Owners of Ford vehicles that use certain Duratec V6 engines are looking to Ford to help cover repair costs for water pump failures on the car. According to a class action Ford lawsuit, the typically inexpensive water pump replacement on other vehicles can cost many times more for a Duratec V6 engine. On many vehicles replacing a water pump will cost somewhere around $500, but on Ford cars with a Duratec V6, the repair costs can run into the multiple thousand dollar range.
The reason for this is that unlike most engines where the water pump is on the outside of the engine and easy to access, the Duratec V6 has a water pump that is inside the engine and driven by a chain. One plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit filed in late 2018 claims that he received a $3,000 repair bill to replace the entire engine. One man received a $1,800 bill for replacing the water pump, but the shop told him they suggested that the engine be replaced.
One plaintiff on the case says that the shop told him they would be unable to guarantee that other damage inside the engine hadn’t occurred with the water pump failure. With the water pump being inside the engine, owners of cars using the Duratec V6 often don’t see any leaks, and the first sign of trouble is when the car overheats. Attorney’s on the case are asking Ford to help owners of impacted Duratec V6 engines replace the faulty water pumps.
Vehicles that use the Duratec V6 in the class action lawsuit include some Flex and Edge vehicles, among others. Ford has agreed to see if there is a goodwill program that would help the man who received the $3,000 quote. Ford is facing a class-action lawsuit over its new 10-speed transmission.
UPDATE: This lawsuit has been dismissed by the judge with prejudice.
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Source: ABC27
Taking a page out of the Maverick's book.
All that Electric Spice looks pretty good, if we do say so ourselves.
It has remained with the original owner's family since new, too.
Three words: tech, advertising, and business.
The standard system isn't half bad.
Another nicely kept example of the newer Ranger.
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So if the waterpump was cheap replacement no one would bother with a law suite but becuase of the cost that could be involed then its a law suite even if the water pump has worn out.This is law suite goon crazy.
no IF you read it there is no warning the coolant goes out the shaft straight into the oil pan and nukes the engine
= BAD DESIGN yes the cost is ignorant but a water pump should ( by there own definition of being chain driven should last MUCH longer than belt driven and this is not the case. Engines are grenading anywhere from @40000 to 100000 which in this day is just wrong
It`s one of the worst designs ever....The lawsuit is over someone paying about $8000.00 for replacing a complete engine that could have been saved if it wasn`t for the insanity of the design.
Following the recommended maintenance scheduled lade out in the manual is rarely looked at followed or even read. Its a great designed engine, before you buy a vehicle on an emotion its good to use the o'l thinker, read up , look ahead at maint. cost , engine design, proven failures. Blaming Ford because you failed to do maintenance and investigate what you were buying is the buyers problem, and you cant trust the little oil change flunkies who are looking at their phones for the latest twitter that mentions their name while getting your carpets dirty, stripping your drain plug, and double gasket your oil filter either 90 percent know nothing and in this self serve culture of entitlement and my rights, my stuff, and my way, businesses and companies are folding because the cost of lawyers and red tape.
Robert, your comment is broad based and doesn’t apply to everyone. Maintaining ones vehicle is as important as insuring it. The water pump is never mentioned in its maintenance manual. I’ve owned many vehicles and having a water pump fail on a maintained vehicle under 85,000 miles is a flaw. A $7200 bill to replace my entire engine isn’t due to any fault of mine.
Use the ol'thinker, you should take your own advice, unless you where dropped on your head when you were born. How can a proven engine failure be made by the person buying the vehicle if the car & engine are brand new. We don't have access to the real documents that really come from their test labs. Plus it plays & pays to the companies advantage to take advantage of us the consumers. With proven documented evidence of products made to fail by design provided to us by the companies that sell it & the manufactuerers who make it. We are using the ol'thinkers, we just don't show it as you expect. Plus why would any company devulge the dirt on their products if their trying to maximise the profits for early retirements. This type of act will lead your customers elsewhere & your name brand products to be used as a cautionary tale, 1 poor mans design could lead to a diy'ers success. We like doing things outside that dumb ol'box cause we are masters of creating our own & doing what we want, their are no limits you can put on life itself!
