Let me follow up here on my issue, maybe it will save someone else $3000+ in the future. This will be long & fairly detailed, but read through it so you don't go through the same grief I did.
I took my truck into a Ford Dealer two weeks ago for a tuneup and I finally got it back yesterday (so they had it 13 days). During the process, the #4 plug busted and they had to use the Lisle extractor to get it out. When they finally got it out, the threads in the cylinder head came out with it and after having the truck for 8 hours, they had four plugs out. When I didn't get any calls from the dealer about the status of my truck, and it had been 8 hours since I dropped it off, they informed me about what happened. Their response was "We have never seen this happen on a 3V 4.6 before, but it happens a lot on the 5.4's. You need a new cylinder head to fix the problem, we can't rethread it." That's when I pushed about the helicoils and timesert solutions that I had seen online before going to the dealer. Their response at that point was, let me see if I can locate that tool & I'll get back to you Monday. Monday, they said they found a tool & it was on order & would be there Wednesday. Friday came (now the dealer had the truck for 1 full week) around & I still hadn't heard anything, so I called them & they claimed the tool wouldn't be available to be sold until February due to some sort of patent issue and now the only solution was to change the head. "I found you a nice used head off a wrecked Explorer that should work fine, and with the 27 hours that it will take to replace the head will put you around $4000 to repair it. We can give you a discount of $500 so your cost will be about $3500 out the door. Well, I didn't take that too well. I told him to give me Ford's Customer Service # so I could call & complain which I did. After telling them about all the stories I've read on the Internet on plugs shooting out of the blocks on the 5.4's, to the 4.6 2V, 4V and now 3V problem that they should list "change cylinder heads" as part of their 100,000 recommended service schedule.
I had the 100,000 mile Ford Extended Warranty on the truck and the dealer agreed those plugs were so fouled that they went long before 100K, but Ford Customer Service didn't care. They just said they were sorry and couldn't do anything for me. When I went to a Supervisor, she started to complain to me about her kid that was in a car accident that wasn't his fault, his truck skidded out of control and blah blah blah... Hey, I'm calling the Customer Service & I'm getting this? I just let her ramble off & hung up. This call & all the bad news happened one week to the day after I brought the truck in. I told the dealer I had to discuss it with the "wife" and I would get back to him. I went over to a different dealer that weekend & spoke with a senior mechanic there about my issue. He said he knew about the kits for the 2V & 4V but not the 3V. He felt if it was designed for the 3V it should work fine. He said it would probably take about an hour to do and if I ordered the kit, he'd do it. Well, I ordered the kit this week on Monday, and I went to the dealer that still had the truck to tell them I found a kit they couldn't get & didn't know existed and I would have that kit tomorrow. I told them I found another dealer that could do it for me too and that's when their story started to change. They asked what they would charge, I told them one hour of labor, $100 to fix that thread instead of $3500 for a new head. They said if I brought them in the kit, they'd take care of it for me, if it would fit. They also asked for the web pages that I used to find the kit so they could check it out for themselves before I brought them the kit.
So, I brought them the kit on Wednesday & the mechanic checked it out and was a little hesitant at first. He said something along the lines that that engine has 3 different heads & my head may not work with that kit, but the kit manufacturer didn't say anything about that being a potential issue. That's when I mentioned to that mechanic that I would have the car towed out of there to someone else that was confident they could do the job. He then took at the kit I brought, put the pieces together, and put the tool in the cylinder head. He agreed now that it seemed like it would do the job & rethread the cylinder. He asked if I wanted to proceed, and, with some hesitation I said go ahead. I didn't really want to have the truck towed 30+ miles to another dealer while the coils were out, the cylinder was exposed and it was raining & nasty outside, so I let them do the work. So, once they had that tool, it allowed them to finish the plug change. They needed the tool for the #4 and #8 cylinders, but it worked as advertised even for a dealer that hadn't used it before.
All in all, the dealer was nice to provide me a rental for the whole time (granted it was a foreign, good gas mileage POS and not my truck, but the rental was on their dime). For the parts, and all of this labor, I got out of there spending a little over $600, not to mention the kit set me back an additional $450, but I'll sell that on e-bay or to someone else. For the short time being, I'll hang onto it for a bit in case I need it.
I learned while doing my research to avoid getting royally screwed, that there are a lot of businesses forming out there where all these guys do is drive & fly around the country fixing the 4.6 and 5.4 problems. That's ultimately what kind of told me that this is a major problem that FORD is avoiding and they are risking losing their loyalty from their customers. I'm probably not going to be surprised to see a class action coming down the road. They probably haven't been to court of had too much press on this due to the fact that it isn't likely to cause anyone to die like the tire fiasco on the Explorer 10 years ago, or the more recent wheel falling off issue.
Well, I'm sorry this was so long, but you know how much information you can acquire after two weeks of having your truck in the shop. I hope someone else finds this useful in the future. Ford, since this is such a problem, maybe, at the very least, send out a letter to the 4.6 and 5.4 affected engine owners out there that you are "recommending" that these plugs are changed at 50,000 miles instead of 100K like you currently recommend?
I just had few shots of scotch while doing that. A friend of mine - a mechanic - that has just done same truck at his shop came with this solution. Look up on Google" DORMAN HELP 42025". It's a kit for older 2 valve modular engines. What we did with mine was the following: we extracted the electrode first using the Leslie tool - not your problem. Then we drilled the hole using some odd size drill bit xx/64 (grey hairs coming here)sitting on top of the engine with an angle drill and praying not to go too deep or thru some water jacket. Then we just screwed in the 42025 insert and the plug. I know the plug sits higher now, but I did that 27 k miles ago, and it works. Dealer will not do it for you, if they find the helicoil - good, but they may want to take the head off still which is big $$$ on these cars (headers, timing chain, guides). After drilling, I just cranked the engine and blew out the shavings.
