Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver’s best auto service experience, 18 time winners of Best Auto Repair inVancouver as voted by their customers. How’re you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing good.
Mark: So we’re going to talk about another Ford truck, an F150, 2013 that had spark plug replacement issues.
Bernie: Yeah, well actually not any issues which is, we’re talking about spark plugs again in Fords which we’ve talked about quite a few times because a lot of them have issues but I’m happy to say that this one has no issues. It’s basically a, if you’re a Ford truck owner, you’ll be pleased to know that spark plug replacement on this vehicle is pretty straightforward compared to some of the earlier generations of the V8’s found on these trucks.
Mark: So why, was this engine been in use for quite a long time? Why did it need a spark plugs change?
Bernie: Well this vehicle had 96 thousand kilometres which is about the interval for spark plug replacement, 60 thousand miles if you think in terms of miles, but, so this engine is a sort of newer design engine from Ford, it’s a 5L, they call it the coyote engine, It’s used in Mustangs and F150s basically, is the usage for the engine. It’s basically for the Mustang obviously, it’s tuned a little more for performance; for the truck it’s tuned and designed a little bit more for low end to mid end torque and power which is more important in a truck than just ripping up your tires going down the street. But anyways, it seems to be a fairly reliable engine and the design of it is different. It’s a four valve per cylinder instead of three that they’ve used in a lot of previous generations and just a design in the spark plugs, again there’s nothing silly like the type where they break in half because they used a really long tube basically, I call it a tube with a ground electrode that stuck into the cylinder and seized up and they put an adequate amount of threads in the spark plugs so they didn’t blow out like the generation before that. So actually finally well designed.
Mark: So that’s some of the problems with the previous generations, so no problem with, obviously no problem with this one?
Bernie: No and actually, labour wise they’re actually pretty straightforward to replace as well. The others, those were very time consuming the way the engine was designed, there’s a lot of work to get the coils out, a lot of things need to be removed, took several hours on some of them, especially in a van, you know it could be a 5 or 6 hundred dollar job to do a spark plug replacement in an older generation Ford van. So there’s a fair chunk of money. Now the interval in those were longer but a lot of times by the time you go to change them either the plug threads would strip out or the plugs would break and you have to do a whole bunch of extra work, so that might actually be the cheap price if you’re lucky. But for this the engine has been redesigned so the coils are very easy to access and remove and get the plugs out. I’ll just share a few photos here. Here’s the F150, 2013 getting a nice looking Ford truck, four door, good practical vehicle - let’s have a look at the engine - so here’s the basic good view of the engine. Now this is a bit of a, it’s got a 100,000 kilometres, it’s been a well used truck, pretty dusty and so it’s not the most cleanest presentation of the engine, but you see your intake runners in there, it’s a very low profile engine as well and I believe the designed a lot of this to fit under the hood of the Mustang but it doesn’t have that sort of high profile intake being found on the other generation vehicles. You’ve got your valve covers over here, intake air, intake duct in the front and we’ll just have a look at the side view of the engine. So this is again, the right cylinder bank, you can see the ignition coil is all here, very easy to access and the same is true on the other side. There’s nothing really in the way, unbolt them, unclip them, they come out, the spark plugs can be replaced pretty easily. So this is like a real treat, it’s nice to see Ford finally making something simple like a spark plug replacement easy.
Mark: So pretty straightforward. How are these 5L… engines?
Bernie: As far as we’ve seen, they’re pretty reliable, haven’t really run into any problems with them. Again you know, 2011, so that’s when they first started and they make them right up to present 2018 models, pretty much all the same, I think there’s a few modifications in the newest models but so far they’ve been pretty reliable. Haven’t heard a lot of bad things about them, we haven’t seen any problems with them but you know, again, it’s like you know, change your oil regularly, do the maintenance, it’ll last as long as possible and though it is a complicated engine with the, it’s an overhead cam variable valve timing so there’s more complexity to it than a lot of engines but clean oil, good maintenance, it should last a long time.
Mark: So there you go, if you’re looking for service for your Ford F150 they guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at 604-327-7112, you have to book ahead, they’re busy or check out their website pawlikautomotive.com, we have hundred of videos on there or our YouTube channel Pawlik Automotive repair. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks Mark.
