8 Feb, 2019 → by ClaimboUser892980
80 percent love them, 20 percent hate them. Are you feeling lucky?

I have a 2005 Ford F150 Lariat. The CAM PHASERS were going out and it had 180K so I decided to get it rebuilt as I plan to keep the truck for a long time. I drove the vehicle to them, I showed the mechanic James that I had no engine lights. Then I rented a car, wasn't in a rush to have it back, and just wanted it done right. 2.5 weeks later I got a call that it was finished. I paid ($8600), then they started telling me that they could not figure out some problems with it. Again, I drove the vehicle to them. Besides a lot of noise from the phasors it ran perfect. I was doing this as preventive maintenance as I want a reliable truck and didn't want to spend 50K for a new Lariat. MISTAKE. Ray and James claimed that they did not have the equipment to test and further diagnose the problems. I just couldn't believe it, what the *** did I take to them for if they don't have proper equipment to fully troubleshoot almost 9K in repairs. I didn't know what to do, I was overwhelmed that I had just spent so much money and they didn't know how to fix it. I took it to a garage near my job and they spent 4 days and a whole lot of my money to not be able to find anything. I'm starting to have a panic attack now. Ray is telling me the vehicle is perfect and I could drive it to California if needed. In the meantime I’ve got all these engine lights on and getting 9 MPG. I cannot take a loss like this so I put my mechanic hat on and started doing my own internet research. I figured out that they had done a CAM PHASER LOCKOUT on the truck. For this to work right the computer has to have a special tune done to disable errors related to the Variable Timing System. I took it back to them, gave them another chance. They determined that the custom tune had not taken and bought another tuner. This fixed all but 2 errors and the truck ran a bit better now but still had an incredibly rough idle like it wanted to stall. They kept looking for non-engine related issues to blame things on and expected me to troubleshoot and find the problems myself for me to fix it. I’m not a damn mechanic and I paid them $8600 and I just could not believe they are doing this to me. So I got the truck back, took it to 3 other mechanics that looked at me like I was crazy for what I was asking them to try and fix it. They all wanted to change spark plugs, fuel injectors, and do work that was supposedly done by the engine shop a week or two before. So I took it back to the engine shop. Rented another car, they kept it for 4 more days and he said he changed out the plugs yet again and all the injectors. James, the mechanic, took me on a test drive (he drove). He then showed me his hand which was missing three fingers and told me how get got them cut off while helping someone and that it wasn’t work related. He then hit me as hard as he could on my left leg like he was mad at me for putting him through this. I would have punched him back if he were not driving, eventually decided to let it go. It was pretty clear he had some PTSD or other mental issues over the damage to his hand. At this point I had given up on dealing incompetent-scamming mechanics. I can’t rebuild engines but I’m a decent home mechanic so I started surfing F150 forums trying to get ideas at what to look at. Over the next few weekends I replaced almost every sensor in the engine, found that the Fuel Injector Pressure sensor was bad, and got rid of the last engine error code. Cuts all over my hands, bills racking up, and the truck is still idling like it wants to stall. Rev it up to about 1100RPM and it runs flawless. I had too much invested now to give up. I decided to change out all the spark plugs and fuel injectors myself. Then I discovered that 3 of the 8 spark plugs had separated inside the engine (James had just replaced the plugs 3 weeks earlier). I can post photos of the plugs. This issue was common in this year of F150 but the updated plugs were supposed to fix it. The issue here was the old style plugs (original equipment plugs were used). I got hold of an extractor and I pulled them all out myself (painful), and put plugs in that cannot separate like that. I retrospect I think James used an air tool to tighten the plugs and seriously over-torqued them. The idle improved after changing the plugs, at least for about 300 miles, then it came back. Then the AC stopped working, had to pay $350 to get the system recharged and a $3 o-ring replaced. Apparently they had re-used the old o-ring. This was a common them in this rebuild, they don’t test-replace anything as they don’t have proper diagnostic equipment and skills. About a 2 months later the alternator went out. I replaced that and the rough idle got a bit better. When it’s 75 degrees outside the engine runs smooth. Any other temperature and it gets so rough you would think it’s going to stall, but never does. I’m very frustrated, I have about 11K into this truck and would expect it to run like new with everything I have done. I don’t want to deal with the engine shop anymore, they are incompetent and don’t seem to do anything but make excuses and make me rent cars for 3-4 days as punishment for bringing it to them. I have theories but nothing to pinpoint the problem. 2005 F150’s do not have EGR sensors. They recirculate the exhaust gases using the Variable Timing System; however, because they did a lockout this is not possible. I’ve read this can lead to idle issues but I just don’t want to fork out 3K to get them replaced as it might not help. So take my advice is not do business with this shop. 80% of the time things will go smoothly and you probably won’t have any issues. It’s the 20% where you need to worry as they are not going to have the tools and skills to fix anything outside the context of a rebuild. James is missing three fingers on one of his hands and has to rely on air tools and work arounds to do his job which leads to him either over-torqueing or not fully screwing on things. He has a disability basically and I am so very sorry it happened to him but the end result is he cannot fix what he breaks. He cannot repair stripped threads, he cannot repair broken plugs, and he can only switch engines out and cannot and will not do anything above and beyond. I would sue them but at this point it would be over a weird idle issue. Once it revs up a little it’s perfect. I just don’t want to go to court over something like that. But I will put my story online. Sorry for the novel, but this true story needs to be told. Getting an engine rebuilt should not be this painful.
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