What do you think of this car overall? I have an older model and so many things keep on breaking. I have a Toyota with twice the mileage and that's my dependable car.
I've had no issues with this van. It's at 130k currently and the only non routine maintenance item I've had to do is clean out the erg valve because it had clogged enough to throw a check engine light. It fits 6 people comfortably and gets ok gas mileage for what it is. I like that its the size of a small pickup truck so it's easy to move around in tight parking lots. However, I can still fold down the rear two rows of seats and haul quite a bit if I need to haul items that can't be left outside. I do wish that I could fit a sheet of plywood in, doesn't fit by a few inches on the side due to trim pieces. There are days I wish it was longer so that you could have more cargo room without having to fold down seats... Thing to remember though is this van was made for the driving situation of Europe. It's manufactured in Valencia, Spain and is the near top seller of it's segment in Europe. When you look at it from that point of view it's a pretty solid van.
@@MazdaB3K I noticed that it's made in Valencia. Even though it's a Ford, it seems to be much more European. That's what I also figured with the design. It's good to know that you have been getting so many miles on it. I have been having transmission issues at less than 50k miles already where the van is just not shifting right and multiple things always breaking that have led to expensive repairs. I have the 2014 version, but the design as of that year is basically the same as yours. I like the space it offers and have therefore been keeping it. It's great for trips such as camping. Wish it supported a larger wheel size bc sometimes I end up on dirt roads here in California.
The 6F35 transmission is a bit fussy if it doesn't get the right amount of Mercon. One thing I do is I do a drain and fill on the transmission every 30k. Ford leads you to believe that you can go 100k or so... you can't. That's how the 6F35 dies at around 200k. I also have videos on that process if you are interested on doing that to your van to see if helps things.
@@MazdaB3K I'll check that out. I did a transmission fluid change at Ford recently. Later on I found out that they apparently only flushed out some of it. I'll look into it once I have some time. Nobody really had any videos on that car back then.
Partial drain and fill is normal. Unless you crack open the transmission you are only going to get the fluid that is sitting in the transmission pan out. The fluid in the torque converter you can't get to. If you want to do a "complete" fluid drain and fill you have to drain and fill 3 times to get most of your old fluid out.
So in this case the WIX filter will fit just as well as the authentic Ford filter? I got an engine filter before for another car and it didn't fit right, so I couldn't really close the housing that tight. How often do you recommend exchanging these engine air filters? Bc I never know if I can clamp and screw evth back together without having any leaks.
Wix makes pretty good kit, and I suspect they are the OEM for many different manufacturers. As long as you take care not to damage the filter by pinching it in the housing when you close it up, you should be fine. Now... as to how often you need to change filters. That is going to vary wildly on your driving conditions but for regular driving... not very often at all. I think I changed the air filter on the TC twice in the 6 years of ownership. Turns out air filters are fine as a long as you knock the grit out of them every few oil changes. If you are really worried about it you can install an airflow monitor on your air intake and keep an eye on it. My brother did that for his Fusion and he went a very very very long time before it told him it was time to change the filter. The biggest issue to this approach is while the filter is still filtering ok after a very long period of time, the glue used to bind the filter media is not. You do need to check the filter every once in a while to make sure it is not starting to fray apart where its bound to the filter frame.
@@MazdaB3K Cool. That's good to know. I only start to understand how all those things are interrelated on a car. Still have to look many things up that you talk about or do. Now I understand a little better how you had the coolant leak due to the head gaskets. I don't think I'll touch that engine air filter though. Too many things to disconnect and who knows if I'll put it back together right.
@@Jose-sy1je The E-150 didn't have leaky head gaskets. It had failed intake gaskets. So the head gaskets go between the block and the cylinder heads and have to hold up to a great deal of pressure. They also must separate oil passages, coolant passages and the cylinders themselves. Intake gaskets are a bit different. Traditionally, the upper intake gaskets only prevents vacuum leaks by keeping the seal between upper and lower intakes from drawing in unmetered air and leaking vacuum. The lower intake gasket however has to go between the cylinder heads and the intake. It has to seal off air passages and coolant passages. If this seal fails coolant can get pulled into an air passage and ultimately get mixed in with oil. That's one of the issues the E-150 had. I haven't published the video yet, but in part 3 I think of the Battle for the 5.4 series I pull out the old intake gaskets and clearly point out where the seal between the air and coolant passages failed
@@MazdaB3K I got you. So only way you could have known is by seeing it the oil had a milky color. I guess you have your work cut out with that car. But from what you said it seems to be fine now as long as you do the repairs. Also not sure how the humid weather down there affects the frame and everything else on the car. Where I am it's so dry that you never have to worry about that.
@@Jose-sy1je On the Triton 5.4L engine, when you get a double lean code and milkshake oil, that normally points to bad intake gaskets. That's exactly what I had. Both Bank 1 and Bank 2 were lean and the oil was VERY milkshaked because it had not been addressed. A blown headgasket can also cause milkshake, but normally something else is going wrong as well. Compression failures, oil in coolant, white smoke out the exhaust, that sort of thing. I didn't see any of that going on with the E-150 so intake it was and I was right. The oil cooler failing was a bit of a surprise but looking back it makes sense. For whatever reason the Previous Owner was only filling the coolant with water. Since there were no anti rust additives anything made of metal was rusting in the cooling system. Since the oil cooler is a cooler it has a maze of very fine passages that coolant circulates around to moderate the temperature of the oil. My guess is once I cleaned out the oiling system the oil pressure was too much and some of those passages blew out and starting pumping oil into the cooling system.
