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1.0 Ecoboost head gasket....


Ffoxy
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So during the course of my work today I was chatting with a high end used car dealer.

Our chat soon worked around to the Ford Ecoboost engine and power to weight ratio...

He sucked his teeth and said "uhhhh they do their head gaskets don't they..."!

Now I've not heard of that, and I work in motor parts distribution... I do know we sell quite a few to Vauxhall owners.... But I swear I'd have noticed if the Ecoboost engines were eating head gaskets....

What do you guys and gals know?

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talking !Removed! i recon, only failures i know of were the focus when they had pipes burst chucking all the water out and cooking the engine and headgasket.then it was engine replacement and not headgasket.

i see alot of ecoboost engines and not one engine issue .

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That's good news and kinda fits my findings.

The example I saw were Focus models too and exactly as you say.

So was the pipe going and cooking the head or vice versa where the HG went and pressurised the coolant, bursting the pipe?

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plastic coolant pipe went brittle, burst, then coolant loss very quickly and cooked the engine.

so headgasket was not the cause of failure.

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Sounds like the used car dealer is talking crap

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Sounds good to me.

I'm happy to be taking delivery of my 3rd in April anyway!

Love the Magnetic Grey!

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC mobile app

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4 minutes ago, Ffoxy said:

Sounds good to me.

I'm happy to be taking delivery of my 3rd in April anyway!

Love the Magnetic Grey!

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC mobile app

Have u seen my thread I started about the Magnetic Grey ? 

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Nah head gaskets are good as a know people running 197bhp and 205bhp with same headgasket

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Sounds good to me.

I'm happy to be taking delivery of my 3rd in April anyway!

Love the Magnetic Grey!

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC mobile app

Have u seen my thread I started about the Magnetic Grey ? 

No I have t....

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC mobile app

But I have now 😀

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On 16/03/2016 at 7:19 PM, 666Damian666 said:

Sounds like the used car dealer is talking crap

Spot on,is he a vauxhall dealer in disguise.

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  • 3 months later...

Hi Ffoxy,

I have experienced an engine in my Ford Ecoboost and thanks to reports from this and other forums of similar experiences decided to find someone who has I think made modifications to my replacement engine to stop it happening again.

My Dec 2013 (First registered in April 2014) Ford Fiesta 1.0 L ecoboost engine overheated and blew its head gasket on 24 April 2016 only 2 years into it’s 3 year warranty. The Ford dealership I bought the car from honoured the warranty and installed a new engine. I did a great deal of research over the eight weeks or so it took for the engine to be replaced and found that there were six or so other owners whose engine met a similar fate.

I am a physiotherapist by trade with academic qualifications in chemistry and physiology. I was baffled by my car failing in this way so soon. After my internet research I called several mechanics specializing in radiators and auto electrical. My Ford dealership assessed the car and diagnosed the cause to be water pump failure, but did not actually look at the water pump impellers and had nothing to offer as to why the water pump failed.

I felt certain my replacement engine would fail at low kilometers just as the first one did. I was considering installing a turbo timer in the new engine to avoid heat issues at switch off. I thought the problem was that I lived on top of a large hill  (approximately 165 m above sea level) and that the engine got too hot (heat soak?) at switch off. I consulted a local autoelectrician about a turbo timer and he suggested not making any decisions until I had talked to Mike Vine, an experienced turbocharger specialist in Capalaba, QLD Australia.

I talked to Mike and he listened carefully to my circumstances. He also asked what I thought were more relevant questions than anyone else I had talked to. So when I picked my car up with its new engine I drove the 90 min straight to Mike Vine. He took two weeks to assess, diagnose, and treat the problem. An account of what he did in his own words is provided after my account.

When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 deg F Fahrenheit / 182 deg C)? He said he estimated three quarters of the coolant cycled back to the engine via the water pump and only one quarter or so ever went to the radiator. This makes the engine run hot around, i.e., 230 degrees Fahrenheit under normal in traffic driving, presumably this was the Ford designer’s intent so as to reduce emissions. Mike said some motor bikes have been designed to run this hot. But what these motor bikes don’t have is the exhaust manifold inside the cylinder head. He said exhaust manifolds tend to be very hot components of a car, indeed “very very hot” if the car is running at full power as might happen traveling up a large hill or mountain. He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed.

