Ford 7.3L Godzilla cam issue; Tell me what you think

[Spike555]

What you are suggesting is not a "TSB" (technical service bulletin). Rather, what you are suggesting is a blanket warranty extension, which can be either all-encompassing or limited depending on OEM decisions. Replacing the cam "for free, even outside of warranty" is in fact your plea for extending the OEM warranty. You're advocating for a good-will extension of warranty based on a perceived concern.

Guess what, other things fail out of warranty also ... water pumps, alternators, fuel injectors, etc .... should those be replaced for free also after the warranty expires? If so, what you're really asking for is for all things to be covered at all times, with no limit. Should the OEM warranty on any product just last indefinitely? Ford (and all other major brands) offer Limited "Written Warranties" (see the FTC website if you don't understand what that legally means).

If the product fails under warranty, it's covered.
If the product fails outside of warranty, it is not required to be covered.

When a water pump fails outside of warranty it is because the coolant was not changed, the lubricant inside the coolant wore out and the water pump bearings ran dry and the water pump failed.

This cam issue is know by Ford, it is such a issue that Ford has told dealers not to sell their inventory of cams and to only use them for warranty work because they can't keep up with demand.
If it was not a known defect that Ford admits to, I wouldn't care. I'd chalk it up to "meh, whatever, it happens"
One dealership's I use has 2 F-350's in with this cam issue, one has 2,000 miles on it, the other has 30,000.
When a manufacture admits "yeah, we have an issue" but does nothing about it, that's the issue I have with this.
Should they cover it? Yes.

 

[Spike555]

Sorry. To clarify, Chargers as Patrol Units beginning in 2014 with replacement mileage at 150,000. Yes bulk is the same as bottled. I think you are missing the point but experiment on!!

You have replacement planned at 150k, I have replacement planned at 20yrs regardless of miles.
If I was replacing units early like governments wasting money, I'd do the bare minimum too, after all it's not your money.
My "experimenting" is working out just fine, stupendously in fact.
Zero oil consumption, haven't lost an engine. The only issue has been this single cam, which is a manufacturing defect.
The pictures speak for themselves, that engine is clean as a whistle.
Looks like a 30k engine not a 122k one.
What you call experimenting is actually knowledge and experience being put to use to benefit the fleet I'm in charge of. All $3.5 million dollars worth.

 

[PontiacHO]

Wasting money! That’s funny. Yes let’s have our law enforcement officers patrolling in 20 year old units. 150k is the mileage reading on the odometer. There’s a minimum of 40,000 hours on the the engine. There are sound and proven economic asset replacement strategies that make it obvious you are not aware of. Total repair cost over time exceeds the threshold of basic total loss/residual value of assets. Learn before you enter a forum and start crowing and patting yourself on the back. I’m sure your company (if it’s legit) will become very concerned when you are spending money on a fully depreciated asset… it’s your life…carry on.

 

[J Dubbs]

The cams on the Godzilla have a REALLY bad reputation-not sure if they’re possibly Chinese? From the stories here, & on the net, I’m not sure oil, or even OLM length OCIs, would have stopped it. At least the engine survived.

It's a Ford, nothing would have stopped the destruction. That's it's destiny

I remember a time when Ford's name was actually connected to quality.... as Archie Bunker would say "Those Were The Days" lol.

 

[Spike555]

Wasting money! That’s funny. Yes let’s have our law enforcement officers patrolling in 20 year old units. 150k is the mileage reading on the odometer. There’s a minimum of 40,000 hours on the the engine. There are sound and proven economic asset replacement strategies that make it obvious you are not aware of. Total repair cost over time exceeds the threshold of basic total loss/residual value of assets. Learn before you enter a forum and start crowing and patting yourself on the back. I’m sure your company (if it’s legit) will become very concerned when you are spending money on a fully depreciated asset… it’s your life…carry on.

You are not putting 40,000 hour's on a gasoline engine. Heavy equipment doesn't even get that.
Even if a unit was running for 20 hours a day 7 days a week, that's 7300 hours a year.
Divide 40,000 by 7300 and you get 5.47 years.
All of the police officers I'm friends with tell me the patrol cars get around 50,000 miles a year, so by your own numbers, that's 3 years and then it's getting replaced.
So, let's still assume the worse case and say 7300 engine hours a year, multiply that by 3, and we get...21,900 engine hours.
Which is not going to happen on a gasoline engine.
So, using your own logic, I know you're making stuff up.
But carry on, I'm having fun with this.
Oh, and just a FYI, the end of life for one of my units is the scrap yard, we don't sell them. We run them into the ground, sell for scrap value and they get turned into soup can's and police car parts.

 

[JWC86]

So, let's still assume the worse case and say 7300 engine hours a year, multiply that by 3, and we get...21,900 engine hours.
Which is not going to happen on a gasoline engine.

Not looking to get in between your argument but fwiw my last truck(GM 6.0L) had 21k hours on it when I sold it, most of it idle time. Was over 8 years not 3 years thou.

Only thing I ever gave it was regular OCIs, a couple coolant changes and one set of spark plugs. Two sets of belts also. Still ran good when I sold it and the guy is still daily driving it today.

