Cam Phasers Covered Under FBA PowertrainCARE Warranty?

[WideRide]

Hey everyone....

I have a 2018 Raptor, 66k miles and as far as I can tell, recently developed the cam phaser rattle at start up. According to my records and the FordPass app, my truck has an extended service plan titled "84/100000 FBA POWERTRAINCARE WTY". I verified this with the service agent on the phone.

When I asked him if the cam phaser repair would be covered under this warranty, he said that he couldn't say for sure. He wouldn't elaborate further and said that they would have to see the truck first. Should I find another service department?

My truck is almost bone stock, save for some Method wheels and a tonneau cover. Never tuned, etc.

I know these cam phasers have been talked about ad nauseum, but is there a glaring reason why this service wouldn't be covered under my warranty? According to the ESP covered components, it lists " All Internally Lubricated Parts (Engine)".

I couldn't find this specific situation via the search function.

Thanks for any insights you may have.

 

[jmar311]

WideRide - I'm in the exact same situation as you. I get the Phaser rattle on cold start up. So now I need to know what warranty, if any, can help with getting this fixed. Please let me know what you find.

 

[smurfslayer]

Unless you have powertrain related aftermarket modifications, it--should-- cover you.
that 84/100k is 84 months from entering service - that is, it runs CONCURRENT WITH your former factory bumper to bumper and powertrain warranty.

in FordPass, if you select it, the warranty will have an expiration date mm/dd/yyyy OR nnnnnn miles whichever comes first.
service date should show RIGHT under “Plan Information:"

It includes your deductible as well. So... if you have a cam phaser park failure, take it to the stealership to validate the concern and have them validate the warranty and perform the repair.

 

[STHenry]

Good Luck on your warranty covering the repair. My 2018 just started with the cam phaser rattle on startup this past week. My warranty is supposed to be good through February of 24 so am planning to try and make an appointment next week for it. The hope is they can get it in and diagnosed soon. I did have the TSB completed that was supposed to help prevent this from happening. I am not going to worry unless they tell me I am not covered.

 

[Zeusmotorworks]

Good Luck on your warranty covering the repair. My 2018 just started with the cam phaser rattle on startup this past week. My warranty is supposed to be good through February of 24 so am planning to try and make an appointment next week for it. The hope is they can get it in and diagnosed soon. I did have the TSB completed that was supposed to help prevent this from happening. I am not going to worry unless they tell me I am not covered.

Got to admit... when I got the TSB on my 2020 I almost felt like FORD had their fingers crossed more than I. Now, after seeing more folks having problems AFTER the TSB, I feel unfortunately vindicated in my assumptions.

$tealerships AND FORD

 

[smurfslayer]

The TSB staves off further harm.
Repairs can’t go backwards in time to retroactively fix things that were messed up earlier and a preventative won’t stop a part from failing in the first place.

 

[Zeusmotorworks]

...and a preventative won’t stop a part from failing in the first place.

Isn't that the essence of the TSB. A preventative to phaser failure? I've even seen it posted it "wouldn't" happen if the preventative fix is performed. We know better, but pretty sure the point is to attempt to prevent failure.

 

[smurfslayer]

kind of. The TSB - I’m sure there are more eloquent descriptions here on FRF- alters something in the oil pressure to the cam phasers at start up.. I think - anyway, that will prevent any further damage to the existing lock pins, but if they’re already worn when the fix is put on, it’s not going to prevent a breakage. It might delay a breakage or failure but if there’s already damage, that’s not going away.

This is speculation, but, it sounds like one or two suppliers delivered Ford parts with defective lock pins, which failed early and repeatedly using the old programming. I think that Ford probably focused on the hard parts at first, but started pursuing a workaround which was actually more helpful than the first 1 or 2 part revisions. Maybe that revised programming alleviated a bunch more strain on the lock pin, and so long as there wasn’t too much damage to those older lock pins, they didn’t fail.

and, it’s very likely that not every phaser lock pin in the first batches of parts were even defective. The overwhelming majority were likely fine, but “failed at an unacceptable rate”.
Again, just my speculation here; I’m just a Raptor end user here...

The failure rate on the trucks with the TSB should be at a much lower rate than before - say ’17-’18 and even then I suspect it wasn’t a high percentage of trucks. I high volume, because the F150 is kind of prolific, but the rate of this failure is likely very low overall.

 

[jmar311]

Thank you everyone for all of the inforamtion! So everytime I've had my truck in for every service inclduing every oil change (done at the stealership every time for this reason) I've had them put on the ticket to check for TSBs. I know they are "supposed to" do this but i always want to make sure the reminder is in the service ticket.

So technically I would assume the TSB for the softwar eupdate has been performed on my truck. stupid question...how do I check to verify it?

 

[FordTechOne]

Isn't that the essence of the TSB. A preventative to phaser failure? I've even seen it posted it "wouldn't" happen if the preventative fix is performed. We know better, but pretty sure the point is to attempt to prevent failure.

It was a recall. And the failure is unlikely to happen if the recall was performed at low mileage, before wear developed. You are not vindicated in your assumptions, because the calibration was the root cause of the wear issue, not the parts themselves. Hence why builds after November 2019 came with the parameters released in the recall.

The design was revised 2 times before the new calibration was developed, including changes to materials, clearances, laser etching of wear surfaces, etc. The new designs had to go through the entire engineering cycle and durability validation before being put into production. This is why the original build date cutoff was 07/2018 as listed in the first TSB; that was when the CC level part went into production. Yet there were still repeat failures even with the redesigned parts, because they were being subjected to a duty cycle that varied from the one that was being used for development and testing.