What do you think of this car overall? I have an older model and so many things keep on breaking. I have a Toyota with twice the mileage and that's my dependable car.
I've had no issues with this van. It's at 130k currently and the only non routine maintenance item I've had to do is clean out the erg valve because it had clogged enough to throw a check engine light. It fits 6 people comfortably and gets ok gas mileage for what it is. I like that its the size of a small pickup truck so it's easy to move around in tight parking lots. However, I can still fold down the rear two rows of seats and haul quite a bit if I need to haul items that can't be left outside.
I do wish that I could fit a sheet of plywood in, doesn't fit by a few inches on the side due to trim pieces. There are days I wish it was longer so that you could have more cargo room without having to fold down seats...
Thing to remember though is this van was made for the driving situation of Europe. It's manufactured in Valencia, Spain and is the near top seller of it's segment in Europe. When you look at it from that point of view it's a pretty solid van.
@@MazdaB3K I noticed that it's made in Valencia. Even though it's a Ford, it seems to be much more European. That's what I also figured with the design.
It's good to know that you have been getting so many miles on it. I have been having transmission issues at less than 50k miles already where the van is just not shifting right and multiple things always breaking that have led to expensive repairs. I have the 2014 version, but the design as of that year is basically the same as yours. I like the space it offers and have therefore been keeping it. It's great for trips such as camping. Wish it supported a larger wheel size bc sometimes I end up on dirt roads here in California.
The 6F35 transmission is a bit fussy if it doesn't get the right amount of Mercon. One thing I do is I do a drain and fill on the transmission every 30k. Ford leads you to believe that you can go 100k or so... you can't. That's how the 6F35 dies at around 200k. I also have videos on that process if you are interested on doing that to your van to see if helps things.
@@MazdaB3K I'll check that out. I did a transmission fluid change at Ford recently. Later on I found out that they apparently only flushed out some of it. I'll look into it once I have some time. Nobody really had any videos on that car back then.
Partial drain and fill is normal. Unless you crack open the transmission you are only going to get the fluid that is sitting in the transmission pan out. The fluid in the torque converter you can't get to. If you want to do a "complete" fluid drain and fill you have to drain and fill 3 times to get most of your old fluid out.
So in this case the WIX filter will fit just as well as the authentic Ford filter? I got an engine filter before for another car and it didn't fit right, so I couldn't really close the housing that tight. How often do you recommend exchanging these engine air filters? Bc I never know if I can clamp and screw evth back together without having any leaks.
Wix makes pretty good kit, and I suspect they are the OEM for many different manufacturers. As long as you take care not to damage the filter by pinching it in the housing when you close it up, you should be fine.
Now... as to how often you need to change filters. That is going to vary wildly on your driving conditions but for regular driving... not very often at all. I think I changed the air filter on the TC twice in the 6 years of ownership. Turns out air filters are fine as a long as you knock the grit out of them every few oil changes. If you are really worried about it you can install an airflow monitor on your air intake and keep an eye on it. My brother did that for his Fusion and he went a very very very long time before it told him it was time to change the filter.
The biggest issue to this approach is while the filter is still filtering ok after a very long period of time, the glue used to bind the filter media is not. You do need to check the filter every once in a while to make sure it is not starting to fray apart where its bound to the filter frame.
@@MazdaB3K Cool. That's good to know. I only start to understand how all those things are interrelated on a car. Still have to look many things up that you talk about or do. Now I understand a little better how you had the coolant leak due to the head gaskets. I don't think I'll touch that engine air filter though. Too many things to disconnect and who knows if I'll put it back together right.
@@Jose-sy1je The E-150 didn't have leaky head gaskets. It had failed intake gaskets. So the head gaskets go between the block and the cylinder heads and have to hold up to a great deal of pressure. They also must separate oil passages, coolant passages and the cylinders themselves.
Intake gaskets are a bit different. Traditionally, the upper intake gaskets only prevents vacuum leaks by keeping the seal between upper and lower intakes from drawing in unmetered air and leaking vacuum.
The lower intake gasket however has to go between the cylinder heads and the intake. It has to seal off air passages and coolant passages. If this seal fails coolant can get pulled into an air passage and ultimately get mixed in with oil. That's one of the issues the E-150 had. I haven't published the video yet, but in part 3 I think of the Battle for the 5.4 series I pull out the old intake gaskets and clearly point out where the seal between the air and coolant passages failed
@@MazdaB3K I got you. So only way you could have known is by seeing it the oil had a milky color. I guess you have your work cut out with that car. But from what you said it seems to be fine now as long as you do the repairs. Also not sure how the humid weather down there affects the frame and everything else on the car. Where I am it's so dry that you never have to worry about that.
@@Jose-sy1je On the Triton 5.4L engine, when you get a double lean code and milkshake oil, that normally points to bad intake gaskets. That's exactly what I had. Both Bank 1 and Bank 2 were lean and the oil was VERY milkshaked because it had not been addressed.
A blown headgasket can also cause milkshake, but normally something else is going wrong as well. Compression failures, oil in coolant, white smoke out the exhaust, that sort of thing. I didn't see any of that going on with the E-150 so intake it was and I was right. The oil cooler failing was a bit of a surprise but looking back it makes sense.
For whatever reason the Previous Owner was only filling the coolant with water. Since there were no anti rust additives anything made of metal was rusting in the cooling system. Since the oil cooler is a cooler it has a maze of very fine passages that coolant circulates around to moderate the temperature of the oil. My guess is once I cleaned out the oiling system the oil pressure was too much and some of those passages blew out and starting pumping oil into the cooling system.