Anyone Alive?

[Dustin Hockett]

New to the forum. Looking at buying another Explorer. I have had a 98 and a 16. Looking at buying a 05 sport Trac. Wondering if anyone have seen any common issues with them.

I'm Dustin btw.

 

[Rick]

The #1 issue for that year Explorer would be the timing chains on the overhead cam engines. The OHV engines are more reliable.

 

[CDW6212R]

Welcome Dustin. The SOHC V6's have valvetrain issues, which you can read tons about here. Those are not high mileage reliable, unless you do big valvetrain maintenance on them about every 75k miles. So I suggest avoiding the 4.0 V6 SOHC, and find the V8 version of the Sport Trac. Those 4.6's are much more reliable than the 4.0 SOHC.

 

[Dustin Hockett]

That bad? **** I had an 06 F150 and it was bad on cam phaser issues.

I've read that it's usually the hydraulic tensioners or cassettes that have issues. Tensioners seem cheap and easy. Cassettes are time consuming.

Btw I am a parts guy at Mopar however I teched for a few years before getting out of it due to moving and making same money as a parts guy lol. Tools and knowledge is no big deal if it's just maintenance.

 

[CDW6212R]

The SOHC 4.0 is a PITA, because the cassettes and internal tensioners are huge jobs, relative to a timing belt job. Not to mention the $150 tool kit required to time the engine.

The rear cannot be done without pulling the engine or trans, so people ignore those and hope for the best. The front tensioners are kind of fragile components, sometimes they'll last 150k, sometimes they'll come apart at 40k etc. The external tensioners are low cost and not hard to do really. But people want to do just those and hope that's enough.

I suggest trying to like the 2nd gen Sport Trac, if you can, the V8 will be more satisfying than the V6.

 

[Dustin Hockett]

Gotcha. I just found one for $3500. With 166k. Seems to be in good shape but if the 4.0l is that big of a pos. Maybe I should pass on it.

 

[CDW6212R]

If you are able or willing to deal with the valvetrain issues, it's a powerful V6 that everyone loves for performance etc. It just isn't worthy of calling it a reliable long term engine, and possibly being neglected. You can search on here and find lots of threads about members doing the work themselves, and then decide if you want to do that. I did mine(99 Limited) when I bought it(totaled), so I never experienced the rattles or damage. I've got my transmission out now to rebuild, so with 152k it's time to do the rear parts, and the front again. It's manageable, if you know what you are getting into and handle it. Regards,