Hydro lock

[dback]

My apologies for this being my first post. I am a small business owner (Agriculture) and own 7 Ford trucks, all powerstroke, 5 are 550 4x4 cab chassis, 1 450 4x4 Dually King Ranch and 1 4x4 350 King Ranch. I have purchased probably 20 trucks since about 1998....all Fords without much problem. Last year I bought two of the trucks, a 550 and the 350, both with the new Scorpion engine. We have blown both engines...the first lost an oil pump and Ford gave me a new engine. The second (3 weeks ago), they said 'Hydro Locked' and they are refusing to pay for it. I am at wits end and do not know what to do at this point. The truck was NOT in water.....there was a light sprinkle that day for maybe 15-20 miles then dry another 25 miles to the farm where the ground was wet but no standing water. I put the truck in 4x4 because the mud was slippery, after 50 yards or so I decided I didn't want to screw up the road and started to back out for maybe 30 yards when the truck quit, almost like running out of fuel, no loud bang or any other noise....just died. When they pulled the engine down, the #2 hole had no piston....gone....you could see the crank, rod and wrist pin but no piston....not even powder. There was about a quarter sized hole in the cylinder into the water jacket. They said the air filter was wet and water in the cylinder which proved I had been in deep water. I have spoken with Ford customer service and everyone else I can think of to no avail. This truck was NOT in water. Any ideas as to what happened or how to proceed before I file an insurance claim?

Thanks for your time,
Larry

[Hunter69]

Sorry u are in this mess, I would do a insurance claim,or talk to a lawyer on getting advise on what to do.

[Hunter69]

I am willing to bet that ford has some law suits on this engine failure, so u are not alone on this, just my two cents

[dback]

Thanks Hunter.......I have a meeting Tue with the Dealership owner, doubt it will be very fruitful. Will be turning it over to insurance after that......let them go after Ford themselves. Not real happy at this moment.

[Hunter69]

Dback.. Good luck in your meeting, if the owner is a wise businessman he will carry a in house warranty, after all u are a good customer, look at your fleet, u have all fords, that says a lot ,i am a project manager/ estimator for our company and I have warranted equipment beyond the original warranty just to keep the customer been our customer and not have him/ her go to the competitor, cause when they go they don't come back, and they have friends,family that goes with them!!!!

[Hunter69]

Dback... How did your meeting with the dealer owner went?

[Hunter69]

Sorry I just notice is on Tuesday

[dback]

OK.....probably no one interested but I did have the meeting today. The dealership owner, service manager and lead mechanic were all present. I was able to get Ford to at least take a second look at it, however, the service manager says that only means that a Ford supervisor will decide whether or not to send a second engineer/inspector out. Service manager says it is unlikely that will happen and even if it does, it's even more unlikely the second inspector would over ride the decision of the first. That means I'm probably looking at an insurance claim and then the insurance co. going after Ford.

Now....here's what the mechanic thinks happened. We had 5 or 6 days of rain and I drive a lot of miles. Forgive me but I don't know any of these technical terms, but "some do hicky" was installed in about 2008 that separated moisture from the intake air. Problem was that it was so efficient a 'service bulletin' issued in the latter part of '08 (I think that's what he told me) warned it 'could' cause this exact problem. So the scenario is....over the course of several days moisture would gather in several pockets in the intake tubes, air filter and filter box. They are designed to allow drain off but can plug for various reasons (insects, debris, etc). The moisture/water would (under normal circumstances) drain, evaporate, cook off or be pulled through the engine and never accumulate enough to effect engine performance. I drive like an old fart (which I am) so when I stopped to put the truck into 4 wheel low and back out, there was water present....4 wheel low required an even higher RPM then normal so the wide open turbo sucked water sufficient enough to cause the hydro lock.

Any comments or thoughts would be appreciate other then I'm an ignorant bastard......that goes without saying.
Thanks

Edit: Also.....I'm leaving tomorrow about noon for an archery elk hunt so if there are any questions, I'll respond when I return.

[Powerage]

So if this do hicky was installed by ford then and it is what caused the problem then it should be on Ford to fix it. Especially if there is a TSB about it.

One question though. You said this was a scorpion engine. They didn't even come out until late 2010. So how would this do hicky have been installed in 2008?

[shmoozer]

I think he's talking about the fact that this do hicky, was installed in '08 on the 6.4's and has continued on to the 6.7's.


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