Ford Trucks And SUVs With These Engines Could Be At Risk Of Catastrophic Engine Failure

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced its plans to extend its investigation into 708,000 Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles over reported engine failures. The data collected via customer complaints and research by the agency indicates that these cars can lose power unexpectedly and without warning during normal driving conditions due to a catastrophic engine failure. The vehicles reportedly at risk are 2021 and 2022 models of the Ford Bronco, F-150, Edge, Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, and Nautilus SUVs.

Although recently expanded, NHTSA's probe into alleged catastrophic engine failures on Ford vehicles has been ongoing. A preliminary investigation was launched in 2022 after a defect petition review was issued for 25,538 2021 Ford Bronco SUVs that accordingly had valvetrain issues. Since then, the agency has looked into other Ford vehicles with the same engine type after 328 customer complaints and 487 warranty claims were issued due to the malfunction. The NHTSA is now launching an engineering analysis on the vehicles to determine if a recall is warranted.

The NHTSA suspects a faulty valve in 2.7 L and 3.0 L EcoBoost engines is the source of the malfunction. If correct, this would mean that non-EcoBoost-powered vehicles are not affected. After Ford began cooperating with the agency and sent its data over, the company revealed that all of its vehicles in the Nano engine family released in 2021 and 2022 are at risk. Ford believes the material the valves are made out of is to blame. According to the company, the engine valves in the affected vehicles were built with Silchrome Lite, which can become "excessively hard and brittle if an over-temperature condition occurs during machining of the component." The company noted that 2023 models would not be affected by this issue as Ford made the switch to a superior alloy in October 2021

It is unclear how long the investigation will last and if a recall on the vehicles will be issued. But Ford does not seem too worried. The company claimed that if you drive one of the affected vehicles and this malfunction hasn't occurred, it likely won't happen anytime at all. Ford told NHTSA that "defective intake valves commonly fail early in a vehicle's life and [...] suggested that the majority of failures have already occurred." The government agency did not comment on whether this was true or not.