Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with, well Vancouver's best auto service experience, the expert himself, Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. As I said, Vancouver's best auto service experience, and we're talking cars. How you doing, Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well today.
Mark: So today's victim is, or today's guest, I should say, is a 2017 Ford F-150. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: So this vehicle came to our shop with a few concerns and one of them was oil leakage. So we proceeded to do some diagnostics to figure out where the oil was leaking from. Usually you can't just pop the hood and go, oh, there's the oil leak. I mean, the odd time you can, but usually it involves cleaning, sometimes adding UV dye to the system to find the oil leak. Run it for a while, find out where the oil's coming from and we determined there's two leaks. One from the valve covers and one from the oil pan gasket.
Mark: Alright, let's jump to some pictures.
Bernie: We're gonna talk about the valve cover today.
Mark: So there's our vehicle.
Bernie: There it is. Our guest.
Mark: And pretty good shape. 2017? Yeah. What kind of kilometrage did this have?
Bernie: Almost 160,000, still looks fantastic. I mean, it was a few other items worn out besides the repairs we're gonna talk about here. But other than that, really good shape.
Mark: So I'm assuming this arrow is showing where the culprit is?
Mark: Yeah. So it wasn't just a gasket. As you can see, there's a plastic valve cover. There's two of them. It's a V engine. And this is one of them, you see that where the arrow's pointing? It looks a little bright there.
Bernie: Yes. We actually have a light shining underneath that, and that's light shining through the plastic of the valve cover. There's a crack there. So it wasn't just the valve covered gasket. And it's very typical of a lot of vehicles with plastic valve covers, I'm thinking about BMWs, for instance, where you can get a gasket, but half the time the plastic is warped and gasket is just never successful. Now, in this case the valve covers actually cracked. It's a common problem. And so we have to replace both valve covers.
Mark: Now we're zooming in a little bit.
Bernie: Yeah, zooming in a little bit.
Mark: Again, we can see the light shining through right here.
Bernie: Yeah, you can see the light shining through there.
And then we can zoom in a little further and you can see the crack there.
Mark: So this is a common problem based on your research and information access that you have?
Bernie: Yeah. It's a common problem.
Mark: And how common is it for plastic valve covers to be used across the industry at this point?
Bernie: Nowadays, over 50% for sure, maybe even higher.
Mark: And have you ever seen a cracked valve cover on a metal valve cover?
Bernie: No, I have not. No, it doesn't happen. So, Hmm. If we look at that valve cover, I mean, there's a lot of complexity to the shape and molding of that cover. Sometimes I wanna give the company's a little bit of leeway in terms of it cracking, you know, or the design. But really, I mean, it shouldn't crack over all those years and should be a matter of just changing a gasket and putting it back together.
Mark: So when you put in a new valve cover, basically and a new gasket, did you do both sides?
Bernie: We did, yeah. Because both sides were leaking. I'm not sure if the other side was cracked. I think the other side was cracked as well. I just took pictures of one side.
Mark: And you did mention the oil pan. Did you just change the gasket there?
Bernie: No, we changed the whole oil pan on that one too because the plastic pan tends to warp. And this is a lower pan. This is not the full complete oil pan. It's sort of a lower section oil pan. But it was like warped and they don't seal well. So it's best to replace the whole unit again. So, you know, added costs. It's actually crazy.
You know, Ford uses these plastic oil pans, they've done it for a while, and the one that blows me away the most is the 6.7 litre diesel. They actually use a plastic oil pan with this little dinky oil drain plug. It's not even a threaded bolt. It's like a twist in plug. It's like very unheavy duty, let's put it that way, you know, to put into a truck.
Mark: A diesel truck.
Bernie: Especially a diesel truck that's meant to haul like 20 something thousand pounds of weight, or, you know, huge capacity. It just seems crazy. But anyhow, we're talking about the gas truck. So if you have oil leaks from this particular engine, you can probably expect that you're gonna get a new oil pan, new valve covers. These are things that wear out on these engines.
Mark: And expensive repair a lot of hours to do?
Bernie:It is time consuming. I know we breezed through the pictures pretty quickly, but the intake manifold sits over top of the valve cover. The air actually flows through the valve cover, which is again, kind of a bit of a crazy design. There's a lot of work involved in doing the valve covers on these. And of course now you have to replace the valve covers so you have the expense of a large part, not just a gasket.
Mark: So if you're looking for repairs on your F-150 in Vancouver, BC Canada, the guys to see are Pawlik automotive, they're experts. You can reach them to book your appointment online at pawlikautomotive.com. Or you can call them (604) 327-7112. You have to call and book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks, Mark. Thanks for watching.