Robert, your post is being ridiculed for good reason. This isn't a "maintenance" item. This isn't a typical case in which the coolant leaks onto the ground, you run down to your local auto parts store to buy the parts, and replace the water pump. This design effectively ties the life of an otherwise great engine, to that of the water pump. Even if you catch/detect the problem -- as I recently have -- the cost is still 80-90% of replacing the entire engine. This is assuming the "weep hole" caught the problem before the timing chain gear seal gave out; otherwise my engine oil is now engine coolant.
The fact that the class action lawsuit was thrown out by a judge over semantics, and lack of internal documentation for facts really smells of payoff or ignorance. A judge that probably doesn't know how to change her own flat tire. It doesn't take internal documents saying they knew the water pump failure would lead to engine catastrophe, nor to tell you that 12.5 man hours of maintenance is overly abundant for a non European supercar.
That is easier said than done to study the vehicle read up on it do research on it when the seller at the lot says I'll give you a price but it's only good till midnight tonight that puts pressure on you to make up your mind with you going to save $2,000 or you going to take the time to look and research vehicle and lose $2,000.
Please explain for us exactly how one performs preventive maintainence on a water pump built internally of the engine.
I really wish I would have serviced my O-ring on my internal water pump so that it didnt fail, causing me to replace the water pump myself because i dont have $4,000 to have it replaced by Ford. (2024 prices). If there was a way to get O-ring sauce in the engine somehow, maybe the 0-ring wouldnt have deteriorated and leaked.
Bob, I agree! I am stunned they were so short sighted...Truly pathetic...US cars still cant make it right after 45 years of producing junk!!! Toyota or Honda will never do this
Both Toyota and Honda have had their own design issues. I would know, Family and I have had serious mechanical issues with both brands. Check on the website CarComplaints.com for the issues with those brands. My current 2008 Lincoln MKX is at 202K miles without any issues with the water pump.
This is crazy I had to pay 3000$ to fix my waterpump in my 2010 lincoln mks!
How do they get away with this stuff. They purposely designed this part of the engine to drive new sales! Crooked and illegal. Its set up to destroy the engine and makes it very expensive to fix if you can at all!
You are ABSOLUTELY correct! Toyotas, truly are cars that will last until "the wheels fall off". Hondas are a close second, they make the BEST engines, hands down, but their transmissions (automatic) have been problematic as of late. The "problem" I have with these 2 makes is buying them! Toyota in particular, is very hard to deal with and want to finance with "Toyota Financial" (dealers get a $6k kickback). If you are a "sub-prime" borrower, you will have a tough time financing through the dealer! And the prices on used Toyotas have actually RISEN in the past couple months, while other makes prices have fallen! I CAN understand why the dealers are gouging, they have an EXCELLENT product that, I JUST can't afford!
I don't know ojars, i have read up on the waterpump/timing chain design on toyotas, and mechanics say its similar design and complexity to a Ford. i think when it comes to imports, people are more apt to accept an expensive repair bill, especially with european cars. but the folks who buy fords want value and dependability and are apt to be less tolerant of big repair bills. with that being said, one contributing thing to the high estimate costs people are getting to replace the waterpump is the fact they are taking it to the dealer! holy cow, never go to the dealer. find a good outside mechanic. i just watched a Youtube video of a shop changing one of these water pumps on a 3.5 v6. the dropped whole engine out as its designed to come out fairly easily in a few hours and waterpump and chain is easily changed this way. anyway, he said to change timing chain while your changing water pump and job took a little over 9 hours. his charge to customer was about $1400 for labor and parts. Yes its expensive. but its on par with costs for toyota/honda from what the man said. the key seems to be to stop driving car when you know there is a problem. don't make it worse and as said above, don't go to dealer if you are not wanting to get fleeced.
If anyone ever had a doubt regarding your lack of intelligence and inherent ignorance, your post absolutely removes any doubt.
You shouldn`t post with people that know what their talking about.
Hey McCann-So this is how you demonstrate YOUR intelligence? "People that know what THEIR talking about" :-)
Sheesh....
The coolant pump fails and dumps coolant into the crankcase. Poor engineering design. Failure of the coolant pump blows the engine. How is this a well thought out design?
A single failure of a water pump should not destroy an engine. With computer cars over heating or lost of oil pressure will put the engine in safe mode so there is no further damage and enough to get you to the side of the road. My son’s BMW electric water pump failed. The computer threw a yellow alarm on the dash and when the temp got higher the alarm went red and you couldn’t go over about 10 mph.
unfortunately it DOES NOT do that and ford techs cannt find the issue either. Mine did it and when the garage had it they replaced the thermostat, never went to a limp mode which I thought it would as well then it stopped for quite some time then a cam sensor error came up sent it to the garage and no motor...
