Ford's highly touted eco-boost probs

[Z28SSMAN]

Hmmm... let's take a V6, slap a couple turbos on it and advertise it as practically "unbreakable".

Market it as getting over 20 mpg or as high as 24 mpg--even though if you work the turbos--you'll get no where near that mileage, but focus on 20-24. Lead people to believe you can tow 12,000 lbs no problem. People will fall for the hype and it'll sell like popcorn and account for over 40% of F-150 sales.

To avoid costly warranty repairs, only put a 60,000 mile powertrain warranty on it. When customers complain about random loss of power--just tell 'em you're "working on a fix".

In my opinion--if anyone was ignorant enough to really believe all the hype--they should suffer the consequences.

My nephew has one and although he's having problems--is still defending his pile of junk.

Here's a link. Although it starts out talking about the 2.0--applies to ALL ecoboost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0irw...&feature=share

[Z28SSMAN]

If you Ford guys look at the complete video, It appears that Ford's design is flawed. Ford is telling service depts. not to decarbonize the valves because it'll ruin the turbos. Also, on some engines, they're saying to replace the cyl heads.

I don't recall these issues when Ford introduced these engines as durable, because they showed videos running them for 500 miles non-stop and bragged about them.

bunch of rookies...

[fast toys]

I think John Lee Hooker said it best "boom boom, boom boom".

[Jumpercables]

You d think Ford woulda learned from GMs somewhat similar mistakes with the 4.3 in the Typhoon and Syclone 25 years earlier.

[Fast One]

And here's the clincher: GMC's Sierra with the direct-injected, VVT 5.3L V8 & active fuel management gets the same or slightly better EPA mileage as Ford's F-150 with the EcoBoost V6!

Sierra 1500 w/EcoTec 5.3L: 16/23 (2WD), 16/23 (4WD)

F-150 w/EcoBoost V6: 16/22 (2WD), 15/21 (4WD)

I'm a big proponent of turbocharged engines in cars, but turbocharged gasoline engines just don't make sense in applications where the engine spends the bulk of its time in lugging mode instead of freewheeling mode.

Joel

[Z28SSMAN]

Of course Ford will point out the ecoboost's HP advantage over the 5 3. They'll never admit that if you use the extra hp, the fuel economy gap will widen. If you dynoed the eco boost, it certainly isn't putting out the advertised power until you 'work' the turbos.

[Fast One]

Yeah, they can deny the laws of thermodynamics all they want, but they're still wrong. I bet that the exhaust side of those turbos glow nearly white on a rated-power dyno pull - just like the turbo on my GN did when I put it on the dyno.

One of the first things I learned with my GN is that it gets about the same gas mileage @ WOT as any other similar-weight car with similar gears & similar power. Just for grins, I actually measured my average gas mileage at the track one day. I got a whopping 1.5 MPG with the turbo screaming like a banshee all the time. About the same as any other ~3800-lb car with ~400 HP & 485 pounds of torque at the wheels gets @ WOT.

As the old saying goes - there is no free lunch. Within a few percentage points, it takes x amount of gasoline per second to do x amount of work, regardless of how you get there - given that the difference in efficiency between modern engines @ WOT is only a couple of percent or so, at most. The only time that the superior efficiency of running a smaller turbocharged engine comes into play is when you're operating at low-throttle/low-load most of the time, and only use the extra power in short bursts for things like getting up to speed & climbing hills. Or, say, spanking a BMW M5 in a stoplight race on Snelling Ave twice in a row. :laughing smile:

Joel