An example of why you don’t buy new parts off eBay.

Linc615

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Few years ago I purchased a water pump trying to save a little money I got it off eBay. It barely lasted 3 miles before engine was gone on initial test drive.

Took some investigating, a lot actually, and I wanted to share how important OEM parts really are.

Esp critical engine and electrical parts. 99% of eBay is counterfeit. And the non counterfeit is usually junk. I’ve been lucky twice on there with parts being actual OEM style.

This water pump was a couple tenths to the inch less in width from pulley to base. Not enough to even notice. That small variation caused my belt to shred like it was in an orange peeler except it made fine like shreds similar to hair but not that fine of course you get the picture.

Those shreds got wound up in the harmonic balancer causing them to push thru the seal on it then fed them to the inside on the casing where they got tangled in the timing chain and caused one side to jump timing.

Rendering a no good engine. It’s sat out in the weather for few years and recently got taken apart and I snapped a couple pics to see what non-OEM can do to your car. Learn from others mistakes when you can. But most won’t until it happens to them.

Think twice before hitting that “buy it now” link.
Parts came from OELine out of California from eBay. They changed their name after this incident tho I think. They are well aware of it happening. But they didn’t do shit.

I got more pics I’ll find and post if interested.

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Ya don't trust Amazon either. I had been buying fuel filters for my f350 and sometimes I get them from the dealer so I noticed the boxes were slightly different from Amazon so i inspected the filters closely, fake low quality garbage. Everyone's out to screw you these days. Luckily I noticed the difference before I used them.
 
There's a lot to be said for buying OEM parts.
Yup, gotta be careful though, they counterfeit motorcaft parts and boxes as well as every other brand, they look close unless you know the subtle differences.

I had a friend that bought a cell phone on Amazon, looked legit, turned on and everything, has some weird custom os and wouldn't connect to any towers, was missing hardware inside I'm guessing, cheap non working lookalike sold as full price real deal. Amazon is at least good about refunding you, but if I had used those fuel filters and they failed I'd be looking at a potential 20k repair bill and doubt Amazon would've covered that one, ha
 
Also note that ALL Lincoln LS 3.9L and Jaguar 4.0L and 4.2L engines SC or not use the same water pump.

This means you can find the pump at most places. Rock Auto has the Motorcraft one for around $100.
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Ya don't trust Amazon either. I had been buying fuel filters for my f350 and sometimes I get them from the dealer so I noticed the boxes were slightly different from Amazon so i inspected the filters closely, fake low quality garbage. Everyone's out to screw you these days. Luckily I noticed the difference before I used them.
Im not sure if this is still the case, its worth looking into; Motorcraft has a brand protection division in Detroit that is out to stop counterfeit production. If you suspect you have counterfeit parts, at one time they would have you send your parts to them, they would then send the exact REAL parts back to you and use the counterfeit for research and development purposes. Essentially its an even trade you give them the evidence and where you bought it, and they send you quality motorcraft replacement parts. They are pretty quick in responses also when you reach out to them.
 
The engine in the pics above, looks like it failed its scuba diving class.
Happens when it sits in the rain for couple years halfway torn apart apparently. Im sure it looked a little more shiny prior to the incident that locked it up. I would hope anyway..
 

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