Well that didn't last long. 2020 GT350R DEAD

[RPDBlueMoon]

Definitely not user error. The dealer is 100% claiming manufacturer defect. So originally I had mothballed this thing. Bought it back in August. I wasnt planning on ever driving it. But then decided to take it out warm it up get some miles on it and kaboom. Glad I figured that out now vs deciding to drive it 5 years from now and it is out of warranty that would have really sucked.

How in the world could user error cause just one timing chain to snap? If it was something like dropping it from 5th to 2nd gear it would have fragged the whole engine not just one side.

I think the real thing that got me was Mustang karma. I have been talking $hit about mustangs since I was 16, but I really though the GT350R was just a great car and gave Ford some credit for that one, bought one, and apparently the mustang gods decided to play a fast one on me for talking too much $hit lol.

I meant user/human error as in it sounds like you were probably right about the dude who assembled your engine. The dude might have done something wrong with the timing chain.

I didn't mean user error as in you were the one at fault.

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[Champale]

That is really unfortunate to hear about your car, mk1spyder! It sounds like you have not even been able to enjoy the car at the revs in which it thrives (i.e. 5500-8250). I also have a 2020 R and am nearing 2k miles on it and threads like these make me freak out a little, to be honest. But heck, it has a warranty so I will enjoy it for at least as long as the warranty lasts.

Well I hope the replacement comes soon and is a success. I enjoy driving mine so much it's not even funny so I hope you get to enjoy yours at some point!

 

[460Fred]

So you had a ticking time bomb in your garage since August.
Let us know how the buy back goes.
Never meant to imply you are stupid about anything. People can be quite sensitive even though nobody knows anything about them.
I’ve been flamed on this very forum because I didn’t do my research of a forum member before I asked a question. It came back as I should’ve known better because who the person was.

 

[mk1spyder]

What's funny is I was seriously considering sending it to fat fab or aldo weld to get a twin turbo kit and I asked them about the miles on the engine like should I break it in before shipping it. They both said nah we put them on brand new cars all the time and "break them in" on the dyno (which is in no way possibly 1000 miles). Can you imagine if I shipped it off at 30 miles and they did all that work to it then it dropped the chain lol.

 

[BrianH87]

Believe me, I know how you feel. I went through something similar with my Raptor. I broke down on my way home from taking delivery. It’s a terrible feeling. My dealer was awesome though. I ended up in a new one that same day. It was easy for them because they had a second one on the lot. And it all happened before any of the paperwork went through. Maybe you can do something similar. I highly doubt they have a second R sitting on the lot though. See if they can at least cancel the paperwork. Good luck. The car is worth the hassle.

 

[460Fred]

Believe me, I know how you feel. I went through something similar with my Raptor. I broke down on my way home from taking delivery. It’s a terrible feeling. My dealer was awesome though. I ended up in a new one that same day. It was easy for them because they had a second one on the lot. And it all happened before any of the paperwork went through. Maybe you can do something similar. I highly doubt they have a second R sitting on the lot though. See if they can at least cancel the paperwork. Good luck. The car is worth the hassle.

No can do, he’s had the car since August.

 

[GreenS550]

I have purchased several used Coyote powered Mustangs. I only bought 1 new, the Bullitt which was flawless and ran excellent with blower I put on it. But the used ones I put superchargers on were great.

That said, I am always leery of buying a brand new car. When I look at one a year or 2 old, I can see the carfax and if it was a lemon or had issues the first owner had to deal with them and it should have been reported on the carfax. From there I only purchase one that has one owner and never modded, 5-30K miles are fine.

I realize your 350R is an expensive and very rare car. But your experience is what always concerns me buying new. I hope you get whatever is needed done right.

Good luck and keep up posted.

 

[mk1spyder]

I have purchased several used Coyote powered Mustangs. I only bought 1 new, the Bullitt which was flawless and ran excellent with blower I put on it. But the used ones I put superchargers on were great.

That said, I am always leery of buying a brand new car. When I look at one a year or 2 old, I can see the carfax and if it was a lemon or had issues the first owner had to deal with them and it should have been reported on the carfax. From there I only purchase one that has one owner and never modded, 5-30K miles are fine.

I realize your 350R is an expensive and very rare car. But your experience is what always concerns me buying new. I hope you get whatever is needed done right.