Mike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 deg F / 182 deg C and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress. Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.

Did not the designers of the ecoboost engine test it properly? Did they not care if these engines failed inside or worse still just outside warranty?

For those whose ecoboost engine has just failed inside warranty I would recommend consulting Mike Vine. For those considering buying a car with an ecoboost engine or any engine designed to run hotter than traditional engines to lower emissions (generally European designed cars) I would make the same suggestion.

Sincerely,

Ben Gaffney

Mike Vines account:
26 June 2016
Our First Ecoboost Experience

The owner of a 2013 Ford WZ Ecosport Fiesta with the one litre 3 cylinder Ecoboost engine phoned recently and asked us to look at his engine regarding its questionable future reliability.

This vehicle has 33,000KM from new and has just had the complete engine replaced under warranty. The owners internet research found many other vehicles of the same type also failing their engines at similar kilometres of use also requiring new engines, with some up to their third engine within warranty.
With no apparent changes made to prevent repeat engine failure our customer saw no reason why his car would not also repeat fail the engine within another 33,000km of use at which time the warranty would be expired giving him a repair cost of up to $10,000, on a vehicle value of not much more.

Based on internet information of other failures predominating cylinder head, head gasket and water pump we set about getting to understand this little 3 cylinder engine’s cooling system. The cooling system is quite complex using one mechanical water pump, one electric water pump, two thermostats, one pressure bypass valve, one radiator, one radiator electric fan, one oil cooler and a three stage progressive system staged by coolant temperature with the electric pump staged separately for the turbo cooling. The system is designed to warm the engine very quickly and run a normal engine temperature of 220°F. The engine also has the exhaust manifold intergrated inside the cylinder head with coolant flowing over it.
Testing the cooling system using Digital thermocouples inside the cooling plumbing showed some very interesting temperatures. With normal in traffic driving the coolant leaving the cylinder head showed up to 230°F but when driven with full power and then slowing down the meter went to 360°F. At first we suspected a faulty digital meter but not so. While this testing was occurring the radiator bottom tank was cool showing the engine was recycling its own heat with only a small percentage of heat directed through the radiator.

On full power the engine runs 20PSI boost with a very small turbo running up to 240,000RPM. With a conventional engine of similar configuration the exhaust manifold would be red hot when on sustained full power. Therefore I expect this engine has a red hot manifold surround by coolant inside the cylinder head adding heat to the normal engine s heat which explains the extreme spike in coolant temps immediately following full power use. Our measured 360°F outside the head is most likely exceeded inside the head with the possibility of coolant boiling also. I can’t see this engine being able to survive under these circumstances.

After studying the cooling system layout and testing many alternative theories we ended up changing one thermostat and one coolant return pipe connection location and presto no more extreme temps no matter how hard the engine was driven with no noticeable performance difference. The maximum head coolant outlet temp is
190°F. We also fitted a coolant loss alarm to give the best protection of the engine.
With the lower temperatures this engine should live much longer, only time and kilometres will tell. Not long ago a new small car would easily give a quarter of million kilometres of reliable engine life compared to the current circumstances where eight engines are needed. Something is seriously wrong with the rules modern engines are built to.

Yours in motoring
Mike Vine

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Reading the report from Mike Vine it sounds like there was two faulty components and this was the cause of high temperatures, not a design fault.

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Really interesting and a great post.

I was pleased to see the high level of pre production testing of the Ecoboost engines.

It seems some faulty parts are capable of causing huge damage due to narrow technical engineering safety margins. However Ford should know about it!

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" After studying the cooling system layout and testing many alternative theories we ended up changing one thermostat and one coolant return pipe connection location and presto no more extreme temps no matter how hard the engine was driven with no noticeable performance difference. "

Do you know which components and locations were changed?

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Hi ThaiFiesta,

In the my 1.0 ecoboost before Mikes modifications, there was a metal pipe that took coolant from the cylinder head to the water pump.  This circuit bypasses the radiator and it is a way of recycling heat.  It helps the car warm up faster to its relatively high operating temperature.  Mike removed this pipe and installed a hose that that allowed all of the coolant from the cylinder outlet to go to the radiator.  Hope this helps. 

I suspect it may be an even more important engine saving modification in Thailand where ambient temperatures are I understand considerably hotter than south east Queensland. 