 

[PontiacHO]

You are not putting 40,000 hour's on a gasoline engine. Heavy equipment doesn't even get that.
Even if a unit was running for 20 hours a day 7 days a week, that's 7300 hours a year.
Divide 40,000 by 7300 and you get 5.47 years.
All of the police officers I'm friends with tell me the patrol cars get around 50,000 miles a year, so by your own numbers, that's 3 years and then it's getting replaced.
So, let's still assume the worse case and say 7300 engine hours a year, multiply that by 3, and we get...21,900 engine hours.
Which is not going to happen on a gasoline engine.
So, using your own logic, I know you're making stuff up.
But carry on, I'm having fun with this.
Oh, and just a FYI, the end of life for one of my units is the scrap yard, we don't sell them. We run them into the ground, sell for scrap value and they get turned into soup can's and police car parts.

Again. You’ve never heard of hot seating a patrol car? Two 12 hour shifts? I’m done.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

It's a Ford, nothing would have stopped the destruction. That's it's destiny

I remember a time when Ford's name was actually connected to quality.... as Archie Bunker would say "Those Were The Days" lol.

And that was a Cadillac. (LaSalle).

Speaking of trash cans these days - too bad, Cadillac has some interesting rides

 

[WeyounDS9]

Are the dealer's replacement cams an improved part?

 

[Audiman]

Again. You’ve never heard of hot seating a patrol car? Two 12 hour shifts? I’m done.

So it would take 4 and a half years to get to 40,000 hours run time if the engine was never switched off.

You are two different people running different vehicles for a different purpose.

No need for this to get heated when you are both doing what you think is best for your own fleets.

 

[mattd]

I just put a water pump in a 17 explorer police interceptor that has 20,000 hours on it. Still looked great internally as far as varnish and camshaft wear. Just FWIW as far as gas engine longevity. This platform is very well designed and executed though (other than water pump location).

 

[Audiman]

What engine was that?

 

[mattd]

What engine was that?

3.7. Photos and I posted are fairly recent in the what are you working on today thread.

 

[dnewton3]

I just put a water pump in a 17 explorer police interceptor that has 20,000 hours on it. Still looked great internally as far as varnish and camshaft wear. Just FWIW as far as gas engine longevity. This platform is very well designed and executed though (other than water pump location).

The Cyclone engines are actually very reliable and robust; they run clean and exhibit excellent wear traits. If not for the location of the water pump, they'd be everyone's favorite.

 

[Zee09]

This guy has several videos on the current cam crisis

https://youtube.com/@metalmaxmopar9520

 

[Spike555]

Again. You’ve never heard of hot seating a patrol car? Two 12 hour shifts? I’m done.

The cars do not run continuously for 24hrs every single day. They get shut down for maintenance. Tires. Brakes. Court.
Let's see if your'e really done trolling here, I don't think you are.

 

[Spike555]

So it would take 4 and a half years to get to 40,000 hours run time if the engine was never switched off.

You are two different people running different vehicles for a different purpose.

No need for this to get heated when you are both doing what you think is best for your own fleets.

I'm not heated, I'm having fun now.

 

[Spike555]

Are the dealer's replacement cams an improved part?

I have no clue, but I also do not have a choice. There are no aftermarket roller cam's out there that I could find.
Plenty of flat tappet cams, no roller ones.

 

[DuckRyder]

Comp and Mast both make rollers for the 7.3 Godzilla. Not what i would call stock replacement though...

Oddly - i didn't try real hard, but i found exactly zero flat tappets for a Godzilla.

 

[dnewton3]

When a water pump fails outside of warranty it is because the coolant was not changed, the lubricant inside the coolant wore out and the water pump bearings ran dry and the water pump failed.

Uhhhhh ... Nope. Components fail for a variety of reasons.
In the situation you describe, the coolant does not lubricate the bearings in a water pump. The bearing is behind a seal that keeps the pressurized coolant contained in the coolant passages. The bearing for the pump shaft is on the "dry" side of the coolant seal. The bearing is also typically a "sealed" unit that has the lubricant internal to the bearing and it has two seals (one on each side of the bearing) to keep it's lubricant intact. Sometimes the bearing is "open" if it's in a bathed-oil environment. But my point is that the coolant changes have NOTHING TO DO WHATSOEVER with the life of the pump bearing. Coolant may affect the impeller life, but it does NOT affect the bearing life. Regardless of how the pump bearing gets its lube, it should NEVER be subjected to the coolant directly; that's not how they are designed.

This cam issue is know by Ford, it is such a issue that Ford has told dealers not to sell their inventory of cams and to only use them for warranty work because they can't keep up with demand.
If it was not a known defect that Ford admits to, I wouldn't care. I'd chalk it up to "meh, whatever, it happens"
One dealership's I use has 2 F-350's in with this cam issue, one has 2,000 miles on it, the other has 30,000.
When a manufacture admits "yeah, we have an issue" but does nothing about it, that's the issue I have with this.
Should they cover it? Yes.

Are you stating that Ford is denying coverage during warranty? 2k miles and 30k miles should be under warranty. I suspect they ARE doing something about it. They are replacing parts under warranty, are they not; is that not doing something about it? Further, they are probably investing the root causes for failures, but since you don't work at Ford in the engine engineering area, you're probably not aware of that. They are probably also working with vendors to determine effective resolutions. These things take time.

You seem upset that the cams aren't covered into perpetuity; what you seem to want is to have a limitless warranty - one that goes to infinity. No OEM is going to do that.