Does this include 2012 Escape's
None of the Escapes nor the 3.0L, and Ecoboost 2.7L as they have external pumps.
No Escape, EVER, has had an engine with an INTERNAL water pump! You Escape owners can rest easy!
Basically, any Ford or Lincoln, even Mazda, with Duratech 3.5/3.7L engines, including Ecoboost 3.5 are potentially effected. The water pump is mounted inside the oil lubricated timing chain cover/housing. It's gear acts as an idler pulley for the camshaft timing chain, its shaft turning the water pump impellor. If the water pump bearing or seal fails, it will leak coolant into the oil. Therefore, you would notice a loss of coolant which might subsequently lead to overheating, but you would also be mixing coolant with oil. This would be noticeable on the oil dipstick as "milky oil" and possibly on underside of oil fill cap when removed. Coolant in oil can lead to failure of engine bearings, cylinder wall scoring and engine failure. Therefore, any indication of the symptoms mentioned should be immediately investigated. Labor hours to replace water pump is like 20 to 30 and not a DIY project for most people. Check YouTube for some good videos of this repair. Scary! I own 3 vehicles with this series of engines: Flex, Taurus and Mazda6. As much as I like these cars, I'm now seriously worried about the problem occurring.
Also, I would like to add, if you hear ANY unusual clicking or clattering on start up, SHUT THE ENGINE OFF, IMMEDIATELY! You might be able to save it from major damage!
Where do we sign-up, help, have the same problems
I need to know how to sign up too, it would cost $5700 to replace the engine with a rebuilt one after our waterpump failed. what a mess
Reading all that I can get my eyes and ears on there are two things that help avoid the biased ( THE JUDGE) AND FORD'S FAULTY DESIGN...........1.Switch to synthetic motor oil...(not the blend which percent is never divulged ASAP) .2. Coolant change every 30.000 miles (not the 100,000 miles dictated in my manual). My Ford dealer (not Lincoln where bought it) is helping me keep my young Continental (33,000) miles help as much as possible.
my 2010 edge water pump went out the it will cost me 9000.00 dollars to replace how could this be
I forgot to say only the transversely mounted 3.5/3.7L engines have internal H2O pumps so it doesn't affect the RWD based vehicles like F-150'S or the 2020 Explorer.
Just bought a flex with 87000 miles and was unaware of this problem. I bought it for fun, not my main car, but would not have bought it if I had known this issue, Ford Manufacturing needs to extend some kind of coverage for these vehicles. This motor should never had been put in this vehicle with this issue. The problem is engineers with any experience should have known antifreeze and oil don't mix and to put these in such close proximity is ridiculous. There should be a recall on these vehicles and some kind of extended warranty should be extended. No way, with the improvement of technical advancement that motors shouldnt run 250,000. Other manufactures are with regular maintance. Do the right thing Ford and take care of your customer base. This warranty extension should extend to whoever owns a Flex whether First owner or second or third owner, shouldn't matter.
I doubt Ford will do anything unless forced to do so in a court of law.
I still can't find any info on a class action suit over the water pump issue. I went to a website that was suggested here --- dwg@millerlawpc.com---but got a warning message about going forward so I stopped at that point.
Just type in Ford class act lawsuit on 3.5 water pump failure. Going through same thing!!
The case against Ford HAS BEEN DISMISSED! The judge found that the litigants did not provide sufficient evidence that Ford DELIBERATELY designed that engine to fail. Sorry, Ford owners!
Yeah because if coolant leaks into the engine like in this case it destroys the whole engine. Of course there will be people that want to file a lawsuit. Instead of a $100 part you can replace yourself. You have to pay $1000’s to fix or replace your engine.
We purchased a 2007 Ford Edge not knowing that the 3.5l V6 contained in internal water pump. We purchased it two years ago and are still paying on it. We now have an additional $7,300.00 for a new engine at the dealership. We did not buy it at a dealership. We had it replaced there because we have a Ford service credit card that of course is now maxed out to pay for this. we were not in the original lawsuit that by the way was dismissed. I will never buy a Ford again and when all of this is paid off, I will drive this thing down to whatever car dealership i will be buying from and trade it in.