Be warned this modification could cause Ford to say you have voided your warranty.  You may also want to check out a similar thread on pistonheads "Ford ecoboost engine failure (twice)"  my contribution starts on page 14 and there are several posts from engine designers that seem to be either vaguely apologetic for the engine design industry or warning me I have gone against Ford's engine design and testing wisdom.

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Thanks Ben.  I’ll have a look at the changes you’ve described and see if they are also applicable to my ASEAN spec car.  As you may be aware the Thai and Aussie builds are similar, having been assembled in the same Thai factory in Rayong.

Is it possible to add a photo of the rerouted pipe you've had added?

I've had some intermittent overheating heating problems, including it reaching hot enough for the ECU to switch to "limp" mode.  I've taken it to two dealers and "apparently" there is no problem. Admittedly it hasn't occurred since the last, so I suspect it may have been a sensor/fan issue. 

Nonetheless, as you said, the ambient temperature is usually 34 degrees Celsius (94 deg F) plus in Thailand, so engine cooling is a priority.  I’ve put reflective heat tape on the airbox and some of the intake pipes in order to reduce charge temperatures, and my next project is exhaust wrapping and some insulating tape on the intercooler pipes where they crossover the radiator pipes and close to the turbo. This should reduce under-bonnet and intake air temperatures but doesn’t fix the engine overheating problem.  I’m also likely to install a more accurate temperate gauge to keep an eye on things, as well as a loss of coolant sensor.  The ECO manages overheating to a reasonable extent; having seen it work, but it might be a case of too little too late.

Cheers

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

Hi all.

I wanted to reply to this forum to tell you about my situation, as it was this very page that I googled when our car when kaput last week, and it was reading your notes that gave my husband and I confidence when talking to our local Ford Garage.

My hubby drives all over the country for work, and as he is self employed, when buying him a new vehicle, we wanted something that was economical, but not ugly! We ended up buying a Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost from a local garage that was a year old, at the end of Feb 2015, and he loves it. Whilst he was driving up the M1 to a job in Birmingham last week, the temperature light came on near Watford Gap, and he immediately stopped. However the white smoke and the smell of the car led him to believe it was too late - yet he was puzzled how a well maintained  2 year old car with 40k on it could have such a failure. Whilst he awaited what turned out to be a nightmare return home with Green Flag (a whole separate story!), I found this thread and updated him that perhaps our car had literally cooked itself. He rang the Ford garage back home and booked the car in.

I'll admit, I still worried all weekend waiting for news, as I feared there would be some way that the warranty would be evaded, but the Ford garage have just called and confirmed that the engine is no more, and that they will replace it fully under warranty. We still had the hose that you mention above that should have been recalled, and it had failed. I'm now relieved that they have told us that the estimated £3.5 to £4k of work will be fully covered under the 3 year/60k warranty.

The only issue for us is the delay - it takes them a week to a week and a half to get the engine in, as apparently they are in quite some demand! We have a hire car for a week, and after that there's the chance of a courtesy car, and of course, Hubby has lost some money from his missed time at work (Green Flag fiasco), but nevertheless, I'm very relieved.

The only other thing to note was that the Ford Garage have said they are seeing loads of such failure!

Hope this helps anyone out there - especially if you aren't as lucky getting yours covered and need some evidence to add weight to your claim.

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6 minutes ago, Sareyware said:

it takes them a week to a week and a half to get the engine in, as apparently they are in quite some demand!

The only other thing to note was that the Ford Garage have said they are seeing loads of such failure!

Well that's reassuring... :ohmy:

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It sure is reassuring and you don't know these days what to trust,good read and on the fault and glad its being sorted.

So all down to a hose that should of been done.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ben Gaffney,  excellent information, thank you!    

My 2015 Fiesta S (Australia) has just sprung a coolant leak at the 30,000km mark -  I noticed it immediately hopefully, level hadn't dropped too far.    While looking for the source, I also noticed oil all over components near the rear engine mount, which i'd hoped was just spillover from a sloppy oil change..    Currently at the dealership, who have mentioned various things including 'bolts, timing cover', but at that stage I don't think they'd even pulled anything off to have a proper look.    Not confidence inspiring given I'd hoped to keep it for up to 10yrs - the 30,000ks has been mostly motorway driving at 80-100km/h.    On the plus side,  not a problem with the Powershift gearbox, it's been faultless.

