D
dlm007
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I recently went thru a long and expensive trouble-shooting journey. I have a 2003 T-Bird with about 50,000 miles and my wife loves the car. About 6 months ago the car stated to smoke when she would start it in the mornings Not every morning and we were not using oil so I thought NO big deal.
We were on vacation and the car started to idle rough and had lack of power. We took it into the Ford Dealer and they said there is a service bulletin and it was an extended bulletin from Ford and the valve cover gaskets need to be replaced alomng with the coil packs. This was all done for $0 by Ford.
The car still had issues with smoke at start up and also started to smoke after it would idle for a while and then if I would take off and accelerate quickly. The smoke was really bad and I started to use oil (1 quart every 250-500 miles). The car would not smoke all the time but only on fast accelerations. I know what everyone is going to say, "The valve seals are bad or the oil drain holes are plugged in the head."
I took it to 3 Ford dealers and they all told me the engine was fine. Compresion tests were good, oil comsumption test were good, PVC system was good. This is just the way the engine runs. This is insane.
I took the car to my local mechanic and what he found was the drivers side valve cover has a filter for the "PVC" system and a line going to it. (I know there is no PVC valve but Ford elected to do the system with thios tyoe of setup and I do not know what they call it.) There is a enclosure under the drivers side valve cover with what looks like steel wool stuffed in the enclosure for a filter. He tore off the enclosure and said the steel wool was loaded with crud and the line need to be cleaned out as well. He soaked the steel wool filter and put everything back together. He could have ordered another valve cover for about $300 bucks but he said the new valve cover did not have any change in the design so cleaning it was the fix. My air fiter was also loaded with oil and dust which was replaced.
If you have this problem make sure you have the mechanic check the filter in the valve cover before they start to rip apart your engine and youy spend a lot of $$$.
We were on vacation and the car started to idle rough and had lack of power. We took it into the Ford Dealer and they said there is a service bulletin and it was an extended bulletin from Ford and the valve cover gaskets need to be replaced alomng with the coil packs. This was all done for $0 by Ford.
The car still had issues with smoke at start up and also started to smoke after it would idle for a while and then if I would take off and accelerate quickly. The smoke was really bad and I started to use oil (1 quart every 250-500 miles). The car would not smoke all the time but only on fast accelerations. I know what everyone is going to say, "The valve seals are bad or the oil drain holes are plugged in the head."
I took it to 3 Ford dealers and they all told me the engine was fine. Compresion tests were good, oil comsumption test were good, PVC system was good. This is just the way the engine runs. This is insane.
I took the car to my local mechanic and what he found was the drivers side valve cover has a filter for the "PVC" system and a line going to it. (I know there is no PVC valve but Ford elected to do the system with thios tyoe of setup and I do not know what they call it.) There is a enclosure under the drivers side valve cover with what looks like steel wool stuffed in the enclosure for a filter. He tore off the enclosure and said the steel wool was loaded with crud and the line need to be cleaned out as well. He soaked the steel wool filter and put everything back together. He could have ordered another valve cover for about $300 bucks but he said the new valve cover did not have any change in the design so cleaning it was the fix. My air fiter was also loaded with oil and dust which was replaced.
If you have this problem make sure you have the mechanic check the filter in the valve cover before they start to rip apart your engine and youy spend a lot of $$$.
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