The Infamous Ford 5.4 Triton Cam Phaser Dealer Rip Off

[jonp]

I bought a used F150 last year with about 140,000 miles knowing it would need timing chains so i built that into the offer and did ok on a clean truck.

I was looking around the internet on a noise it began making and found out about the well known cam phaser problem. I even found the TSB on it. Sure enough that sounded like mine so to be sure i follwed advice and changed the sensors first. No dice. Noise a little quieter but still there so i took it to the local Ford dealership to confirm it.

Girl called me back several days later to tell me the "tech" said it was the sensors. Kind of hard since they were brand new. Several days later i called her and surprise! Cam phasers so went in to talk about it. I had already looked them up online to get an idea of what to expect. They came up with 3 options

1) replace cam phasers with a bunch of parts added i didnt recognize. $1,650
2) Phasers and timing chain job due to mileage. $2,600
3) New Engine? $7,000

Told them id think it over, went home and got on the internet. Essentally you take off the valve cover, pop off the old phaser and put on the new one, new valve cover gasket and close it up. Instead of a page full of parts i ordered 2 phasers, a wedge tool to keep the timing chain tight and gaskets for $150 and im doing it myself. Guess they havn't figured out the internet is out there and that type of crud aint flying anymore. Not sure what all those other parts are but $150 beats the heck out of $1,600.

Where did that new $7,000 crate engine come from? "We like to give the customers several options". Yeah, well one of mine is never come in here again

I thought i had scrubbed the stupid sign off my forehead before going in but some must have still been on there.

Oh, the $125 Cam Phasers i ordered online the Ford Dealership wanted about $400

[Artful]

Nothing new in this - Stealership's pricing has been that way ever since they redesigned cars to get rid of shade tree mechanic's.

[Rufus Krile]

Similar, yet different... local mech I'd used for years decided he hasn't seen enough of me. Asked him about shocks for a '06 Silverado... was told '$600'. Asked another guy and got the same answer. Bought the shocks at parts store and, 10 bolts later, saved $500. Still don't like crawling around under a truck but for that much money I can be a little uncomfortable. That much markup is just taking advantage... I know he has a business to run but a neighborhood mechanic requires return​ business.

[FISH4BUGS]

Similar but different......I had a Mercedes 300cd with 125,000 miles on it. The transmission started slipping badly and I took it in to the dealer. They said $5000 for a new transmission.
I thought it might be good to check the trans fluid level and it was amost bone dry. I put in 6 liters of the fluid and proceeded to put 250,000 miles on a car that "needed a new transmission".
The Rockingham County Attorney, who was good friend of mine, refused to prosecute for attempted fraud. The local police was not interested either.
Dreher Hollowy Mercedes in Greenland NH is a thief. No other way to describe them.

[osteodoc08]

A how-to would be pretty cool if you had the time

[dkf]

You can get a kit to lock out the cam phasers also. You'll need tuning with the lockout though. Livernois Motorsports is one that offers a kit. Of course if you have a broken or worn chain guide or tensioner the new phasers won't help much. Dealerships and a lot of other shops shaft you. They are not content just to make money on labor, they want to make good profit on parts too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsoU2zEWTyE


http://www.livernoismotorsports.com/product/LPP822133

[jonp]

dkf: i saw that and the video. The lockouts were $35 or so but consensus was you had to reprogram the motor anf the program was $400 i think so replacing the phasers was cheaper for me considering the age of the truck and the miles. Another 100k and it will be ready to retire. If it was a newer truck id go the lockout route and not worry about them again

[dkf]

Yeah you have to have tune the truck and that is where most of the cost of the lockout kit is. Though the tuning does do much more than just take care of the lockout. I can't stand to go back to stock since I have had custom tuning on my truck. Hopefully the new phasers will last 100k miles. It seems the 3V 4.6l and 5.4l were kinda Fords guinea pig for cam phasers. The newer engine like the 5.0l 4V has not had all the issues with the phasers the earlier 3Vs had.

[higgins]

Another scam I encountered a while back at a Toyota dealership that was new to me was that when they take your car in for an oil change, as a courtesy they check the wheel alignment (they don't tell you this ahead of time). guess what? A couple of my wheels were out of alignment! Since I had even tire wear, and no pulling to either side on a good surface, I immediately sensed a scam. I didn't bother to ask how much out of alignment, are they out of perfect alignment but still within =/- range, etc. Everybody who brought a car in for an oil change while I was in the waiting room had tires out of alignment.

They offered a one-time alignment price, and a "special" lifetime alignment offer. While I was waiting, they hooked an elderly (older than me) lady on a lifetime alignment. Another elderly lady called someone who told her not to get alignment "fixed", and a younger woman told someone on the phone that they had tried to pull an alignment scam on her.


Oh, they overfilled my crankcase by about a quart so I went back and had them drain it down to the full mark. Somehow, I expected better of a Toyota dealer, but I guess they're like all the others some are straight up people and some are thieves and con artists.

[MT Gianni]

Nothing new in this - Stealership's pricing has been that way ever since they redesigned cars to get rid of shade tree mechanic's.

