Coolant in Cylinder 1

[gqneon]

Reposting this to a new thread since it's a huge new issue. I quoted the original text with a new update below. Looking for opinions. No pictures post-teardown, yet. All happened when I took my car to Ford to align a sensor in my bumper and ended up with a blown motor. Also posting the video now.



There's tons of timestamped bullet points - but the main highlights for quick viewing are:

At 48 seconds he gets pissed and says GDI and the screams "F**K!!" and rushes into his bay. Notice how smooth it starts and how clean it sounds running.

Jump head to about 23:58 after he flashes the stock tune and starts it and listen to the pops, stumbles, etc as he revs it and holds it, then the car won't stay running. After that I had hard starts and leaking coolant which I later discovered was leaking down into cylinder 1.

He tools around trying to figure out what to do then the service advisor comes to get me. This is where the tech tells me he only started it for about 10 seconds and it ran rough so he shut it off and didn't start it again.

I am able to flash the Lund E85 tune back to it and he drives it all over town cussing other drivers and then brings it back and drives it into a parking block - which he also didn't tell anyone about... with the sensor not aligned and they tell me they've spent too much time on it and I'd have to schedule the work for a different day.

Read on and weigh in.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gqneon View Post
Holy s*** wow... had a coolant leak after taking it to the dealership (brought it home from dealer and parked it in my garage and left for Indiana for two days). Came home to a lake of coolant under the car. Then I remembered, hey I have a dash cam let me just see if something happened while it was at the dealership....

Let’s just say I saved about an hour and a half of footage that starts when the tech got in my car and started off screaming “God d*** it... F**K!!!” and then driving hurriedly into his bay.

He lied his ass off to me about just starting it up with that stock tune he flashed and shutting it off ten seconds later. Because then he started it up again and let it rev up real high and held it revved up at different rpms himself for a couple minutes in his bay. Then it wouldn’t start and stay running and some other stuff and then got on his computer and was asking other techs if they thought ford would for for a crank sensor if he wrote it up since the cars supercharged now, which makes me think the car threw a crank error code which he also didn’t tell me about.

There’s more but I spent the whole next day taking the blower and fuel system apart looking for the leak. Found both of them and I think all the vibration and heat caused my front two hoses to start leaking because the engine valley was flooded with coolant and it lost about 1/3 gallon.

So I called the service director and just asked him to go talk to his tech and confirm his story he lied to me about with his “ten seconds and shut it off “ story, which he did and his tech lied to him too.

So I guess I’ll go up the Monday and bring him the video to watch together.

And the icing on the cake, after he drove my car around cussing out other drivers and not fixing my issue I came there for, he drove it into a parking block , cussed about that, backed up and turned the keys into the service advisor. He didn’t mention that either. I got out to my car and was wondering what I hit on the way home to have scuffed my lower valance and have a fresh white mark on it. I guess now I know.

This is why I don’t let other people work on my sh*t unless I absolutely have to. This was a simple repair and none of his needed to happen.

More to come possibly but waiting to post that video depending on what he says Monday.
End QUOTE

***

5/15/18 - So the latest update - this has been more than a month ago now - I met with the Service Director Keith Drake at Five Star Ford Plano, TX.

He watched the hour long video and decided that, as a "legal expert on engine technology," that flashing the stock tune on an E85 Whipple car and revving it for a couple minutes could not hurt it and that the engine must have been dying all along.

The fact that I drove it home and parked it for two days before driving it again and found it sitting in a lake of coolant and that it had hard starting issues (coolant in cylinder one is the cause I found out through scoping it) are all unrelated and impossible to have been caused by Ford's negligence, he indicated.

He did offer to order me a new engine at my own expense at list price as a perk, but said it would be best to have someone else do it since his labor would be too high most likely.

He curtly ended the conversation with "All the best" and that was our last communication. The sensor issue was never resolved, although I was charged for it though, so I guess that's just the icing on the cake.

HPP should have the engine apart this week (they started tearing it out last week between other jobs) to confirm where the coolant is coming from. IF it's head gaskets, I'll be unbelievably lucky, as I figure it's more likely a cracked block or (less likely) a cracked head.

You've got to pay to play and things always happen when you turn the power up - but this is just not that. Dudes had my car for a few hours to ALIGN a sensor in the bumper. Instead they blew my engine and have done their best to cover it up.

So far, not counting two months of a rental car, the bill to get it to where it needs to be is sitting at $14,000...

Sh*t is unbelievable.

Opinions - the Ford Service Director said that I could hold that engine WOT bouncing off the rev limiter with the stock tune (E10 stoich) and E85 in the tank and it couldn't hurt anything because there's no load. That - to me - sounds like complete garbage.

What do you think?

