2012 Edge Ecoboost Turbo Failure

[Robsedge2012]

I recently had to replace the turbo charger on my daughter's 2012 Edge SEL. The car has 80,000 miles. Filed a case with Ford through my local dealer and was told they would offer no help. This is a $2100 fix. I find it hard to believe Ford won't stand behind a vital engine part like this for more than 50,000 miles. Very disappointed in Ford. Of the 4 cars I own, this is the only Ford so I don't know if this is the way they treat other major issues. This experience will definitely effect my decision as I start replacing these cars.

[TheWizard]

I can appreciate that you are unhappy about the engine problem but you can't expect any company to extend their warranty by more than 50% simply because you don't think you should have to pay for the replacement. It's called a "limited warranty" because it's limited both in how long it applies and what is covered. Sure, if you had the same failure at 51,000 miles then there would be a case for having it covered as a good will item (although that would still be at Ford's discretion). But at 80,000 miles you are not even close to having just run out of warranty. If companies were to cover repairs that far out of warranty then they might as well not have any limits to their coverage and significantly raise the price of every vehicle to cover their anticipated repair costs forever (not to mention the loss of most future sales because buyers have no incentive to buy new if they can get their old one fixed for free). Basically, what you are asking for is unreasonable.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Sorry to hear. Unfortunately, these failures continue to happen. And it seems like 80,000 miles is right about where it dies on the 2.0 ... Did they say why? Seal failure?

 

The 2.0 in particular is a "dirty" engine and "eats" through oil rather quickly. So extended oil change intervals are not a good idea, nor is using anything but a good quality full synthetic oil with low volatility #s.

Edited August 24, 2017 by WWWPerfA_ZN0W

[akirby]

And that's the part people don't seem to understand. If Ford were to cover all these failures so far past the factory warranty then every vehicle would cost at least $1K more, maybe $2K. You're asking for an unlimited warranty for free.

 

Or look at it this way - you could have purchased an extended warranty that would have covered the repair up to 100K miles for around $1500-$2K. You chose not to pay for it and now you want it for free. It's like going to Wendy's and buying a hamburger by itself, then demanding that they give you fries for free.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Extended Warranty ... Hmmmm .... Regardless, the fact is that turbocharging has not come as far as Ford has marketed it as having. This is compounded by the problems with GDI technology, emissions requirements, packaging, etc. There is a lot of cool tech in Ecoboost engines, but longevity for the turbo is best achieved by NOT using it all the time.

 

Most of the cost of replacing the turbo is labor not parts. True for the 2.0 and for the rear turbo in the 3.5 EB.

[akirby]

Of course I don't advocate buying the extended warranty but then I wouldn't complain about having to pay for a subsequent repair either because I know in the long run I'll still save money.

 

Point remains the same - don't refuse to pay for the warranty then complain about not getting it for free.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Problem is here that is a Catch 22. Since you expect parts to be reliable (otherwise why buy the car in the first place), you don't buy warranty. And turbos should be reliable after nearly 25 years of first being introduced in a Ford production car. Reasonable expectation on the part of the consumer. Fact is, Ford has been underselling maintenance requirements for some time now, and I am sure other mfrs do the same.

[akirby]

I don't necessarily expect a certain level of reliability as the reason for me not purchasing the warranty. I'm just expecting that whatever I spend on repairs over the long run with multiple vehicles over a couple of decades will be less than the cost of buying an extended warranty on each vehicle.

 

Any part will have failures. Even the highest quality brands have failures. The difference is simply the probability of having a failure and how much of a gamble you're taking either way.

 

I have not seen or heard of an abnormally high failure rate on ecoboost turbos but I don't frequent the 3.5L ecoboost related forums where they would have the highest mileage. I didn't think they were that much different than the larger diesel turbos which have been very reliable for decades.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Well, since the 2012my was only the second year of the ecoboost, there WAS no track record at the time. People could hardly be faulted for assuming that Ford had done it's research prior to such a heavy push into the market. Stats are not available because of the nature of warranty service. And dealerships sell the wow factor of turbo engines, not the servicing costs. The way it goes.

 

You would be amazed by how many complaints there are about the turbos within a year of purchase. Pretty ridiculous. I wish they were as reliable as the diesels, but alas ...

[akirby]

The 2.0L ecoboost debuted in 2009 in Europe and the 3.5L ecoboost debuted in 2009 in North America.

 

I still can't recall more than 1 or 2 turbo failures being reported here or on the fusion forum. I must be missing something.

[Robsedge2012]

I can appreciate that you are unhappy about the engine problem but you can't expect any company to extend their warranty by more than 50% simply because you don't think you should have to pay for the replacement. It's called a "limited warranty" because it's limited both in how long it applies and what is covered. Sure, if you had the same failure at 51,000 miles then there would be a case for having it covered as a good will item (although that would still be at Ford's discretion). But at 80,000 miles you are not even close to having just run out of warranty. If companies were to cover repairs that far out of warranty then they might as well not have any limits to their coverage and significantly raise the price of every vehicle to cover their anticipated repair costs forever (not to mention the loss of most future sales because buyers have no incentive to buy new if they can get their old one fixed for free). Basically, what you are asking for is unreasonable.

Basically, all I'm asking for is that Ford make a quality product that doesn't have a major engine component failure in less than 100K miles (regardless of the warranty). My mistake for thinking they could do so. We all learn from our mistakes.

