Blown GT350 Motors- 13 cases from Youtube

[Mpt233]

On the heavy duty side my company just had 3 sequential numbered brand new cummins isx engines replaced for excessive oil consumption (1 gal per 12 hr shift) ended up being ring gaps were aligned. Prior to that the islg engines all had to get steel piston conversions due to melting kept us busy for a while. Most were not covered under warranty like our cars are theres no sense in obsessing over this we should just enjoy our gt350s for the awesome cars they are.

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[That_Guy]

Not to beat a dead horse here but out of the documented "engine failures", I would love to know a few things:

1) How many of these owners were disciplined in checking their oil levels constantly.
2) Had they recently gone in for an oil change (low fill problem or wrong viscosity from $10/hour quick lube tech?)
3) Break-in procedure

Show me engine failure on a vehicle whose owner knows how to break a motor in properly, who constantly monitors oil levels and is competently changing their own oil using a higher quality oil than Motorcraft 50 weight... then I'll be more concerned.

There are so many variables involved it's mind blowing. For every video on youtube documenting an engine issue, there are several thousand people driving around in their GT350s, super happy with their purchase.

My engine locked up after 450 miles of careful break in, and it was the new “good” ‘19 engine. I remain skeptical of the long term durability of these engines.

 

[JAJ]

Does anyone who's watched the video's know how many of those engines were tuned or boosted?

 

[Andy13186]

Does anyone who's watched the video's know how many of those engines were tuned or boosted?

I think most had issues bone stock. Woman drivens was tuned but I dont think thats what caused the problem. Its just a 6's blew when TT'd but it had problems bone stock I believe.

 

[jvandy50]

I don’t know about YouTube but in forums and Facebook groups yes. I own a JL Wrangler and people lose their minds over death wobble. Same with some limited reports of the 4cylinder turbo having issues with the extra battery.

But yeah Focus RS, Subaru WRX/STI, Corvette, etc.

Lol, I’m currently just getting over a lonnnng battle with death wobble in my JKU. I see many in the gladiator pages just not used to jeep steering, probably coming from a nicer vehicle.

I joined the raptor and RS pages to learn a little and you see some of that there too. The camaro groups just aren’t as busy, probably because not as many sold and guessing not as passionate a fan base.

 

[CoolHandLuke]

Yay more hysteria threads.

https://thesoundofvoodoo.com/articles/gt350-engine-failure-by-the-numbers/



I've been through 2 engine replacements.

1. Oil was checked every 250 miles and logged in an Excel for tracking.

2. I did my own oil changes with AMSOIL.

3. Methodical break in for the first 100 miles. Changed factory fill at 1000 miles.

Wow, sorry to hear that. That's just a case of shitty luck. In your case, it sounds like you couldn't have done anything differently to avoid your bad situation. Third time is a charm?

By the way, thanks for the link and hats off to whoever took the time to compile all of the engine failure info and organize it into pie charts and graphs to enable people to quickly analyze so much useful data!!!

 

[Deleted member 37397]

Some of these cars were tuned, some were beat to hell the minute they drove it new off the showroom floor. If I were to guess, I’d say Jeff Ashton and Woman Driven were one of the only ones who broke their cars in properly.

 

[dom418]

16-19 engines were/are solid. No drama in that.

Fixed it for your Tomster

 

[Tomster]

Fixed it for your Tomster

Well... I feel otherwise, but I dont want to add drama to a drama thread.

 

[drummerboy]

My engine locked up after 450 miles of careful break in, and it was the new “good” ‘19 engine. I remain skeptical of the long term durability of these engines.

Please define careful break-in... just curious

 

[That_Guy]

Please define careful break-in... just curious

Followed Owner’s Manual. Extremely easy on it first 100 miles, then easy on it from there. No constant RPM on highway. Shifting at low RPM and no hard throttle. Max RPM no more than 3,000. I think I may have taken it a little over 4,000 a couple of times towards the end. I was planning on keeping a long time so wanted to break it in nice.

 

[nastang87xx]

Followed Owner’s Manual. Extremely easy on it first 100 miles, then easy on it from there. No constant RPM on highway. Shifting at low RPM and no hard throttle. Max RPM no more than 3,000. I think I may have taken it a little over 4,000 a couple of times towards the end. I was planning on keeping a long time so wanted to break it in nice.

I autocrossed my car at 200 miles. It hit redline probably at 200.01 miles then. My engine has been flawless and tight as a drum.


Guys for the love of christ, allah, shiva, buddah, or st. whoever, BREAK. YOUR. ENGINE. IN. Don't baby it in, BREAK it in. Bring it up to temp and have at that throttle and stomp on it like your curb stomping your worst enemy.

