3.5 EcoBoost under valve covers/front cover

[jagdriver727]

Thats pretty fair price for all that work sir.

That's a really reasonable price.

I try my best. Low overhead, my shop is paid for and all told costs about $500/month to operate. Also working by myself at the moment, not having to pay anyone else helps a lot.

I’m just outside a town of 500, so local business is pretty much it. That being said, I’ve had a 4-6 week backlog of work for months.

 

[jagdriver727]

What drives the DI pump on a 3.5? a cam lobe or a sprocket?

Cam driven. Sits on valve cover.

 

[jagdriver727]

I understand that a better oil and/or shorter OCIs would have been better ... however, based on what I've read here so far, is it fair to assume that the failures were not oil related (short of some varnish/sludge)?

I don’t believe the failures were related to the initial quality of the oil. I think they were related to fuel dilution and shearing. And a poor design to begin with.

 

[OilUzer]

Thanks! I like real life threads.

Sounds like a little bit of bad luck + a little bit of poor design + a little bit of abuse (rental car) + a little bit of weak oil and/or long OCIs ...

 

[CatCam2]

Is the 2017 3.5 EcoBoost considered the GEN II?

yes, the 2017 are GEN 2

 

[MParr]

Getawheel, I don’t believe the failures are from the initial quality of the oils either. Poor design? Possibly. That’s why Ford went with two shorter timing chains on the Gen II. Do you know if your customer did a lot of towing? I’m not a big fan of following the OLM for oil changes. There have been quiet a few oil analysis done on the 3.5 Ecoboost Gen I. Most show a good deal of shearing after 7,500 miles. I prefer a synthetic 5W30 oil with a KV 100 rating close to 11. I also do 5,000 mile oil changes on my Ecoboost engine.

 

[350Rocket]

Easy there Zee. You paint with a broad brush. As a "Quick Lube" owner operator I will always take offense to someone who labels "most"
quick lubes as thieves. "Most of them don't even change your filter if they can get away with it.".
Truth is most (not all) of quick lubes are owned or operated by hard working people who truly don't want to damage your vehicle by installing the wrong oil or filter.
"Hardcore quick lube customers usually mark their filters before the service" That's a load of sludge.
Hardcore customers come have come to my shop for 22 years knowing my employees and I have integrity. Sorry for the big word.
You are what is wrong with todays America. Generalizations are like racism.
Have a Merry Christmas but stay away from my center.

I worked in a Pennzoil express lube (our unofficial slogan was express doesn't mean fast - it means no appointment needed). I personally did almost all the oil changes for a while. It took about half an hour a car. We always looked up the proper spec and used the correct oil and filter. We did all repairs in this shop though, oil changes were considered a "loss leader".

The other popular Quick lube place in town, I have some experience with since all our surveying work trucks (where I work now) went there for a while. They weren't good about door hinges or tire pressures, but I could hear them call out how many grease fittings.

I don't know if they were 100% with them but we have had few enough front end problems to assume they were greasing then regularly. Trucks were all gm except for one Toyota (so they all had greasable front end - Toyota has greasable driveshaft).

My neighbor thinks said quick lube place caused his Hemi in his 2008 Ram to fail at 120k. I saw the inside (sludge, and rod bearings completely gone) and my assumption is it had an internal coolant leak. He changed oil every 3k and thinks they use cheap filters causing sludge. his assumption saved FCA a lost sale because he bought a brand new Hemi ram.

 

[JustN89]

I'm really not sure the Quick Lube oil is to blame here. There's a better chance than not that he was running a semi-synthetic anyways, just paying for the "conventional" oil change, as most 5W-20/30s have been semi-synthetic for a while now in order to meet specs. More than anything, it sounds like an overly-optimistic OLM coupled with a complex and long timing chain design.

 

[PontiacHO]

Doubt it. Rental companies are fairly good about oil changes, at least the local branches out here.

You have more faith in them than me then. Rented an enterprise SUV that had a clogged air filter element. Engine was sluggish, running poorly, and using excessive fuel. I removed it and ran without it for the remainder of my time. Rented another sedan with low oil. Maybe it’s only me that thinks this way but these were lasting impressions...

 

[mattd]

Years ago at my old job, we did maintenance for hertz. Alignments, oil changes, front end work etc. they did the BARE minimum for maintenance. Refused to pay for proper oil for VWs, everything got bulk 5w30 regardless of what the engine called for. They were also very long OCI for bulk oil.

They did fix front end issues that weren’t correctable by alignment, though. That required weeks of waiting for approval, though.

This is just my experience.

