erikrichard

I knew that one was coming. I've thought about it, it does seem pretty stupid of me to keep a vehicle with a ticking time bomb inside the engine. I'm probably going to keep it and keep my fingers crossed, I don't drive much these days. This has nothing to do with the stupid decision to make the wp timing chain driven though, it's still stupid even if I keep the Edge. Which is otherwise a great vehicle.

I'll try to remember your comforting words of wisdom if my wp ever turns my Edge into a 2 ton boat anchor.

No. Do you know of any manufacturers out there that recommend alternator or starter motor replacements as part of scheduled maintenance? Or even tires? Such a silly argument. The real problem with this design is failure of a wear item like a water pump can destroy the engine. Forget that a wp replacement costs $2k, that's not the worst part of it. And it's happened to many, even under 150k miles. Do a search on Flex, Edge and Taurus 3.5l water pump failure. This design is indefensible, I actually find it pretty amusing there are people trying to defend such a dumb design. Ford should have designed an engine that would fit in these vehicles with an external wp. If that meant losing a few hp then so be it. If that meant that a 6 cyl engine was impossible, then whoever designed these vehicles with such small engine bays should have been fired and new vehicles should have been drawn up.

Thanks for giving me permission to have my own opinion. I give you the same.

There is no advantage to a water pump being inaccessible, so I can't imagine any other reason for doing so other than to decrease the footprint of the engine so it would fit in their vehicles. I have never heard of a water pump that is designed for the life of a vehicle. In fact, water pumps have always been and always will be a wear item that is expected to be replaced during the life of the vehicle. So the problem isn't just the seals, even if seals don't fail the water pump is still likely to wear out over time and miles and need replacement. And then there is the biggest problem with this design, the likelihood of failure causing a destroyed engine. This idea should have never made it out of the boardroom.

Not sure why you say yes. Apparently, Ford came out with this engine in order to use it in the Edge. Why in hell would they create an engine for a particular vehicle, that is not sized properly to fit in said vehicle unless they do something ridiculously stupid like stuff the water pump inside the engine? They should have either made the engine bays large enough for the Cyclone's water pump to be external, or designed a different engine. Their "solution" was moronic.

Would it have really been that hard to either pick another engine or widen the engine bay another few inches to fit an external water pump? Yeah, it's a great vehicle otherwise, but this was a really stupid thing for Ford to do.

I say go for a million miles on an original wp - the way you put on miles it could happen! 'Course I'm not going to buy you a new engine if things go bad so I don't blame you if you don't take my advice.

Why not keep going just to see how long the original wp will go? chances are you will get warning with leaking if it does go, but if not its a 300k mile vehicle - is it really worth putting all that money into a new wp and chain anyway?

This exact thing happened to me with 2 of the 3 rear plugs, after googling wth was going on I learned this is a very common thing to happen. Shit design, don't blaim yourself.

I've researched this problem quite a bit, and based on that research plus the scads of vehicles using this engine/water pump configuration with way past 100k I see regularly for sale with no mention of wp or engine replacement, I've concluded that it is a very small % that have failed. The problem is that when it does fail it's either a very expensive new water pump replacement (relatively speaking) or a catostrophic engine failure - so it's a huge deal if it happens. My conclusion is the same for ptu failures - they are rare but if they happen it's a big deal and this is why it gets so much attention. So I disagree calling those with failed pumps regardless of miles "lucky", they are in fact the vast majority of owners of these engines. It's those with pumps (and ptus) that fail that are in fact unlucky.

That's true. As far as getting all the fluid out, I don't see why this is important. I'd bet doing a single drain/fill every 30k-50k miles you'd never have a transmission failure. The statement "its better than nothing" is way understated - it's a hell of a lot better than never changing it, and could very well be the difference between ending up with a failed transmission and never having an issue.

This doesn't sound like a very efficient way to replace fluid. If you are removing and adding one quart at a time, every time you do it after the first quart you are actually removing a bit of the brand new fluid as it has already circulated with the old fluid. It seems to me that it's far better to do a complete drain and fill, as you are replacing half of all the old fluid with new in one go. The method you do would require a lot more than 5 quarts to achieve that 50-50 mixture of old and new fluid.

Suffering from old fuel invoices is a terrible affliction, better get that looked at. As far as what diesel engine will work in your 2008 Edge, any will do - it's a very simple process, just open the hood and dump your engine of choice right on top of the old 3.5l engine and you will be in business.

Ford's maintenance schedule says to replace fluid for the first time at 150k miles. Not sure if it's a good idea to wait so long, but there it is. I'd drain/refill without any hesitation whatsoever if I were you.