GEN 2 Check engine P0306, pitting on cylinder leads to shop recommending new engine

[unashamed7]

Mostly posting this to vent, but also for any advice.

Ok here’s my story:

Relatively new to me 2017 Gen2 Raptor I bought last May (8 months ago) has let me down. I took a gamble and bought a higher mileage truck (169k). The previous owner was honest with what was done, no mods besides fitting 37s onto the truck. He claimed he didn’t off-road it and the high mileage was mainly his wife using it to take the kids to school far away, and his daughter drove it a lot in high school. 7 yrs, 169k is about 24k a year. He did say he got a tune for it earlier on but put it back to stock for his wife and kids (no way to verify). The truck was really clean and well kept overall so I was hoping for the best.
He just had some work down to replace the Cam phasers at 100k, transmission work and new spark plugs at 165k. Purchased for 29k (plus DMV tax).

After I bought the truck I babied it for a while, getting used to it. Then I started to push it a little bit, but never extensively (accelerations into the freeway, etc). Took a camping once which really was just some slow back roads in the mountains.
I took it to a little off-road dirt/sand lot about two weeks ago and had a bit of fun. Put it in baja mode, did some donuts, did a couple laps around for a short time, maybe 5-10 min. You know, what the truck was made for.
I drove down the street and parked it for 20 minutes and everything seemed fine. I go to get back in to drive home and heard some strange clunking noises I thought was just the transfer case not fully disengaging. I pulled over and listen to the engine which sounded OK (but I’m no mechanic) and put it in four wheel and back to two wheel. I got back on the highway and the sound went away so I assumed everything was fine.

It’s not my primary vehicle and so I didn’t drive it for about one week but when I went to start it up, the check engine light was on and misfiring codes were being thrown (P0316, P0306).
I tried swapping some coils, no luck. I decided it was best to bring it into a professional shop to take a look this week.

They’ve had the truck for a two days and when I called them last night, they said that they didn’t have a full report yet but the comp compression test failed for cylinder six at 20 psi, and cylinder six looks like it has pitting on it.
Because of the higher mileage of the engine, they recommend just fully replacing the engine with a replacement crate motor from Ford.

The truck now has 172k and I got an oil change and some other fluid replacements done about 1k miles ago and overall the shop gave it a clean bill of health.

I was really hoping it would be a coil or a plug, but it was literally worst case scenario.
Don’t have the quote yet, but it’s not going to be cheap, what would you guys do? Is the truck even worth keeping after replacing the motor? Feeling pretty terrible right now.

I will update back here with the quote when I receive it.

 

[smurfslayer]

Damn, that’s drawing the short straw. It’s tough to say what caused this with the description and low compression on a leak down test isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Really rare.
That seems out of character for a truck primarily driven to take kids to school... But anyway.

If you’re going in for a motor, there are some things to look at as well. There was a post with a video from Ford Tech Mukaloco

I think he also recommends new heater hoses and a few other things. Now, with a motor swap, you should get ... SHOULD get latest/greatest timing chain, phasers but new heater hoses, etc. may be extra.

So you have a near 200k mile truck and it’s unlikely you’re going to get a lot of money for it, hopefully it’s paid for. If so, how much do you have to spend? and what do you plan to use it for?

 

[Muchmore]

From a clunking noise you thought was a transmission/transfer case problem to a new motor? Wow, seems like there is something missing here. That is a STRETCH.

 

[raptorsub]

Damn, that’s drawing the short straw. It’s tough to say what caused this with the description and low compression on a leak down test isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Really rare.
That seems out of character for a truck primarily driven to take kids to school... But anyway.

If you’re going in for a motor, there are some things to look at as well. There was a post with a video from Ford Tech Mukaloco

I think he also recommends new heater hoses and a few other things. Now, with a motor swap, you should get ... SHOULD get latest/greatest timing chain, phasers but new heater hoses, etc. may be extra.

So you have a near 200k mile truck and it’s unlikely you’re going to get a lot of money for it, hopefully it’s paid for. If so, how much do you have to spend? and what do you plan to use it for?

This guy performed all this work on my truck except the oil pan. My 18 had the aluminum pan already. He found a few of those hoses where the metal crimp was split. I shipped it to him from Atlanta. I felt better with him doing the work than the stealerships.

 

[dinocrisis]

Misfire and low compression/pitting on a cylinder sounds like you blew a spark plug (Although if they really did a comp test the plugs should have been examined). Had that happen to me on my sports car a few years ago, the ceramic blew up and took out a valve/pitted the piston. Turbo charged vehicles are hard on spark plugs, either way, get a second opinion.

 

[unashamed7]

Damn, that’s drawing the short straw. It’s tough to say what caused this with the description and low compression on a leak down test isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Really rare.
That seems out of character for a truck primarily driven to take kids to school... But anyway.

If you’re going in for a motor, there are some things to look at as well. There was a post with a video from Ford Tech Mukaloco

I think he also recommends new heater hoses and a few other things. Now, with a motor swap, you should get ... SHOULD get latest/greatest timing chain, phasers but new heater hoses, etc. may be extra.

So you have a near 200k mile truck and it’s unlikely you’re going to get a lot of money for it, hopefully it’s paid for. If so, how much do you have to spend? and what do you plan to use it for?

Yeah honestly he must’ve pushed it really hard with that too and more than I realized potentially. Hard to say.

Thanks for the tips on those upgrades. I’ll keep those in mind.

That would be awesome to get the latest and the greatest on a new motor, I was hoping for that but I’ll confirm.

Still waiting on the quote from them they are putting it together today, I’ll post here when it’s done. Mainly, use it for a weekend driver, truck things like hauling, camping, off roading, a frickin sick vehicle that can do anything. Which was why I bought it haha.
I’m leaning toward keeping it. I do love this truck.

 

[unashamed7]

From a clunking noise you thought was a transmission/transfer case problem to a new motor? Wow, seems like there is something missing here. That is a STRETCH.

I forgot to mention that when I started it up, it was shaking pretty bad, definitely a cylinder misfire. When I drove it around, it had some white smoke on acceleration, but cruised fine at higher speeds. <2k rpms shook pretty bad so I knew something was very wrong.
Definitely will be getting a second opinion.