This is about my 2001 ford taurus with 174,000 miles.
I'd like to know what signs there are of engine failure or if there are any at all. One mechanic said a bad cylinder can come one all at once as a misfire but keep running fine other than that. My car was running fine until this.
I take my car into the dealership because the check engine light was on. They said it was the coil pack and did a tuneup while there. I drive the car off the lot, go about thirty miles from home. As far as I can see it's driving fine. I get to my destination and notice a misfire(like it's skipping), finally the engine light comes back on before I get home. I take it back to the dealership the next day. Several days go by and I don't hear from them so I finally go when I need to get something out out of it. They tell me it needs a new engine. The service advisor tells me the oil rings and pistons are shot and it's 60% low on one cylinder and 40% low on another cylinder. Compression, that is. I talk to the tech who tested the car and he tells me it's 80 psi across the board except that one cylinder(cylinder 2) which is misfiring. It's lower, don't remember how much.
I give them my warranty information. I wait another few days and call them again and the service advisor tells me he's still waiting on the warranty company so I call and find out no one has called about the claim so either this advisor doesn't know what he's doing or he out and out lied.
When I go back to take the car they can't find my keys. I'm going back again tomorrow to get car.
Either way, I paid over $700 for the repairs and if they had told me the engine needed replacing beforehand I could have saved myself the money. They should have tested the compression while the spark plugs were out(at least that's what I've been told).
I had one incident the week before while climbing a steep mountainous grade doing about 70 mph and in cruise. Suddenly the rpm's shot way up and I lost power a few moments later. The CEL was flashing. I got the car to the side of the road and it was idling roughly. I turned it off and back on again and it was fine and went up the mountain fine and no cel light.. A few days later the engine light came on but it was still running okay. That's when I took it in.
Honestly, I thought it was a fuel injector because about a year ago it did almost the same exact thing on this steep hill and that's what it was.
I've always done the maintenance, flushes, fuel injector cleaning every 30,000 miles like they recommend and the oil changes every 5000 miles like they recommend with synthetic blend oil.
I feel like the car should have done more.
As soon as I can I'm taking it to another shop.
It's hard for me to believe that a Ford dealership is that haphazard. It's under new ownership now(never had a problem before new owner) and all the techs that were there before have left.
Confused and would like to make sense of this. I just got back from a long trip in the car, no problems and the miles are mostly highway. Tech said it didn't matter. One other thing, the service advisor said because the spark plugs were getting old that that led to the engine failure.
Oh, the last time out it was low about a quart of oil, 6000 miles. I drove it 3000 and it lost maybe a half quart. I know it's using some but a half quart to quart doesn't seem excessive. And there is oil pan gasket seepage(they call it, this was another dealership, been told a couple of times about it).
When I asked about the cylinder leakdown test the advisor said it was done but he couldn't remember the stats but he was sure it was bad. They saved one of my old spark plugs but didn't show me until I came back with the CEL on and said they were surprised it was running at all. I was surprised, not only had it been running, it had been running good.
They said if I wanted to keep driving it I could probably get 225,000 miles or more out of it just tolerating the misfire. Unfortunately, it will not pass inspection with the cel on. That many miles out of a car with that many engine problems? Doesn't make sense to me but I know really nothing about a car.
Besides compression and leakdown tests what other tests are done when engine failure is suspected?
Thanks in advance....
sassygrrl32aa
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