2.7L blown engine failure list . . 68 so far [Updated: December 13, 2022]

[Mean Red GT]

If you really want to amp up your anxiety level you should see how a an assembly plant builds your car.

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[JPye]

Ugh, I just realized my engine is 7 engines after the latest blown motor . I just picked up a Whipple Tuner but now I’m afraid of installing it and then ending up with a bad motor.

Have you considered entering your engine Julian Date and Current Milage on VictoryLights milage tracker?

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/how-many-miles-on-your-2-7.34994/

 

[Last Ride Bronco]

I have a 21228 date and I am at 7700k. Maybe there is hope for others.

 

[KnoxGnater]

I have a 21228 date and I am at 7700k. Maybe there is hope for others.

Only one way to know, beat it like a rented mule! I think I may have gotten this over sooner had I not been so gentle with her.

Good luck to you, fingers crossed.

 

[Boxer4]

Hold my beer.....Wife and I are going to Charleston next week

SC ? Another cold snap coming the beginning next week

 

[flip]

SC ? Another cold snap coming the beginning next week

Yes, SC. It's going to be 30-40 here next week so anything more than this is an improvement. I'm hoping the cooler air keeps me below the valve keeper groove separation point.

 

[j_marinelli]

Original post 2/6/22: So mine died today at 6620 miles (corrected today). Blend date was 9/7, Motor Julian is 21209.

Failure mode: 65 MPH getting ready to exit the highway. A minor surge, then the motor shut off. No loud noises or anything. No warning lights prior to the shut off. Coasted into a gas station. It will crank but not start. The coolant reservoir is empty, and it smoked like hell out the exhaust for 10 min after I parked it. Acts like a sudden head gasket failure, but looks very similar to what I'm reading about here.

Oil level was good, no foam or shiny bits on the dipstick. No puddles or external leakage from sitting overnight.

Pic of the Motor info: (July 28th build date, right in the middle of the suspect range from Post 1 in this thread)

Update 1: 2/7/22: The dealer I bought it from informed me this morning (quite rudely) that it would be "late March" before we can look at it if you tow it here". That's going to be a conversation with the Manager later today.

Another local dealer had availability and will hopefully provide info on the initial diagnostic today. They've been great to communicate with so far, but since I didn't buy there I'm worried my priority will be lower to them.

The pic below is with it not running, just post failure. It looks like it sent the coolant into the exhaust and this is it flashing off. There was residual coolant all over the muffler, tailpipe, and bumper aggresivly smoking. I was afraid it was on fire until I confirmed it was all coming off the exhaust internally.

Another 209er?!?!

Damn so if this holds true that means there are 3 ahead of mine on this day (this one would be 200 motors ahead of mine) and 1 behind mine (30 motors behind mine)...

 

[Tex]

It is a bit odd that supposedly its a bad batch of valves, and yet it seems the same cylinders are the ones that keep going out. In addition we know that they've changed heads. I mean I don't know how the assembly line works, but I would think there is a pretty random chance on which cylinders of bad valve would end up in.

It's entirely possible that all of the valves in the engine are compromised, but the cylinders exhibiting failures are just naturally running hotter or under more stress than the others, leading to failure in that location before the others that are running cooler or under less stress are able to have a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Take the good valves out of a blown engine and put them in the same position, perhaps they'll fail just as quickly being subjected to more stress. Aircraft engines are known for this, as the rear cylinders in opposed engines are often the hottest running due to being so far away from cooling air, and upper cylinders on radials because they get less oil. Could be that the 2.7 just has a hotter running bank on the driver's side.

It makes sense that the manufacturing process would be lumping batches of valves together without mixing good batches and bad batches, meaning, a run of 600 valves are going to be thrown in a crate and that crate will be used to sequentially build 100 engines, one right after the next, all with the same batch of valves. Better for failure analysis and quality control to be able to track where these things come from. Though, I really have no idea what their manufacturing processes are, it could be that there's a faulty heat treating inductor that's one of 6, so 6 valves go in and are treated simultaneously, with one of them receiving an improper heat treat. The suspect valve is then boxed with the other 5 and the assembly worker dropping valves in holes simply has a pattern they follow, so that valve just happens to make it into cyl 6 because it was the last box left.

