An open letter to my truck.

[feren]

Dear Expedition,

I would be thrilled if you trusted me when I tell you that yes, you do in fact have a 5.4L V8 engine. Despite evidence to the contrary, there is no such thing as a 4.725L V7 engine. Even if there were, nobody would want to buy it.

With rapidly dwindling patience,
Your devoted owner

These stupid coil packs can blow me. With a P0304 code reported by the on-board annoyance computer, it is a sure bet that my problem lies with a part that I can buy down the street for about $54 after tax. Of course, I don't have the time tonight to do the work or buy the replacement coil. Even if I had the part in my hand I couldn't start at this late hour -- for one thing, the engine is still far too hot from the drive home. More importantly, though, is that I can't risk leaving the repair unfinished. Tomorrow I need to be at the office early tomorrow for $EMPLOYER's "rah rah rah here is state of the company" presentation. The downside of driving to work and back tomorrow with a misfire is that I am dumping ridiculous amount of unburned fuel into my exhaust system -- something that can wreck the catalytic converter. That's a risk I'm going to have to take.

I expect my Saturday will be full of skinned knuckles and cursing because, naturally enough, the suspect coil pack is on cylinder number four. Cylinder four is the rearmost cylinder on the passenger side of the engine -- nicely obscured by everything! I know from unfortunate experience that changing spark plugs and related components on this vehicle takes upwards of 4 straight hours because of how Ford shoe-horned the engine into the compartment and how much junk (fuel rails, electrical distribution block, etc) they've heaped over the area you need to get at for the work .

No rest for the wicked, right?

The weekends why?

Comments

[duckhunter.livejournal.com]

It must be a Ford thing. I had a 1986 5-cylnder Taurus.

That was about a week before I found out that the state of Wyoming doesn't have any lemon laws for used automobiles.

Bastards.

[idigull.livejournal.com]

That's odd, the same thing went on my car...but I have a Subaru...

Good luck putting it in. *hugs*

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think I was rash in naming your old car the Black Hole; I think it wasn't necessarily that one vehicle.

I think automobiles in general just hate you.

The Z28 was the Black Hole, though...

[feren.livejournal.com]

... because the Expedition has (so far) never actually set itself on fire with me still in it (although there IS a recall along those lines....). Also, you should remember how many accidents the Z28 was involved in. It clearly had an agenda.

[hightensile.livejournal.com]

This goes with out saying, but I'm willing to offer any help you might need.

FYI

kit

[schloss-adler.livejournal.com]

Well, the problem can be summed-up in four simple little letters:

F-O-R-D

As a LONG time Ford (I actually mistyped it "frod" which phonetically speaks volumes) owner and fan, in 2000 I vowed to never own another Ford product.

This was after my 39000-mile 1997 Taurus (a few months and a few miles out of warranty) ka-ching'ed me for a $2,000 transmission. After talking to sever tranny shops, the conclusion I came to was that the quality of the product was knowingly poor, designed to fail, and warranteed in such a way as to avoid fiduciary responsibility for their poorly designed products. One shop told me that he had fixed *dozens* of the same tranmission - all with the same problem.

Even the Frod dealer told me that when they do the rebuild, they upgrade the internals to "2000 standards" as "substantial improvements have been made and can be retrofitted."

Nice.

I fixed the tranny and proceeded to trade the car on a Toyota that, 110,000 miles later has only needed oil changes, tires, and brakes... Screw you, Ford!!

Good luck with your V7.