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[Black Dog]

Wow! 2 weeks ago I almost bought my 2018 GT from them, I did buy my last 2016 GT from this dealership. And almost had them swap valve springs for me. Glad I did not. Service advisors think I am a dick when I bring my car in for the simple reason that I insist that my car does NOT leave their parking lot. Valet tune is a must on our cars. I ended up buying my 18 from another Sam Pack store but not this one. It is sad that you can get the right parts get the right tuner and take care of your car only for one irresponsible tech to ruin it for car owner. Hopefully you get things worked out.

 

[F1scamp]

After the teardown to find the exact cause of failure (if possible), talk to a lawyer and see what they say? That really, really sucks. Pure incompetence. You are a better man than me though, that guys face would have been rearranged.

 

[Barrel]

Hopefully just a headgasket. Could be cracked block but I'd sooner believe the damage is heat related from running lean. E85 might not knock with no load on the engine. I'm just guessing here, though.

Really sucks man. I feel for you.

 

[Crackerjack17]

I'm confused. This video says 3/12, and you were at the track on 3/16 running 10.5?

 

[Tommy V]

I'm confused. This video says 3/12, and you were at the track on 3/16 running 10.5?

Ahh ohhh!!!!!

 

[Draklia]

I'm confused. This video says 3/12, and you were at the track on 3/16 running 10.5?

Gotta be a typo, lol. Well at least it was a good story.

 

[Tugger50H]

:shrug:

I'm confused. This video says 3/12, and you were at the track on 3/16 running 10.5?

 

[gqneon]

Yes - it started having hard starts right after that visit but once it warmed up it ran like it always did. I found the vibration of the dealership ordeal must have just rattled some stuff loose as both the driver and passenger coolant lines were actively leaking ( hence the lake of coolant under the car after I parked it in the garage immediately after my dealership ordeal.) thinking I had solved it I did go to the track - and hot, it ran great. I didnt realize what they had done to the car internally until much later as the starting and idling problems began to get progrsssively worse and it kept slowly losing coolant. I blindly believed the guy for a minute and that was a mistake I learned also. So the dates right - and it ran well after it got past the burst of hard start and crappy idle. Then it got to a point I scoped it becausenit became so bad and I discovered the leaking coolant wasn’t just the hoses. That was just a coincidence also brought on by that same trip to the dealer.

 

[Crackerjack17]

Don't take this the wrong way, and honestly the ford tech shouldn't have loaded a stock tune on a whippled mustang, but its unlikely that caused a head gasket failure. That has been coming for a while. I broke two pistons. You know who's fault it is? Nobody's. Remember when you double the hp of a stock engine, the amount of heat you are generating is immense and was not necessarily engineered for that from the beginning. Shits gonna happen.

 

[Crackerjack17]

And these head gaskets are MLS. Multi layer steel. There are 3 layers of steel sandwiched together. Revving it to 3 or 4 thousand unloaded, is nothing compared to when you go wot and bazillion times.

 

[M151A2]

Well, blaming the dealership for a head gasket failure after you went out running 10.5 at the strip, well, is kinda unfair to the dealership and I HATE dealerships.

If your boosted and playing on the Strip, making good times like 10.5, you can't be surprised when things go wrong and whatever you do, don't blame it on someone else.

Just sayin"

 

[wireeater]

Ya. I'd probably be removing names of the dealer off your posts/video for right now or you might find yourself in some sort of libel case because you are making a lot of accusations that seems like you can't prove. Especially after taking the car to the dragstrip after the timeframe you accuse them of screwing something up.

 

[gqneon]

I know that things go wrong when you boost cars but you can't ignore the negligence from beginning to end from dropping it off to figuring out what they did retroactively. Had I taken it to the strip and beat on it, and came home to find a lake of coolant and hard starts, I'd have been like " damn. bound to happen."

There's no libel or anything to be concerned with. I addressed the problems with them immediately when they occurred but didn't realize the full extent of the damage at the time.

That said - it's also possible that a combination of things went wrong. No matter what, I'm having to eat the cost because it costs money to play the HP game. It's inevitable. I just wish I'd quit having such terrible experiences with Ford Dealerships. I think it's noteworthy. When it comes apart and I see exactly what's what - I may sing a different tune.

And to Crackerjack and M151A2 - I truly respect your input about it. I've learned to HATE dealerships. And my thought is the head gasket is least likely because of the MLS construction. I feel like - no matter how it shakes out - I probably won't have the ability to prove what they did caused any of this. I don't believe in coincidences though, and it all starting that day seems awfully coincidental. Just my two cents from the guy who's living it daily on this deal.

I appreciate your concerns though - it's good looking out. Cheers!

 

[Sighlense]

Why did he load the stock tune?

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