Now what?? Cylinder misfire....

[Hawk03]

Well, they are still not sure what it is, they told me that a Ford engineer happened to be in the shop the other day and he wasn't even sure. It's making kind of a bad sound from the front end of the motor and they think that there could be something wrong with the heads so they're goin in to check it out. My car is an '01 LS8 Sport with 50,500 miles..just out of warranty. I asked the service guy if Ford had some sort of assistance program for poor saps like me and he said that my car qualified for something like that. The first 500 bucks is out of my pocket and Ford would pay for up to $1500 in repairs and then the rest is back to me.

This is my first Ford and after two months I haven't been real impressed with the quality (I know, I know, but right now I'm a little biased) but the service, at least at this dealer, has been pretty good. I wasn't really expecting them to budge at all. We'll see how it all turns out in the end.

This happened to me about a little over a month ago. My LS is a 2000 V8 with 44,000 miles and just out of warranty. The service man at the dealership I went to was awesome. I had to pay the $500 and that was it plus a 30,000 mile warranty was put on the drivetrain as well. Parts alone came out to be about 3 grand and total cost was estimated at around 6 grand. They have to drop the whole engine out of the car to fix it, when I saw my car all torn apart like that I just about threw up. Crazy sight.
Good Luck

 

[lsbit]

This is my first Ford and after two months I haven't been real impressed with the quality (I know, I know, but right now I'm a little biased) but the service, at least at this dealer, has been pretty good. I wasn't really expecting them to budge at all. We'll see how it all turns out in the end.

This is really a British made problem. I blame them. I have had many Fords and have had very few problems with them. You can blame this particular car, but please don't take Ford off your future list of possible purchases.

 

[jpslim]

This happened to me about a little over a month ago. My LS is a 2000 V8 with 44,000 miles and just out of warranty. The service man at the dealership I went to was awesome. I had to pay the $500 and that was it plus a 30,000 mile warranty was put on the drivetrain as well. Parts alone came out to be about 3 grand and total cost was estimated at around 6 grand. They have to drop the whole engine out of the car to fix it, when I saw my car all torn apart like that I just about threw up. Crazy sight.
Good Luck

This sounds like the same thing they are doing for me, he did say that I would get a 30,000k warranty for the drivetrain but Ford would only pay up to $1500, and then the rest was back to me. How did you manage to get them to pay for all of the rest of it? If it is a Ford assistance program, it should be the same at all dealers, right? The only thing I can think of is that I am over on miles (just barely) and you weren't.

Also, what exactly did they fix on yours? They still haven't really taken mine apart to tell me what it is.

 

[Hawk03]

This sounds like the same thing they are doing for me, he did say that I would get a 30,000k warranty for the drivetrain but Ford would only pay up to $1500, and then the rest was back to me. How did you manage to get them to pay for all of the rest of it? If it is a Ford assistance program, it should be the same at all dealers, right? The only thing I can think of is that I am over on miles (just barely) and you weren't.

Also, what exactly did they fix on yours? They still haven't really taken mine apart to tell me what it is.

They replaced a cylinder head, I think the right side. Of course they first diganosed it as a coil, they changed out the coil but the engine was still not running right. They took it apart and found out it was the cylinder head.
I didn't really do anything to have them pay for all of it except for the $500. The service manager said he talked the top guy at the dealer into giving this to me. They whole place was nice to me as soon as I walked in the door. They said they have seen this problem on a couple of LSes. It must be a Ford assistance program because it came right from the dealer so it should be the same at all dealers. I would say maybe complain to them and if they don't give the same thing to you as to me tell them you will take it somewhere else.
Your symptoms are almost excatly what I was experiencing. Engine running rough on idle and when at a stop light but fine when driving. As soon as I figured that it was probably more than I could handle I took it in.
Let me know if you have any more questions, I still have the invoice with all of the part numbers and stuff.

Bob

 

[Ken]

It sounds like your O2 sensor on the right side is bad. Check underneath to see if the wire harness is connected and not damaged. If everything look good, I would switch the O2 sensors from right to left and see if the symptom changes.

 

[eL eS]

It sounds like your O2 sensor on the right side is bad. Check underneath to see if the wire harness is connected and not damaged. If everything look good, I would switch the O2 sensors from right to left and see if the symptom changes.

It would more than likely throw a DTC if it were bad. The tolerance on the bank 1 O2 sensors is very narrow. There is a documented TSB regarding the heads and it was only a matter of time before the affected LS' showed up on the radar.

I have been participating in various forums since 01 and have rarely seen an owner with the problem and the same thing seems to be happening for the transmissions now as well. Unfortunately the owners of the 00 and 01's with these problems are at or nearing the end of their warranty.

The only recorurse for the out of warranty folks is to petition for and AWA and/or register the issue with the NHTSA and hope a post warranty recall is issued. I urge all owners of any year to register thier problems with the NHTSA's website, it might just help the second hand owners way down the road.

 

[lsbit]

Also, what exactly did they fix on yours? They still haven't really taken mine apart to tell me what it is.

Crap...stuff comes in 3's. I'm afraid to find out if I have that problem. I would be trading it in.

 

[eL eS]

Crap...stuff comes in 3's. I'm afraid to find out if I have that problem. I would be trading it in.

Jeez I hear ya. I think this problem is centric to the V8's and thank the lord for the solvable problems I have been given with my V6 now that I have seen a rise in this issue.

 

[jpslim]

Hey, got the LS back the other day...almost exactly a month after I took it in to the shop. When they finally got the engine apart, they figured out it was the timing belt tensioner, not the heads after all. After all was said and done, they had $3800 in parts and labor. After the $1500 from Ford, the service rep was able to work my part of the bill down to $1000 and I now have the extended powertrain warranty also. It seems to run fine now so we will just have to keep our fingers crossed.

Oh yeah, on the drive home, the front airbag light came on...I wonder how expensive this is gonna be....

 

[lsbit]

Glad it's fixed. Maybe the air bag is some connector that they knocked loose.

I am glad my fix turned out to be $63.00. I was afraid to take it to the dealer. They probably would have rebuilt the engine before finding the injector.