Bad injector being replaced, should they all be done?

[Chickensandwich]

I think we can ask this question about a variety of parts and protective measures. Personally, I think automakers only care about building the cheapest vehicles (parts and engineering wise) possible that have high odds of making it to 100k miles. This is the point where most extended warranties expire and their responsibilities to the owner ends. They are putting plastic parts everywhere these days to include oil pans on 4WD vehicles. Even the Ford trucks to include the Raptors. The new Explorers even have plastic drain plugs!

It’s a balance between what people think they want and what they really need. Plastic oil pans and drain plugs in any car is just stupid, but put a device on a car that would negligible in cost, and it would help maintain a clean engine and help performance…heck, charge me an extra $50 for the car and put it on at the factory. If I knew that all ecoboost engines were known to have limited carbon deposits because the manufacturer takes care to limit these problems by proactively adding parts to Minimize these issues, I’d ONLY buy cars with ecoboost engines. I dunno. It’s what I would if I was in chsrge

 

[94Eddie]

It’s a balance between what people think they want and what they really need. Plastic oil pans and drain plugs in any car is just stupid, but put a device on a car that would negligible in cost, and it would help maintain a clean engine and help performance…heck, charge me an extra $50 for the car and put it on at the factory. If I knew that all ecoboost engines were known to have limited carbon deposits because the manufacturer takes care to limit these problems by proactively adding parts to Minimize these issues, I’d ONLY buy cars with ecoboost engines. I dunno. It’s what I would if I was in chsrge

The real puzzling thing about the carbon problem is the manufacturers are willing to spend more to double the number of injectors to solve it but won't spend $50 (their likely cost in bulk or less) to keep from doing this or greatly enhance the effectiveness of the secondary injectors. Heck, they could even add a catch can system that drains back into the crank case and would never need any maintenance by the user to operate. This is why I think planned obsolescence is intentional and meant to increase repair profits and/or future new vehicle sales. BMW, Mercedes and other luxury car models have been doing this since the early 2000s. Ever notice how cheap these cars are to buy with 80k plus miles? It is because they are being dumped due to the cost of repairing them far exceeds their value. Most other new cars (possible exceptions are Toyota, Lexus, Honda and Acura) are going to be in the same boat as they age. The more complicated vehicles become the more expensive they will be to repair. This will cause them to depreciate much more rapidly than vehicles in the past as they get near to, and beyond, 100k miles.

 

[peterk9]

Mine is the ecoboost. I’m thinking I don’t drive it enough, about 7000 a year, to need one. I’ll just run a bottle of Techron through it every few fill ups. I use motorcraft everything in it, have new plugs, and the engine was cleaned out by the dealership. I only keep cars 3-4 years, so I don’t think that it’s something I need

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Peter

 

[Chickensandwich]

The real puzzling thing about the carbon problem is the manufacturers are willing to spend more to double the number of injectors to solve it but won't spend $50 (their likely cost in bulk or less) to keep from doing this or greatly enhance the effectiveness of the secondary injectors. Heck, they could even add a catch can system that drains back into the crank case and would never need any maintenance by the user to operate. This is why I think planned obsolescence is intentional and meant to increase repair profits and/or future new vehicle sales. BMW, Mercedes and other luxury car models have been doing this since the early 2000s. Ever notice how cheap these cars are to buy with 80k plus miles? It is because they are being dumped due to the cost of repairing them far exceeds their value. Most other new cars (possible exceptions are Toyota, Lexus, Honda and Acura) are going to be in the same boat as they age. The more complicated vehicles become the more expensive they will be to repair. This will cause them to depreciate much more rapidly than vehicles in the past as they get near to, and beyond, 100k miles.

This is why I take my ecoboost to a dealership. I get a lot of crap for it, but no one knows the ecoboost better than Ford techs. There have been a few misteps in my last visit, but they had to keep the car for 9 days to really dig in to it and eventually resolve the issue. Completely worth it since it drives like a new car now. Very complicated engines and tech.

 

[CDW6212R]

I do wonder about the effectiveness of the new port injectors, they need to apply enough fuel to keep the valves clean. The minor items like IAC and TB can be checked and cleaned if they really needed it. Blow by shouldn't be an issue in a three year old engine, police or not. I think more evaluating needs to be done. If there is really a PVC oiling problem, I'd install a vacuum pump to solve the crankcase pressure.