Heat cycles are usually what cause engine component failure, you get them hot and then cool them off, they grow and shrink and internal stresses build while grain structure is altered, until something eventually gives. For them to fail without warning and so catastrophically, even during initial startup or warmup as some have had rather than making runs down the drag strip, leads me to believe our valves or valve retainers are experiencing stress fracturing from improper heat treatment (other problems would arise if our engines were the cause of excessive heat stress, like loss of compression, detonation, preignition, overheating, etc.). Stress fracturing comes suddenly and often without indication. Happens occasionally (too often lol) when I quench knives too, unfortunately.

All of this is speculation until someone can inspect a few dead engines and come up with commonality between them, then compare to known good engines. Test the rockwell hardness of the valves or rig them up in a tension load cell and see what kind of numbers they get, that sort of thing. Even then, we'll probably never get to the bottom of it without Ford admitting the entire thing and detailing where it all went wrong in the process.

 

[JPye]

It's entirely possible that all of the valves in the engine are compromised, but the cylinders exhibiting failures are just naturally running hotter or under more stress than the others, leading to failure in that location before the others that are running cooler or under less stress are able to have a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Take the good valves out of a blown engine and put them in the same position, perhaps they'll fail just as quickly being subjected to more stress. Aircraft engines are known for this, as the rear cylinders in opposed engines are often the hottest running due to being so far away from cooling air, and upper cylinders on radials because they get less oil. Could be that the 2.7 just has a hotter running bank on the driver's side.

It makes sense that the manufacturing process would be lumping batches of valves together without mixing good batches and bad batches, meaning, a run of 600 valves are going to be thrown in a crate and that crate will be used to sequentially build 100 engines, one right after the next, all with the same batch of valves. Better for failure analysis and quality control to be able to track where these things come from. Though, I really have no idea what their manufacturing processes are, it could be that there's a faulty heat treating inductor that's one of 6, so 6 valves go in and are treated simultaneously, with one of them receiving an improper heat treat. The suspect valve is then boxed with the other 5 and the assembly worker dropping valves in holes simply has a pattern they follow, so that valve just happens to make it into cyl 6 because it was the last box left.

Heat cycles are usually what cause engine component failure, you get them hot and then cool them off, they grow and shrink and internal stresses build while grain structure is altered, until something eventually gives. For them to fail without warning and so catastrophically, even during initial startup or warmup as some have had rather than making runs down the drag strip, leads me to believe our valves or valve retainers are experiencing stress fracturing from improper heat treatment (other problems would arise if our engines were the cause of excessive heat stress, like loss of compression, detonation, preignition, overheating, etc.). Stress fracturing comes suddenly and often without indication. Happens occasionally (too often lol) when I quench knives too, unfortunately.

All of this is speculation until someone can inspect a few dead engines and come up with commonality between them, then compare to known good engines. Test the rockwell hardness of the valves or rig them up in a tension load cell and see what kind of numbers they get, that sort of thing. Even then, we'll probably never get to the bottom of it without Ford admitting the entire thing and detailing where it all went wrong in the process.

I like the RUD reference! I wondered how Elon would approach this problem, but then realized Elon would never have this problem. I suspect the 2.7L EcoBoost engine is more complicated than one of his Raptor 2 Rocket engines. Elon Musk would just say, it's too complicated, make it simple! Which is what he did when he built Tesla. I love buying a Michigan product. But if Ford can't do the right thing, my next vehicle may not be a Lightning.

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

I like the RUD reference! I wondered how Elon would approach this problem, but then realized Elon would never have this problem. I suspect the 2.7L EcoBoost engine is more complicated than one of his Raptor 2 Rocket engines. Elon Musk would just say, it's too complicated, make it simple! Which is what he did when he built Tesla. I love buying a Michigan product. But if Ford can't do the right thing, my next vehicle may not be a Lightning.

