Mechanic here. My wife’s car is a 2017 Lincoln MKC that we bought early in 2020 just before all of this information came out about how terrible the 2.0 design with the grooved cylinder walls and head gaskets were.
71k miles - no extended warranty- still has a car payment. Now we have a po301 code. Cylinder one misfire and it slowly losing coolant.
I took out all 4 coil packs and plugs. Checked each cylinder with a borescope. Cylinder one appeared very dirty compared to the others - however no sign of coolant in the cylinder and the plug looked identical to the others. I moved the plug and coil pack from
1 to 2 in hopes that the misfire was a coil pack. The misfire came back the next morning on a cold start and unfortunately is still on cylinder one.
What I believe id happening is that while the engine is at operating temp - the head gasket is sealing properly - then as the engine cools of when its shut down - the gasket shrinks and shifts which causes it to leak coolant into the cylinder. Then on startup it misfires momentarily as the coolant is burned off. While the car is running at operating temp it is fine again. Of course this will become much worse at anytime now as the gasket fails farther.
So as a mechanic - I will tell everyone that I know - do not under any circumstance buy a ford product. They will not stand behind their cars and refuse to issue a recall to help their customers. After warranty runs out you will be on the hook for a new engine - in our case at 71k miles.
I told my wife that this car would be a safe reliable and dependable car - now we will be stuck with a paperweight that still has a payment.
