model year of anything. I would wait at least 3-5 model years before I touched anything with an all new engine. Look at all the brand new GM’s in the shop with bent pushrods, same thing.

[jackreno]

Originally Posted by Massparanoia

I never understand why people run out and buy the first new model year of anything. I would wait at least 3-5 model years before I touched anything with an all new engine. Look at all the brand new GM’s in the shop with bent pushrods, same thing.

Yea I also went by that don't buy the 1st or 2nd year of something new but I did, I bought a 2021 BT Cruiser on the 2021 Ford E-350 chassis, I hope the 2021 has some of the 2020 bugs worked out of it..

Did find out my date build has no recalls and has the upgraded spark plug wires..

So far its been great but only 4800 miles..

[TDeakins]

At 20,040 miles, my 2020 7.3 gas suffered catastrophic failure albeit the check engine diagnostic suggested bad fuel was the problem (were only so). I wasn’t even towing my RV (thank goodness). The local dealer, after talking to the Ford Techline engineers, completely tore down the engine (first of several times). Under guidance from Techline, they tried one thing then another for weeks and nothing changed each time the engine was reassembled. Ford even sent a new head, nothing changed. Then, after roughly 10 weeks into this fiasco, they sent a new short block and another head. After another month of chasing down first one part then another in order to make a complete engine, I’m supposed to pick up the beast tomorrow. They will have had my truck for 97 days. While all this is warranty work, Ford - so says the dealer - will not extend the warranty on the engine. If they know why the first engine crashed and burned, they are not telling me which I find less than comforting. Customer care appears to have gone the way of “quality is job #1”. So, do I trust the new engine? Right now, probably about as much as I trust the brand. Anybody know a good lawyer 😊

[avfordguy]

Have you called the 800# in the back of the owners manual? With 97 days oos sometimes they are a great help.

[RELHUB]

Originally Posted by BigHomey

Saw this thread on the Jayco forum. Thought it might be of interest here.

https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...ine-78354.html

AL

When I read about this NEW engine, I told all of my
Family and Friends to run away from this motor.
Never Ever purchase a first year engine from any company.

I was looking to upgrade our MH until I found out they were
changing from the V-10 to a NEW V-8 that had never seen
any real world MH use !!!!!!!

Then came all of the problems and I feel so bad for all of the people missing out quality trips because these motors are JUNK and they can't get the parts

[avfordguy]

Originally Posted by RELHUB

When I read about this NEW engine, I told all of my

Family and Friends to run away from this motor.

Never Ever purchase a first year engine from any company.



I was looking to upgrade our MH until I found out they were

changing from the V-10 to a NEW V-8 that had never seen

any real world MH use !!!!!!!



Then came all of the problems and I feel so bad for all of the people missing out quality trips because these motors are JUNK and they can't get the parts

Motor is ok, the issue is spark plug wires, tsb's have been issued,with updated ignition wires that ARE available.

[sevenmacs]

The plug wires aren't a big issue, 20 minutes to change then. definetly not a reason to avoid this motor.

[vito.a]

Originally Posted by RELHUB

When I read about this NEW engine, I told all of my
Family and Friends to run away from this motor.
Never Ever purchase a first year engine from any company.

I was looking to upgrade our MH until I found out they were
changing from the V-10 to a NEW V-8 that had never seen
any real world MH use !!!!!!!

Then came all of the problems and I feel so bad for all of the people missing out quality trips because these motors are JUNK and they can't get the parts

I disagree! The new 7.3 engine is a welcome update. Better torque curve and better fuel economy.

[mack73]

9k miles and 7 western states on my 7.3 and the engine has been flawless. I upgraded the plug wires my self for $80 and 20 mins of time.

MUCH better than the old v10

[TDeakins]

Originally Posted by BigHomey

Saw this thread on the Jayco forum. Thought it might be of interest here.

https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...ine-78354.html

AL

Ford ended up replacing the engine … short block and heads. While Ford has yet to come back to me with what exactly happened here, the servicing dealership says two or more cylinders were milled wrong. Still not sure this replacement engine is going to live up to Ford’s braggadocios advertising.

[vettenuts]

Originally Posted by TDeakins

Ford ended up replacing the engine … short block and heads. While Ford has yet to come back to me with what exactly happened here, the servicing dealership says two or more cylinders were milled wrong. Still not sure this replacement engine is going to live up to Ford’s braggadocios advertising.

Ford is replacing a lot of motors these days. My daughter's Explorer 2.3 was just replaced, 3K miles out of warranty, on my daughter's dime with the exception of $2,100 that Ford kicked in. Total bill was $8K. It took her a long time to get it back because the dealer was backed up replacing the 2.0 four cylinder and 3.5 six cylinder motors in numerous other cars. The dealer told her they couldn't even order her motor until they had enough room to fit it into the building, which looks like a motor warehouse. We're not convinced this motor isn't using coolant either. Not sure what is going on with Ford, but I have lost all faith they can design and build a quality product. They seem to be having major issues with their aluminum castings.

[Kluffinator]

Any one else getting these errors in conjunction with a CEL and Wrench light?

[mack73]

Those do read as being very scary. But I have found that with these super computer controlled systems that the more simultaneous scary messages the less serious the problem actually is. Usually it all points back to a single system that they all rely on - typically power related. Maybe a loose ground or bad ECU relay or something. How's the chassis battery voltage?

Does the engine run poorly? or just CEL and everything feels normal?