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  • 1 year later...
On 7/9/2016 at 3:19 AM, Ben Gaffney said:

Hi Ffoxy,

I have experienced an engine in my Ford Ecoboost and thanks to reports from this and other forums of similar experiences decided to find someone who has I think made modifications to my replacement engine to stop it happening again.

My Dec 2013 (First registered in April 2014) Ford Fiesta 1.0 L ecoboost engine overheated and blew its head gasket on 24 April 2016 only 2 years into it’s 3 year warranty. The Ford dealership I bought the car from honoured the warranty and installed a new engine. I did a great deal of research over the eight weeks or so it took for the engine to be replaced and found that there were six or so other owners whose engine met a similar fate.

I am a physiotherapist by trade with academic qualifications in chemistry and physiology. I was baffled by my car failing in this way so soon. After my internet research I called several mechanics specializing in radiators and auto electrical. My Ford dealership assessed the car and diagnosed the cause to be water pump failure, but did not actually look at the water pump impellers and had nothing to offer as to why the water pump failed.

I felt certain my replacement engine would fail at low kilometers just as the first one did. I was considering installing a turbo timer in the new engine to avoid heat issues at switch off. I thought the problem was that I lived on top of a large hill  (approximately 165 m above sea level) and that the engine got too hot (heat soak?) at switch off. I consulted a local autoelectrician about a turbo timer and he suggested not making any decisions until I had talked to Mike Vine, an experienced turbocharger specialist in Capalaba, QLD Australia.

I talked to Mike and he listened carefully to my circumstances. He also asked what I thought were more relevant questions than anyone else I had talked to. So when I picked my car up with its new engine I drove the 90 min straight to Mike Vine. He took two weeks to assess, diagnose, and treat the problem. An account of what he did in his own words is provided after my account.

When I picked up my car from Mike I still had a few questions, such as why did he think the engine temperature spiked so extraordinarily high (360 deg F Fahrenheit / 182 deg C)? He said he estimated three quarters of the coolant cycled back to the engine via the water pump and only one quarter or so ever went to the radiator. This makes the engine run hot around, i.e., 230 degrees Fahrenheit under normal in traffic driving, presumably this was the Ford designer’s intent so as to reduce emissions. Mike said some motor bikes have been designed to run this hot. But what these motor bikes don’t have is the exhaust manifold inside the cylinder head. He said exhaust manifolds tend to be very hot components of a car, indeed “very very hot” if the car is running at full power as might happen traveling up a large hill or mountain. He expected a “steam jacket” would surround the exhaust manifold from boiled coolant. The steam jacket would actually prevent the liquid component of the coolant from coming into contact with the exhaust manifold while the car is running at full power. Then when backing off from full power, the exhaust manifold would cool just enough for the steam jacket to dissipate allowing coolant to come into direct contact with the metal of the manifold. Due to the higher heat conductance of metal to water than steam to water, this would cause the dramatic spike in temperature observed.

Mike suggested the coolant touching the water pump impellers could be even hotter than 360 deg F / 182 deg C and that it was likely the impellers, which are made of plastic, broke from thermal stress. Mike said other plastic components of the engine would also be vulnerable to this kind of heat, as would the aluminum cylinder head.

Did not the designers of the ecoboost engine test it properly? Did they not care if these engines failed inside or worse still just outside warranty?

For those whose ecoboost engine has just failed inside warranty I would recommend consulting Mike Vine. For those considering buying a car with an ecoboost engine or any engine designed to run hotter than traditional engines to lower emissions (generally European designed cars) I would make the same suggestion.

Sincerely,

Ben Gaffney

Mike Vines account:
26 June 2016
Our First Ecoboost Experience

The owner of a 2013 Ford WZ Ecosport Fiesta with the one litre 3 cylinder Ecoboost engine phoned recently and asked us to look at his engine regarding its questionable future reliability.

This vehicle has 33,000KM from new and has just had the complete engine replaced under warranty. The owners internet research found many other vehicles of the same type also failing their engines at similar kilometres of use also requiring new engines, with some up to their third engine within warranty.
With no apparent changes made to prevent repeat engine failure our customer saw no reason why his car would not also repeat fail the engine within another 33,000km of use at which time the warranty would be expired giving him a repair cost of up to $10,000, on a vehicle value of not much more.