 

[CoolHandLuke]

I autocrossed my car at 200 miles. It hit redline probably at 200.01 miles then. My engine has been flawless and tight as a drum.


Guys for the love of christ, allah, shiva, buddah, or st. whoever, BREAK. YOUR. ENGINE. IN. Don't baby it in, BREAK it in. Bring it up to temp and have at that throttle and stomp on it like your curb stomping your worst enemy.

Agreed. I’ve never “babied” any engine during break in and I’ve never had oil consumption issues or cars that didn’t run like a raped ape. I’ve always been 100% certain the oil is up to operating temps by driving my cars immediately after start up and then I’ve progressively taken the RPMs up 500 higher after every good heat cycle until redline is reached. Then I’ll consistently use 80-90% of available revs until first oil change. After that, I’ll hit redline every day.

With my current R model, I’m at 80 miles on the clock and during my last drive, I have been consistently spinning her up to 5,000-6,000 and then rolling off the throttle and then I’ll repeat the process when traffic allows. I’ve always had master techs tell me that several good heat cycles right of the lot with progressive load on the motor will achieve the best ring seating and little to no oil consumption- not to mention higher horsepower. Is my process or the advice I’ve received 100% scientific? Nope, but I’ve owned four BMW M cars, three Porsches, a Vette and an AMG Mercedes in the past ten years and never burned any oil so I’m not going to deviate from what’s been working for me.

I’ve also insisted on buying practically zero mileage cars fresh off the transporter where no dumb ass customer or lot porter has test driven when cold and bounced off the rev limiter during the most critical first 100 miles on the engine. I’ll even insist on personally filling up the gas tank before delivery...

To each his own.

 

[sublime1996525]

I autocrossed my car at 200 miles. It hit redline probably at 200.01 miles then. My engine has been flawless and tight as a drum.


Guys for the love of christ, allah, shiva, buddah, or st. whoever, BREAK. YOUR. ENGINE. IN. Don't baby it in, BREAK it in. Bring it up to temp and have at that throttle and stomp on it like your curb stomping your worst enemy.

I’m with you. I hit redline the first day I had it with 12 miles on it. My car now has 15k miles and the engine runs great and no consumption.

 

[FogcitySF]

Not to beat a dead horse here but out of the documented "engine failures", I would love to know a few things:

1) How many of these owners were disciplined in checking their oil levels constantly.
2) Had they recently gone in for an oil change (low fill problem or wrong viscosity from $10/hour quick lube tech?)
3) Break-in procedure

Show me engine failure on a vehicle whose owner knows how to break a motor in properly, who constantly monitors oil levels and is competently changing their own oil using a higher quality oil than Motorcraft 50 weight... then I'll be more concerned.

There are so many variables involved it's mind blowing. For every video on youtube documenting an engine issue, there are several thousand people driving around in their GT350s, super happy with their purchase.

Personally I think the problem goes way beyond checking oil and proper engine break-in (though undoubtedly those are causes of some issues). I have an E92 BMW M3 (102k miles 30+ track days), had a GT350R (9 track days) and a GT3RS (11k miles, 8 track days). Break in procedure which was followed actually quite similar with all the engines. Two of my R engines failed (both had enough oil), a coolant hose came out of the water pump, drive shaft sensor came loose, another coolant hose clamp came off, had a bad spark plug from the factory on engine #2, had the AC compressor go out, and still once I lemoned the car, was still having throttle hesitation issues. The ownership experiences with one car that I only had for two years vs the others couldn't be in more stark contrast and all were approached with the same care/maintenance/break in/driving roads/tracks.

Add that to my Ford dealership having replaced 9 engines with a 12 month period, my meeting others at track or C&C events who have also blown engines (about 50% of the 15 or so I've met), and the fact that Ford just replaces the engines without even looking at the ECU data is very suggestive of a design flaw that manifests itself particularly during hard track use. Mind you, in CA you have a tendency of people who track cars not to only track GT350s but many other platforms and drive our cars year round on the roads and on track (so we have a much larger sample size to assess relative reliability), and while anything can go wrong with any car, the fact pattern of the GT350 as a robust platform that can stand up to track abuse is pretty bad.

For all those on the fence with respect to warranty, my advice is get it. The good news is that Ford is standing behind nearly every single engine replacement, which is the right thing to do. The car is a total hoot to drive and the fact that it is even in the same sentence as a GT3/RS speaks volumes to its design capability. Just make sure you are protected!

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