In their defense I don't believe their genuine (*&^ parts starts with high prices at the dealer. It starts at the factory with original parts and is passed through to distributors and dealerships all along the way. Local shop is just trying to compete with those smart enough to buy @ NAPA for 1/2 what they want. One of the more interesting weeks of my life was a juror in a trial of wrongful discharge from a car dealer. First day and a half was how a dealership makes money. The answer is hand over fist but the real $$ come in at the higher levels.
AS Fish4bugs said to leave a dealership with a transmission 6 quarts low is fraudulent if not criminal.

[mozeppa]

three days ago i went to 3 places for a quote to replace the switch controls for my cruise control ...the switches on the steering wheel.

$320 to $360 was the average.

$175 for the parts....2 hours labour for the balance.

i went to autozone...bought the parts for $142 including tax...and put it in myself in 10 minutes flat.

thieves!

[garym1a2]

Having worked as a design EE for 24 years designing aftermarket electronics for car parts I must say the OEM parts typically are made much higher quality than our parts where. Even more so since production went from US to China in 2004.

[Storydude]

In their defense I don't believe their genuine (*&^ parts starts with high prices at the dealer. It starts at the factory with original parts and is passed through to distributors and dealerships all along the way. Local shop is just trying to compete with those smart enough to buy @ NAPA for 1/2 what they want. One of the more interesting weeks of my life was a juror in a trial of wrongful discharge from a car dealer. First day and a half was how a dealership makes money. The answer is hand over fist but the real $$ come in at the higher levels.
AS Fish4bugs said to leave a dealership with a transmission 6 quarts low is fraudulent if not criminal.

Napa buys it's parts from the same china parts houses as Autozone.

Napa is no assurance it's a good part.

[jonp]

Yeah you have to have tune the truck and that is where most of the cost of the lockout kit is. Though the tuning does do much more than just take care of the lockout. I can't stand to go back to stock since I have had custom tuning on my truck. Hopefully the new phasers will last 100k miles. It seems the 3V 4.6l and 5.4l were kinda Fords guinea pig for cam phasers. The newer engine like the 5.0l 4V has not had all the issues with the phasers the earlier 3Vs had.

That's pretty much what I read on the F150 Forums. If the truck had 50k less miles on it I'd go for the lock out and tune. Even if the new phasers last 20k I could buy 10 sets for less than the dealer wanted and put them in. I'd still have a 350k truck if it runs that long. I know I'll need the timing chains done shortly but I don't use it as my primary driver. More drive to the dump and occasional drive around to Lowes for lumber or tow my motorcycles somewhere. Maybe 6,000 - 7,000 miles a year.

The cam phasers are a well known problem and there should be a recall on them. I am to blame for buying the truck without looking it up first. Type "5.4 Triton" into a search engine and you can read about the phasers. My fault for not doing this before buying. If I had seen it I'd not touched the truck and kept looking. I should have bought another Tundra like I wanted but too late for that unless I fix the phasers and dump it.

[dkf]

The 5.4l 3V isn't a bad engine and they have been known to obtain very high mileage. The cam phasers and the spark plugs where just two areas on them when Ford screwed the pooch. Look on the bright side, you could have bought a 6.0l or 6.4l diesel, talk about expensive to problems and repair expense. Luckily the 6.8l never got cam phasers. I don't know what oil you use but you may see less noise with using a 5w30 vs 5w20. All I use on modulars is 5w30 (or sometimes 0w30 in the winter). Ford actually changed the specs for the 2016 MY for the 6.2l and 6.8l to 5w30 due to wear related failures.

[nvbirdman]

A friend of mine took his '95 Ford truck to the dealer and was told it needed a part that was no longer available. A few days later he called Ford home office and they sent him the part.

[MaryB]

Cam phasers ddn't come into play until 2004, my 2001 Triton 5.4 doesn't have them. Just has the crappy plugs and I think I have one that is in need of a helicoil...

[Mk42gunner]

Its not only car dealerships and local mechanics that try to scam you. Back in 93 before I went to Adak, I put four new tires on my Datsun 4x4 and the Firestone dealer tried to do a "complimentary alignment" since I bought four brand new tires.

Surprise, surprise, I needed four ball joints. I think the total was going to be $250 or $300. I said no, and replaced them myself at the base hobby shop for something like $65.

The truck didn't drive any better or worse, and never did wear the tires out until I sold it right before I retired in 2004.

Robert

[Lloyd Smale]

you guys want that high technology that's the price. You might want to buy new and trade it in every 5 years or so. Just wait till those fancy turbo ecotec motors get up around 120000 miles and stuff starts breaking. Your local garage might just send you to the ford dealer because he doesn't have the tools to work on them. No thanks. give me a single cam v8 that breaths on its own. Funny thing is ford does all this stuff and it might by them 2mpg at the VERY MOST over a dodge or chev v8 and that's driving 55 down the road. Put a load on it and id bet the normally aspirated motors get better mileage that that v6 with 10lbs of boost being shoved in it. ford needs to get back to its basics like the good old 302.

[6bg6ga]

Currently have 200K on my company 2008 Ford E250 van with the Triton 5.4 engine. Nothing done on the engine as of yet and no problems.