 

[OilUzer]

That's why I never buy a rental car or one from a high school kid. Find a nice church going family and don't worry about low RPMs with that church/grocery car. Italian tuneup is somewhat overrated ... lol

 

[wemay]

I try my best. Low overhead, my shop is paid for and all told costs about $500/month to operate. Also working by myself at the moment, not having to pay anyone else helps a lot.

I’m just outside a town of 500, so local business is pretty much it. That being said, I’ve had a 4-6 week backlog of work for months.

You're a good man and a professional.

 

[UncleDave]

Cam driven. Sits on valve cover.

Is the DI lobe notably more eccentric?

 

[mattd]

You guys are going to get this thread locked.

 

[jagdriver727]

Is the DI lobe notably more eccentric?

It looks about the same to me. There is a roller/spacer looking thing that sits between the cam and the pump.

 

[Passport1]

Yeah, I wouldn’t go bashing Enrerprise at all. I’ve seen many fords at my work as well as all other makes and models. They DO NOT get their first oil change at 30k either. And they use Safety Kleen Syn blend 5w30 for 5k OCI’s

My son worked for a local Enterprise rental station. He said the vehicles were pretty much changed on time. None went way over the OLM. The cars went to a Firestone tire shop. ATT I believe they used Kendall which is pretty much Motorcraft oil. Now they use QS.

He did let on that lots of times the cars were obviously abused by the renters.

 

[Zee09]

Oxford PA Enterprise location bought a huge multi bay shop and I do see them doing all of their own work.

 

[Jetronic]

I had the engine replaced in our Transit at 80k due to a mistake by an oil change shop. They raised the van up and dropped the engine down. I had said to the service tech that it must be a nightmare. He said that it requires a high roof (ours is a mid-height roof) and tall lift, but that it wasn't too hard to drop the engine down. They had the swap done in a couple days. Not sure how many hours were involved. The first engine was ruined when the quickie lube kid failed to see that the gasket from the previous Fram XG10575 stuck to the mating surface when he removed the filter. He then put the new one over the old gasket and it pinched, causing all the oil to ultimately blow out of the engine, surprisingly quickly. What was amazing was that the engine ran quite a while with no oil in the sump. It sounded horrible, but it ran probably for hours. When the Ford dealer tore it down, they said the filter had metal in it that poured out like sand. Sad. Fortunately, the shop took responsibility and their insurance covered the Ford factory reman engine. We've got about 60k on the the new one.

When the time comes for plugs in the new (reman) engine, I'll certainly pay them to do it. I'm sure they have their techniques and have done them many times.

In the meantime, I have run Mobil 1 Extended Performance 5w30 for about 10k each OCI, using the OLM. The last run was Shell RGT 5w30 and I kept it in there for about 4.8k. I put in another 6 quarts of RGT for this run. There's a good UOA at about 7.8k or so here on Bitog that was posted in the last day or two. It still had 1.0 TBN, so I think it would make it to 10k, but I won't go past 7500 unless it is Mobil 1 Extended Performance. I'm running Fram Ultras, btw. I use the local quick lube in the winter, but I bring them the oil and filter and usually I'm the one that actually pours it in, so there's no doubt what oil is in it.

I'm betting my engine would look MUCH better than that one inside when it reaches 106k. I can't imagine why someone would run a twin turbo DI engine like that with conventional oil.

I always wipe off the mating surface for the oil seal on the filter. Depending on the location it can be gritty and one a few occasions I removed the old seal that way. Once had a a car come in for an oil leak where there was sand between the seal and the oil filter housing, causing the leak. 2 birds with one stone...

 

[Jetronic]

I can say this about rentals and lease cars... They come in for a service when the manual says it's due and not before. They get the work done that the manual says needs doing and nothing more. They will approve 1 set of brake discs over the life of the vehicle, typically. Brake pads get changed changed if worn, that's usually no issue.

Now, some cars are used in fields or other dusty nenvironments, but unless the ecu throws a fault code because of it, that airfilter isn't gonna get changed until the manual says it's due...

 

[53' Stude]

I can say this about rentals and lease cars... They come in for a service when the manual says it's due and not before. They get the work done that the manual says needs doing and nothing more. They will approve 1 set of brake discs over the life of the vehicle, typically. Brake pads get changed changed if worn, that's usually no issue.

Now, some cars are used in fields or other dusty nenvironments, but unless the ecu throws a fault code because of it, that airfilter isn't gonna get changed until the manual says it's due...

I’ll agree with some of that. When we hear of recalls early on, they get done. We do quite a bit also. Our brake policy is 4/32 they get replaced, same for tires.

leases are whole different story from what I have saw