I'm headed down a similar path with a planned supercharged SBF, so I'm not tossing out BS ideas for no purpose. I will install a vacuum pump, for power gain, but still, the catch can is a last resort to me. Just like injecting meth/H2O for cooling, I'll rely on a bigass intercooler for that problem.

Try to figure out what the biggest issues are, and work on those first. Do the new GDI engines still build up carbon on the backside of the intake valves? That's a huge problem for all prior GDI engines, has that been solved or not?

 

[CDW6212R]

A catch can will not fix the intake coking issue, most of that material is coming from the combustion chamber, when the intake is opened.

 

[94Eddie]

I do wonder about the effectiveness of the new port injectors, they need to apply enough fuel to keep the valves clean. The minor items like IAC and TB can be checked and cleaned if they really needed it. Blow by shouldn't be an issue in a three year old engine, police or not. I think more evaluating needs to be done. If there is really a PVC oiling problem, I'd install a vacuum pump to solve the crankcase pressure.

I'm headed down a similar path with a planned supercharged SBF, so I'm not tossing out BS ideas for no purpose. I will install a vacuum pump, for power gain, but still, the catch can is a last resort to me. Just like injecting meth/H2O for cooling, I'll rely on a bigass intercooler for that problem.

Try to figure out what the biggest issues are, and work on those first. Do the new GDI engines still build up carbon on the backside of the intake valves? That's a huge problem for all prior GDI engines, has that been solved or not?

The vacuum pump would only work on newer engines if the gasses extracted bypassed the PVC system. The problem is bypass gasses have to be burned to meet emissions requirements. One might skate around this where emissions tests aren't required. My concern with the OP's situation is the carbon is coming from somewhere and there shouldn't be enough from the gasoline to clog the primary injectors in a vehicle this new. The Ecoboost engines are known to have carbon issues. Especially the four cylinder versions. I would bet some good money that these issues are due to blowby because we don't see carbon problems nearly as bad on the N/A engines.

In the old days vehicles used exhaust scavenging to create a vacuum in the crankcase. This is cheaper and requires no maintenance to empty a catch can. It is not recommended for catalytic convertor systems and would not meet emissions standards. I was going to do this on my '89 LX but it was no longer necessary since I removed the supercharger several years ago. I planned to go with a 351W 392ci stroker engine. This got side tracked and it is now a N/A 302 stock short block with a bunch of goodies on top.

I think the secondary injectors work well on N/A engines. I also think they are getting overwhelmed when forced induction is added due to the increased blowby. They don't want to put too much of the fuel though these injectors because it impacts emissions and gas mileage. It defeats the purpose of the GDI injectors. I think a good, well designed catch can system could take the place of the secondary injectors and/or greatly reduce the carbon load they have mitigate.

 

[CDW6212R]

The boost is definitely a factor to how much burned gasses get into the intake manifold. We don't know yet if the boosted engines with the new extra injectors are failing to keep the intake valves clean. That's the reason I asked the OP if they told him it was valve carbon buildup or not, there is no mention of removing the heads.

I bet that Ford hasn't worked out the intake buildup yet on the new GDI engines with extra injectors. That will be an additional liability issue, and OEM's are big to suppress anything related to admitting there is a problem. They know what the newer engines are doing for the most part now, I'll bet their plan is to increase the intake injector's fuel amounts. That will impact fuel economy, so they don't want to do that. But that is also likely why the turbo engines still have a problem, OEM's always tend to the side of factors that help their sales, advertising etc, and not the reliability or long term function of the vehicles. We would work the problem in the other direction, we would solve it fast, and then work further to improve the things affected by the solution.

 

[94Eddie]

The interesting thing to me is the vehicle manufacturers tout how eco friendly their designs are but then build in planned obsolescence. Their are making vehicles disposable which is the least eco friendly thing they could do. If they wanted to do something eco friendly then make a vehicle that gets a little worse gas mileage but runs for 500k miles and is easy to repair. It takes a lot of mining, energy and pollution to make a vehicle. Making fewer vehicles is the answer, not more, IMO.

 

[CDW6212R]

True, the debate of the old Hummer and the Prius comes to mind. I prefer a vehicle I can own for decades with minimal maintenance, say 10-20% of original cost. The newest cars are going to cost much more than that I'll bet. That's what my attention on the newer Fords has been about, finding those which hopefully will be more reliable, with less catastrophic possible issues. The internal water pump was the dumbest idea I ever heard of in my life, but other things are pretty bad also.

I'll leave this with a picture of Ford stupidity, a 1996 exhaust manifold design;