Good luck and keep up posted.

Not a bad strategy for sure. But you shouldn't have to do that kind of stuff if it was a good car made by a good company. Like nobody was doing that with 1993-1998 Toyota Supras. Because they had damn near zero failures of any kind, because they were just well designed and built with quality control. Which is why they are now worth double their original MSRP.

 

[EFI]

That makes literally 0 sense, especially in the high dollar vehicle market. It may be cheaper to just replace a $20 toy rather than spend thousands of dollars re-tooling the factory to fix the defect. But there's no way that it's cheaper for a car manufacturer to have to replace a $30,000 longblock or spend $65,000 for a buyback over and over and over again rather than make a change in manufacturing.

You think GM back in the late 2000s when they had all the valve guide issues with the LS7 thought to themselves "screw paying an extra $7 on a better valve guide to address the issue many customers are reporting, lets keep putting in these cheaper ones and then replace an entire $20,000 longblock when the valve inevitably drops and wipes out the entire engine".

 

[GreenS550]

No way a major engine failing component. Cosmetics or something that can be easily serviced at the dealership, but not anything that will cause a potential owner to need a tow truck.

No way would Ford or any manufacturer put a part on that hasn't been thoroughly tested, etc. Since the VooDoo engines are hand made, it was likely an installation error, not component failure.

"to err is human, to forgive is Divine" Not sure on the Op's forgiveness, though!

 

[EFI]

Being in QA for a large software company for 27 years, I highly disagree even with the 1%. Delivering an unfinished product because something small was missed in testing and then having to spend time fixing it is a lot costlier than if you had caught that issue in testing prior to delivering it to the customer. I've spend the better part 2 decades trying to improve the QA process and catch these seemingly small issues before they get released, so I imagine that upper management has something in mind when they keep giving me budget to improve QA rather than saying fuck it let's just fix it when/if it breaks. There's a whole industry called continuous process improvement that's built on this very concept that it's cheaper to catch things before and being pro-active rather than being re-active.

Maybe it's just my industry and the auto industry is different, but I doubt it to a certain degree. Paying dealerships $120 per tech hour to repair something and loaning out rental cars is expensive.

 

[Hack]

Its just sad how many problems they have had with the valvetrain on this engine platform going on 10 years now. Half the coyote F150/Mustangs we hear coming off the truck sound like the timing chain is slapping the valve cover. I thought they had it figured out by now.

Reading what you said in this post... maybe it really was Karma from the Ford gods like you mentioned earlier. I'm not sure I even believe your story after you say this. You spent all that money on a Ford, didn't drive it for months and you think 1/2 of them have a problem from new?

I've owned quite a few Fords and never had a valvetrain problem in any of them. Some had over 200,000 miles and worked perfectly with no problems - just maintenance.

Anyway - best of luck with the process. Hopefully you will be happy at the end.

 

[Michael_vroomvroom]

Being in QA for a large software company for 27 years, I highly disagree even with the 1%. Delivering an unfinished product because something small was missed in testing and then having to spend time fixing it is a lot costlier than if you had caught that issue in testing prior to delivering it to the customer.

...

Maybe it's just my industry and the auto industry is different, but I doubt it to a certain degree. Paying dealerships $120 per tech hour to repair something and loaning out rental cars is expensive.

I'm sure you've seen similar before. And while I too doubt it's different in automotive, I can't help thinking about a recent post here, a week or two ago. Somebody mentioned a new GT arriving in Germany, with the driver seat being the customer specified Recaro, but the passenger seat being a regular seat. Shipped like that to the dealer in Germany.

How can something like that even happen? Nobody, not even one person at Ford USA, took a look at the car? Ford should win some kind of price for that. One of the funniest things I've read about here. A photo should be taken and posted back to the Ford plant: "spot one mistake".

 

[GreenS550]

You know what, OP, now you're just trash talking. The ecoboosts are not "junk". How many have you owned? On top of that most all forums attract people that have had issues with their cars. Check out the other manufacturers forum websites. You'll see the same issues there.
To prove this, you only joined this site when you ran into issues, not back in August when you bought your car. Everyone feels bad for your experience, but talking about stuff you have read or know nothing about except for hearsay is trash talking.
All done with this thread.

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