[tamugrad2013]

I had the same issue on mine at right around 81,000 miles. Honestly I was not happy about it at all, but I ended up buying the extended warranty. Granted that I am now making smarter money decisions I never plan to buy an extended warranty again, but with all the issues I have had I actually came out to date probably around 2500 dollars ahead on it. The service rep I have recently dealt with said in his time working in service departments he has never seen someone come out as ahead as I have. I am hoping I can get another 60,000 miles out of the car once I go out of warranty for a total of 160,000 dollars and I am already starting to save up for my next car which if it was today would probably be a 2015 or 2016 Mazda CX-5 or Mazda 6

 

Don't get me wrong I absolutely love my Edge, but hot damn it has had a whole lot of issues.

Edited August 25, 2017 by tamugrad2013

[akirby]

You're asking for perfection which no mfr can deliver.

[Tightanium]

Then you could have a turbo with 300,000 miles like a guy on the F150 forum does. And they have two of them.

[Robsedge2012]

You're asking for perfection which no mfr can deliver.

Your expectations are right where Ford wants them. I'm not asking for perfection, just reasonable quality. The dealer who did the work said he replaces 1 or 2 turbos on the 3.5L each week. The turbo for my car was on backorder. Dealer said that 56 were on order and 40 of those were already spoken for. That sounds like a reliability issue to me, but maybe I'm in the minority.

[TheWizard]

Well, considering that Ford has been selling an average of over 500,000 Ecoboost equipped vehicles per year in recent years (topping 1 million last year) having 56 turbos on order doesn't even rise to the level of miniscule. Sometimes things break. It sucks when it's yours but in the overall scheme of things those numbers indicate a pretty reliable design.

 

I agree that Ford could have emphasized to customers the need for a higher level of routine maintenance for turbo longevity and perhaps that is part of the reason that there are reports of failures after a certain mileage. But I don't think it justifies a blanket condemnation of the design or build quality of the turbo or of Ford's commitment to customers.

 

This is not to say that Ford isn't deserving of criticism in some areas... just that this doesn't seem to be one of those areas.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

56 throughout the system, Rob? And Wizard, true stats are masked by warranty replacements. I think the design is good. But implementation, not so much. Whether it be leaking seals or cinsumer awareness. Straight talk may lose some customers in the short run, but brings in many more in the long haul.

 

Maybe they should label ecoboosts as suitable for "highway driving only". Then nothing else in the manuals would need changing LOL.

[akirby]

Your expectations are right where Ford wants them. I'm not asking for perfection, just reasonable quality. The dealer who did the work said he replaces 1 or 2 turbos on the 3.5L each week. The turbo for my car was on backorder. Dealer said that 56 were on order and 40 of those were already spoken for. That sounds like a reliability issue to me, but maybe I'm in the minority.

 

My expectation is reality. Nothing is perfect and mechanical items always fail to some extent.

 

As was pointed out - 56 replacements out of 500 vehicles is a pretty high defect rate and cause for concern. But 56 out of 56,000 vehicles is a defect rate of 1/10 of 1% or 1 out of every 10,000 vehicles.

 

Without context of the number of ecoboost engines sold versus the repair rate it's just anecdotal evidence. And you do have quite a number of vehicles with over 100K miles and no failures.

 

Without more evidence I'd say ecoboost turbo reliability is average at worst. That may change as more engines get more mileage but that's what it looks like today.

[akirby]

And obviously there were issues with the first gen ecoboosts as there would be with any new technology. But if a large percentage were failing before 100K miles it would be much more widely known and discussed especially here and in the Fusion forum.

[Tightanium]

I'm amazed that turbos last as long as they do. After all what do they spin? 250,000 rpm's under extreme heat. Some are going to fail.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

I will still say that since cars are sold as appliances, and owners are not trained on maintenance needs, Ford's approach relies on a certain level of customer sophistication regarding automotive technology. That sophistication usually comes about when that first major repair bill hits you square between the buttocks.

[Robsedge2012]

56 throughout the system, Rob? And Wizard, true stats are masked by warranty replacements. I think the design is good. But implementation, not so much. Whether it be leaking seals or cinsumer awareness. Straight talk may lose some customers in the short run, but brings in many more in the long haul.

Maybe they should label ecoboosts as suitable for "highway driving only". Then nothing else in the manuals would need changing LOL.

56 on order through the Atlanta parts warehouse. Not sure how big of an area that covers. I don't hav access to any national #'s but would be interested to see them.

[enigma-2]

I've always wondered how many common failures are design related and how many fail through customer's lack of proper maintenance.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Well, just chewing on it, all parts are designed to meet a certain spec, then the parts still have to be produced. Used to be a rule of thumb that engineers would overbuild anything by at least 10%, sometimes even 30% on critical applications. Still, the life of a part is not going to be infinite. With all the marketing hoopla these days, I expect there is a good-sized gap between consumer expectation and reality.

 

If a part fails, did it meet the spec? Then it was not a design failure or a production failure. Could be that gap I mentioned, or could be "overuse" beyond recommendations.

 

As an aside, akirby suggests budgeting for future repairs, and I suggest looking seriously at Ford extended warranty options when looking at a car. If you are a technical DIY'r, budgeting is a great way to go. If you tend to hand it over to a mechanic, the warranty is what you need. Build it into the cost of the car, especially when buying used, because it WILL save your beehind down the road.

[akirby]

My recommendation on new vehicles is if you want to save money in the long run and you can afford to pay for a large unexpected repair if the worst happens then don't buy the extended warranty - self-insure. Odds are always in your favor on multiple vehicles over time.

 

A used car is a different proposition. You don't know how it was taken care of or what the previous owner(s) may have done to it, so that changes the odds a bit. I would at least get a 12 month warranty that covers the major components.

 

If you do decide to gamble on an extended warranty make sure it's a Ford ESP/CPO warranty and finance it with the vehicle.