TJlongworth
Moderator
As many people know Trish's Ford escape has been a bit of a headache from the very beginning. For those that don't know here's a bit of a recap.
She purchased the car from carfax shortly after we started going out. She had the car for about a week before the check engine light came on, which I quickly diagnosed as the car needing a head gasket. Back to carmax it went for them to take it to the ford for a whole short block because of an active TSB for a bad block design. It sat on the ford lot for a year before they had all the parts to do the job. Carmax was great about rental cars, and we drove the wheels off the 3 we had.
She got the car back and all seemed good until I checked the oil 2 weeks after picking it up and there was none on the dipstick. It took a quart to get it where it needed to be. turns out they pinched a turbo drain line putting everything back together and the oil was leaking everywhere. I took the opportunity to tear the service dept. a new one. Upon further inspection all the zip tie tabs were cut, a few bolts were not tight and hoses were routed it the wrong spot.. After ripping the service guy and a manager a new one they told me the next available appointment for them to fix the oil drain line was 3 weeks and they don't supply rentals.. FAWK THEM. I asked for the parts at no cost and i'll do it myself.
Since then the car has been great until Thursday the 7th. At this point she has put 20 k on the car. Trish calls me in work and says its making a knocking noise and you could hear it on the phone. I drove her to work and stopped at gengras ford. The service writer was great to work with. He explained that there was little to no warranty on the engine work hoffman ford did, but if it was indeed an engine related issues they would work with me if I had them do they diag. sure for 170 ill give it a shot, went home and before putting it on the trailer tossed it on the lift and quickly realized it was between the back of the motor and tranny. Wonderful
Towed the car to ford even though it most likely wont be covered, got to talking with the shop Forman, he told me the flex plates crack all the time, and when they do it sounds like a knock. flex plate, cool, how bad could it be. Still going to pay them to diagnose. Unfortunately they tell me what I already learned and I'm out the 170, To diagnose any further they need to pull the tranny, and by that time they might as well do the job... 3400 in labor!
I thanked him and said since the daig didn't buy me anything, can you write up a quote for everything I need to do the job myself, To my surprise he did, even down to the oil ! 1300 out the door including core charges I have gained another project.
Parts included,
-All the 1 time use hardware
-Torque converter
-front pump for the tranny
-filter for tranny
-New flex plate
-fluid
-some seals and o-rings
To say it was labor intensive was an understatement, the amount of stuff that had to be removed was insane. The book said 12.8 hours to pull and replace the tranny. It ended up taking me almost 18 hours to do the entire job. I give the dealer techs a lot of credit to do this work day after day.
After further inspection I'm confident to say that the flex plate doesn't just fail out of nowhere, Duh, but everyone seems to believe that the flex plate fails which causes the torque converter to wobble, which takes out the pump. However I think the failure happens in reverse. the front pump bushing gets worn out from a lack of lubrication causing the torque converter to wobble, which causes the flimsy flex plate to crack over time. This is just a guess but it seems to make more sense.
All in the job cost about 900 bucks and a few hours, I was also able to fix a bunch of the crap the last dealer half A$$ed
She purchased the car from carfax shortly after we started going out. She had the car for about a week before the check engine light came on, which I quickly diagnosed as the car needing a head gasket. Back to carmax it went for them to take it to the ford for a whole short block because of an active TSB for a bad block design. It sat on the ford lot for a year before they had all the parts to do the job. Carmax was great about rental cars, and we drove the wheels off the 3 we had.
She got the car back and all seemed good until I checked the oil 2 weeks after picking it up and there was none on the dipstick. It took a quart to get it where it needed to be. turns out they pinched a turbo drain line putting everything back together and the oil was leaking everywhere. I took the opportunity to tear the service dept. a new one. Upon further inspection all the zip tie tabs were cut, a few bolts were not tight and hoses were routed it the wrong spot.. After ripping the service guy and a manager a new one they told me the next available appointment for them to fix the oil drain line was 3 weeks and they don't supply rentals.. FAWK THEM. I asked for the parts at no cost and i'll do it myself.
Since then the car has been great until Thursday the 7th. At this point she has put 20 k on the car. Trish calls me in work and says its making a knocking noise and you could hear it on the phone. I drove her to work and stopped at gengras ford. The service writer was great to work with. He explained that there was little to no warranty on the engine work hoffman ford did, but if it was indeed an engine related issues they would work with me if I had them do they diag. sure for 170 ill give it a shot, went home and before putting it on the trailer tossed it on the lift and quickly realized it was between the back of the motor and tranny. Wonderful
Towed the car to ford even though it most likely wont be covered, got to talking with the shop Forman, he told me the flex plates crack all the time, and when they do it sounds like a knock. flex plate, cool, how bad could it be. Still going to pay them to diagnose. Unfortunately they tell me what I already learned and I'm out the 170, To diagnose any further they need to pull the tranny, and by that time they might as well do the job... 3400 in labor!
I thanked him and said since the daig didn't buy me anything, can you write up a quote for everything I need to do the job myself, To my surprise he did, even down to the oil ! 1300 out the door including core charges I have gained another project.
Parts included,
-All the 1 time use hardware
-Torque converter
-front pump for the tranny
-filter for tranny
-New flex plate
-fluid
-some seals and o-rings
To say it was labor intensive was an understatement, the amount of stuff that had to be removed was insane. The book said 12.8 hours to pull and replace the tranny. It ended up taking me almost 18 hours to do the entire job. I give the dealer techs a lot of credit to do this work day after day.
After further inspection I'm confident to say that the flex plate doesn't just fail out of nowhere, Duh, but everyone seems to believe that the flex plate fails which causes the torque converter to wobble, which takes out the pump. However I think the failure happens in reverse. the front pump bushing gets worn out from a lack of lubrication causing the torque converter to wobble, which causes the flimsy flex plate to crack over time. This is just a guess but it seems to make more sense.
All in the job cost about 900 bucks and a few hours, I was also able to fix a bunch of the crap the last dealer half A$$ed