Didn't thousands of Teslas get recalled because the frunk latch mechanisms can get out of alignment and cause the hood to fly open at highway speed?

edit: hundreds of thousands: https://www.cars.com/articles/119000-tesla-model-s-sedans-recalled-for-hood-latch-445423/

 

[jon]

Didn't thousands of Teslas get recalled because the frunk latch mechanisms can get out of alignment and cause the hood to fly open at highway speed?

edit: hundreds of thousands: https://www.cars.com/articles/119000-tesla-model-s-sedans-recalled-for-hood-latch-445423/

Yes, even Elon can make mistakes... Having owned serveral For's with serious hood latching issues if only that was what we were worried about here was a sticky latch, but alas we are talking about a 15-20K engine needing replacement. SIGH

 

[JPye]

Didn't thousands of Teslas get recalled because the frunk latch mechanisms can get out of alignment and cause the hood to fly open at highway speed?

edit: hundreds of thousands: https://www.cars.com/articles/119000-tesla-model-s-sedans-recalled-for-hood-latch-445423/

Within this Forum, you would have a point had the Tesla frunk latch mech failed and Tesla wasn't doing anything about it. See below, notice the phrase "... not aware of any crashes or injuries related to this condition."

What has Ford done about the 2.7L EcoBoost Engine in our Broncos? Nothing that we are aware of, but we are all waiting to find out what FoMoCo plans to do. The Bronco is both an iconic Ford Product and a best in class SUV in the industry. We all know Ford will do the right thing. Our only question is, when?

"If the trunk is inadvertently released while driving and the secondary latch is not engaged, the frunk may be open without warning and obstruct the driver’s visibility. If the frunk is inadvertently released, the driver will receive an alert on the user interface. We are not aware of any crashes or injuries related to this condition.”

 

[SPITmadFIRE]

Within this Forum, you would have a point had the Tesla frunk latch mech failed and Tesla wasn't doing anything about it. See below, notice the phrase "... not aware of any crashes or injuries related to this condition."

What has Ford done about the 2.7L EcoBoost Engine in our Broncos? Nothing that we are aware of, but we are all waiting to find out what FoMoCo plans to do. The Bronco is both an iconic Ford Product and a best in class SUV in the industry. We all know Ford will do the right thing. Our only question is, when?

"If the trunk is inadvertently released while driving and the secondary latch is not engaged, the frunk may be open without warning and obstruct the driver’s visibility. If the frunk is inadvertently released, the driver will receive an alert on the user interface. We are not aware of any crashes or injuries related to this condition.”

I've been a pretty outspoken critic of Ford on this forum, and definitely within this thread. Just wanted to make sure you weren't taking my comment out of context. I was simply replying to the "Elon approaches problems better than other people" sentiment.

 

[JPye]

I've been a pretty outspoken critic of Ford on this forum, and definitely within this thread. Just wanted to make sure you weren't taking my comment out of context. I was simply replying to the "Elon approaches problems better than other people" sentiment.

Fair enough. Musk is a disruptor. Musk is correct that if you can remove complexity, you will streamline production and reduce failures. So I am not sure what would be wrong with stating, even if haven’t until now, that “Elon approaches problems better than other people”. Let’s have this discussion in 5 years and see how his approach holds up to time. The lightning will be in production in the spring. Will it have the same teething pains we are experiencing with our Broncos now? Doubtful.

 

[mandyhoth]

Original post 2/6/22: So mine died today at 6620 miles (corrected today). Blend date was 9/7, Motor Julian is 21209.

Failure mode: 65 MPH getting ready to exit the highway. A minor surge, then the motor shut off. No loud noises or anything. No warning lights prior to the shut off. Coasted into a gas station. It will crank but not start. The coolant reservoir is empty, and it smoked like hell out the exhaust for 10 min after I parked it. Acts like a sudden head gasket failure, but looks very similar to what I'm reading about here.

Oil level was good, no foam or shiny bits on the dipstick. No puddles or external leakage from sitting overnight.

Pic of the Motor info: (July 28th build date, right in the middle of the suspect range from Post 1 in this thread)

Update 1: 2/7/22: The dealer I bought it from informed me this morning (quite rudely) that it would be "late March" before we can look at it if you tow it here". That's going to be a conversation with the Manager later today.

Another local dealer had availability and will hopefully provide info on the initial diagnostic today. They've been great to communicate with so far, but since I didn't buy there I'm worried my priority will be lower to them.

The pic below is with it not running, just post failure. It looks like it sent the coolant into the exhaust and this is it flashing off. There was residual coolant all over the muffler, tailpipe, and bumper aggresivly smoking. I was afraid it was on fire until I confirmed it was all coming off the exhaust internally.

Noooo!!!! I just hit 5000 miles today and was doing a party dance in the car when it finally made it out of the danger zone. Then I get on here and see that the 5000 mile safe zone speculation obviously isn’t correct. Now I’m probably just driving on borrowed time.

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