1997-2002 F150

[berge]

a friend is considering purchasing 97-02 F150 RWD for personal use. which engine would give him a better long term reliability, the 4.2L six or the 4.6L eight? the EPA lists almost identical fuel economy figures for these engines and he is a very easy driver so durability is the biggest factor in his decision.
thanks.

 

[MNgopher]

Take the 4.6l V8. They will likely be a bit more expensive than the 4.2, but in general, the 4.6l is a more bulletproof engine than the 4.2l (and has a bit more oomph as well).

 

[Chris142]

FWIW maintenance on these trucks is a terrible job. Sparkplugs and heater cores come to mind.

 

[wander2039]

On the V6's the 99+ have less problems. Either engine would be as reliable as the other. There's not as many shooting spark plugs as people would like to believe. I've known personally 10+ 4.6/5.4 owners including myself and no spark plug problems. The question is what is he going to use the truck for? Heavier hauling buy the 4.6L.

 

[alreadygone]

8 will be better resale reguardless of how long he keeps it.

Bob

 

[berge]

Quote:

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On the V6's the 99+ have less problems. Either engine would be as reliable as the other. There's not as many shooting spark plugs as people would like to believe.

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shooting spark plugs?

 

[eljefino]

The plugs vibrate loose until they pop out from compression, taking some cylinder head thread with them.

Ford actually advises retorquing the plugs insanely often in a TSB somewhere.

 

[TallPaul]

I would be inclined to take the V6 if it is a pushrod engine. A friend has a '97 Crown Vic with a 4.6 and the OHC timing chain went at 180,000 miles and the engine is now ruined because it is an interference engine, so the valves got all banged up. Still, I researched and this is a rather rare occurance on the 4.6 engine.

 

[Trav]

The 4.6,5.4 and V10 all had spark plug issues.As berge said these are not as common as you may think.Millions of these motors have been built even if it was only .5 of 1% this would be a high number of incidents.The heads do NOT have to be replaced,there are some good repair kits that use a long 3/4 inch stainless steel thread insert that repairs these to stronger than original condition.If the plugs are not left in there for eons and torqued properly there is very seldom any issue.Two areas to look at carefully on these motors is the oil pan,they have a habit of rusting through when used in snow/salt conditions and not being washed underneath,the engine must be pulled to remove the pan,the exhaust manifolds,especially the right side,the studs rot off warping the manifold until it cracks.again keeping the salt of them usually increases their life span.A good fix is Gibson stainless headers with stainless hardware,the $500 cost is well worth it.If the oil pan is in good shape keeping it that way is no problem,just wash it and keep paint on it,there really isn't much that can be done for the manifolds except replacement before they let go if they are severely rotten.

 

[cousincletus]

Have heard of intake manifold gasket problems on 1998 and earlier 4.2 engines. I would go for the 4.6. We had a 1997 4.6 truck at work that made it to 230,000 miles before it got wrecked. Ran well with no major problems until its final day. As far as sparkplugs, the 5.4 fuel rail must be removed but I don't think it has to come out on the 4.6. It has a coil over sparkplug setup w/o conventional spark plug wires.

 

[MNgopher]

Except the 4.6 has spark plug wires instead of COP through a certain year that esacpes me know... Both my '99 and '97 F150's with the 4.6 are the conventional spark plug wire setup.

 

[JTK]

A co-worker of mine recently lost the 4.2L V6 in his 1997 F150 @ ~80Kmi due to an internal coolant leak. He's not a car guy so he didn't think to check the oil or coolant when he noticed excessive white smoke out the exhaust. There was so much coolant in the oil that it spun a bearing. Still ran, but knocked like crazy. He gave it away to a nephew to tinker with. Replacement truck 4.2's are expensive and hard to find.

Joel

 

[TallPaul]

Hmmm... the more I read the more I think I will stick with the old pushrod Ford engines, or for something newer than '96 maybe get a Ranger with a 4.0 pushrod V6. None of this new fangled stuff for me (actually there were OHC engines before 1934, so not all that new fangled).

 

[97f150]

I have a 4.6 liter with 210,000 miles currently on it. I would go with the 4.6 liter due to resale and in general I feel that a full size truck should have at least a V-8. The problem with spark plugs shooting out of the engine is more common on the 5.4 liters.

 

[rt_ponder]

Go big or go home... Got the 5.4 V8, Luv it.

 

[Trav]

Quote:

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Have heard of intake manifold gasket problems on 1998 and earlier 4.2 engines. I would go for the 4.6. We had a 1997 4.6 truck at work that made it to 230,000 miles before it got wrecked. Ran well with no major problems until its final day. As far as sparkplugs, the 5.4 fuel rail must be removed but I don't think it has to come out on the 4.6. It has a coil over sparkplug setup w/o conventional spark plug wires.

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The fuel rail on the drivers side of the 5.4 needs to raised and moved to the side a little to access the coil bolts,2 bolts and pull it up simply push it back down and reinstall the bolts.

 

[Mokanic]

Buy a Toyota v-6 or a v-8 and shooting spark plugs will not be an issue. I have seen several of these plug shooters in my shop and it obvious that the engineers at Ford were hitting the rock pipe pretty hard when they came up with so few threads on a plug hole.
I was born and raised in a Ford truck household. My dad would fight over a Ford but the last plug shooter he bought broke him for good.
He loves his V-6 Tacoma and swears it has more low-end grunt than the plug shootin' v-8 did. It also has plenty of threads on the spark plug hole.
Ford and GM'S woes are not going to change until they really start caring about the designs that are limping out of their assembly plants.
I am not anti-American when it comes to products but money comes too hard to pay for poorly designed junk. If Toyota's greed to be #1 causes them to build junk I won't buy from them either.