Based on internet information of other failures predominating cylinder head, head gasket and water pump we set about getting to understand this little 3 cylinder engine’s cooling system. The cooling system is quite complex using one mechanical water pump, one electric water pump, two thermostats, one pressure bypass valve, one radiator, one radiator electric fan, one oil cooler and a three stage progressive system staged by coolant temperature with the electric pump staged separately for the turbo cooling. The system is designed to warm the engine very quickly and run a normal engine temperature of 220°F. The engine also has the exhaust manifold intergrated inside the cylinder head with coolant flowing over it.
Testing the cooling system using Digital thermocouples inside the cooling plumbing showed some very interesting temperatures. With normal in traffic driving the coolant leaving the cylinder head showed up to 230°F but when driven with full power and then slowing down the meter went to 360°F. At first we suspected a faulty digital meter but not so. While this testing was occurring the radiator bottom tank was cool showing the engine was recycling its own heat with only a small percentage of heat directed through the radiator.

On full power the engine runs 20PSI boost with a very small turbo running up to 240,000RPM. With a conventional engine of similar configuration the exhaust manifold would be red hot when on sustained full power. Therefore I expect this engine has a red hot manifold surround by coolant inside the cylinder head adding heat to the normal engine s heat which explains the extreme spike in coolant temps immediately following full power use. Our measured 360°F outside the head is most likely exceeded inside the head with the possibility of coolant boiling also. I can’t see this engine being able to survive under these circumstances.

After studying the cooling system layout and testing many alternative theories we ended up changing one thermostat and one coolant return pipe connection location and presto no more extreme temps no matter how hard the engine was driven with no noticeable performance difference. The maximum head coolant outlet temp is
190°F. We also fitted a coolant loss alarm to give the best protection of the engine.
With the lower temperatures this engine should live much longer, only time and kilometres will tell. Not long ago a new small car would easily give a quarter of million kilometres of reliable engine life compared to the current circumstances where eight engines are needed. Something is seriously wrong with the rules modern engines are built to.

Yours in motoring
Mike Vine

A buddy of mine has a 2013 Focus that's dropped it's engine last month and is sat at our local dealer awaiting a new engine.

I spotted this thread a while ago and hunted it down again and emailed Mr Vine and asked what exactly he did so we could recreate the mods on the other side of the planet (England) with out having to ship him here to do the mods.

Here is his reply:

Hi James, Ben Gaffney’s car has now done 54000kms trouble free since the new engine was fitted and our coolant system changes were done. The changes to the coolant plumbing are relatively simple. First the flow of all the hot coolant from the cylinder head must flow through the radiator instead of the standard system where one pipe bypasses the radiator and the other flows through the radiator. The steel pipe going from the thermostat at the end of the head to the water pump needs to be cut and welded shut on the water pump end with the other end joined to the other pipe flowing into the radiator therefore forcing all hot coolant to be cooled in the radiator.

The second change is the thermostat in the housing at the outgoing end of the head to be changed  to one which opens at 170 degrees F. We used a local brand Tridon with the #TT518. Make sure you use an identical size double seat thermostat which fits exactly as the original.

These engines self destruct because the exhaust manifold is inside the cylinder head instead of outside where its heat would escape into the air, combined with very high coolant temperature controls.

All of this mechanical insanity is done to make the engine comply with EU emission rules which seem to me to be intentionally aimed at destroying the viability of the internal combustion engine. LONG LIVE BREXIT

 

Yours in Motoring

Mike Vine

 

PS: If you wish you could post your email and my response on the internet to give the world an understanding of the problem and one way to fix it.#

 

 

He also sent a diagram of the coolant flow from the 1.0 to accompany his description. It's attached to the post

I also hunted down the Tridon thermostat part and its either of these on their site as they are identical, an email to them confirmed that they were just listed in two different categories.

 
 
They are available on eBay and there is probably other parts suppliers that have an identical part it's just a case of find and measure.
 
We have NOT done the mods described here yet. If any one does do the mods please post your results! 
 
I would recommend measuring the existing thermostat to make sure it is the same dimensions as the original before purchasing one as we haven't at time of posting. 
 
Happy modding!
 
J

 

 

 

001.jpg

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  • 1 year later...

Just a question, but instead of welding the pipe or any re-routing, would it be possible just to remove the pipe and plug those holes?

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