Fixing po171/174? BEWARE!!!!!

[pitteach]

I purchased the Dorman kit and made the fix about 2 months ago. Everything worked well and the van runs great. HOWEVER!!! I was just looking through my engine compartment and noticed that the rubber portion of the fuel pressure regulator hose is cracking and failing!!! The same goes for the rubber portion of the PCV line. It seems like a matter of time before I get a vacuum leak and these parts are only two months old. I was a little skeptical about using Chinese parts, but I got drawn in by money savings. My advice: if you bought this kit, use the original hoses if they are clean-mine were, but I chucked them anyway. Otherwise, I would spend the extra cash and by the materials straight from Ford. My worry now is that the isolator bolts and manifold gaskets will fail, and I will have to start all over. BEWARE! I will try to include pictures at a later date.

[DRW1000]

The deal just seemed too good............

I'm sorry to hear but thanks for sharing the info.

[road_rascal]

What was the price difference between the two? The local Ford dealers have fairly competitive part prices compared to web resellers.

[pitteach]

I have seen the kit priced anywhere from $75 to $120. I priced each part from the Ford dealer and it came to about $220-$230 total for each part included in the kit. Only time will tell if it is really a good deal. To replace the two hoses and Pcv should run me about $30-$40 from Ford, so if the intake bolts and gaskets hold up, im still ahead. If thet don't, I'm out $120 plus my labor.
So the question is, are you a gambling man? Hindsight, I would buy the valve cover, bolts, and gaskets from Ford or other reputable source and forget about the pcv line and fuel regulator line unless totally necessary. For me, piece of mind and extra labor is worth a lot more than $100! I learned my lesson after buying cheap brake pads for a bunch of years, they cost half as much, but they work half as good and need to be changed twice as much.

[pitteach]

I just recently got an email from a gentleman who works for Dorman (the company who makes the kit) who saw my original post. I did not previously contact him, but he is very interested in the problems I had with the kit and did offer to replace the worn vaccum lines. He says that they have not had any previous problems with the kit like I have, so maybe I just got a "lemon." I appreciated that he took the time to contact me about the issue. Its good to see that there is still such a thing as customer service. I kind of doubt that I would have had the same response from Ford.

[DRW1000]

One would have thought there would be a lemon batch but it is encouraging that the gentleman contacted you on his own. I would tend to think that Ford would put together a TSB to be performed after the original TSB to correct the replacement parts' defects.