MY19 just under 18k miles, zero issues... wondering if I have a phaser "time bomb" that *will* go off some day?

[braptorin]

I'm so confused by the cam phaser issue and I'm a very low milage driver 98% street queen. I remember getting my cam phaser recall notice years ago and the dealer told me it was just to fix them *if they had failed* but that they would not proactively do it. Fine by me, whatever. My question now: are the phasers basically guaranteed to fail at some point? Maybe there's a specific mfg month where we know the problem was corrected at manufacture time? I don't remember my date offhand but I bought my truck in Feb 2020 so it might be a late 2019 build (I'm just guessing).

 

[julien194b]

Date production is written on the door sticker .
I think , it as been said so many time that we should all remember it, if truck is built from december 2019 , it's ok , you should have already new design part and program update !
Edit: And the day they will fail, you will know it, don't worry !

 

[braptorin]

Date production is written on the door sticker .
I think , it as been said so many time that we should all remember it, if truck is built from december 2019 , it's ok , you should have already new design part and program update !
Edit: And the day they will fail, you will know it, don't worry !

I checked my sticker: my truck was produced in September of 2019... so my question stands: what is the probability they are going to fail?

 

[dsiggi]

I checked my sticker: my truck was produced in September of 2019... so my question stands: what is the probability they are going to fail?

Depending on who you talk to this is debatable. I've been told the numbers are fairly low, but thats improbable because they don't issue Customer Satisfaction Bulletins for things that don't often happen. You may be better off having one of the latest phaser designs due to your production date.

My personal experience across about 7 trucks, 5 raptors including mine and 2 Lariats, all have needed phasers at least once some multiple times. Mine was about 55k miles. Others were sooner or about the same. YMMV.

 

[V6Raptor]

I checked my sticker: my truck was produced in September of 2019... so my question stands: what is the probability they are going to fail?

Probability: who knows. My ‘19 failed around 9k miles. I can’t remember exactly but I believe it was a March build.

 

[dsiggi]

Probability: who knows. My ‘19 failed around 9k miles. I can’t remember exactly but I believe it was a March build.

100 percent

 

[John813]

I have a 17 with the original plastic pan and no OASIS of the phaser being replaced. Original owner took the truck every 3-5k miles for any service to the same dealer I bought it from/I know the advisors.

It may fail tonight, or it may last another 7 years.

 

[FordTechOne]

I checked my sticker: my truck was produced in September of 2019... so my question stands: what is the probability they are going to fail?

You have the part number that is 1 revision behind the current part. They are fine as long as you had the updated programming completed, preferably at low mileage. Since you didn’t, you likely have accelerated wear on the phaser locking mechanism.

You can still have the update done as customer pay, but the wear may already be there. Either way it’s better to have the update regardless, you’ll want it installed if the VCT units do ever need to be replaced.

 

[The Car Stereo Company]

just like fuse 27 on the gen 1. crapshoot.

 

[smurfslayer]

I've been told the numbers are fairly low, but thats improbable because they don't issue Customer Satisfaction Bulletins for things that don't often happen. You may be better off having one of the latest phaser designs due to your production date.

You would be surprised to find out just how low of a failure rate over expected it takes to make it less costly to just bite the bullet and spring for replacement. It’s singe digit percentages in some cases, depending on parts & labor cost, reputational risk, customer animosity etc.

As an example, I’d probably go with the 2017 - ’18 plastic oil pan, still not leaking on my truck 7 years on. The part is not that expensive and of course they will exhaust current inventory before using a revised pan, so you get the same part with the same intricate replacement procedure that few stealerships seem to be able to follow. This is where I think Ford had the problem - repeat failures because of poor workmanship.

Phasers I think were a combination of issues, where they didn’t fully appreciate the duty cycle problem, but, who’s to say there weren’t some early revisions that may have actually been defective? we don’t really know that. We now understand that flashing that duty cycle prevents further excessive wear. Either way, the initial diagnostic failures led to errant troubleshooting, and probably several hundreds of phaser repairs that may not have been needed were the duty cycle identified sooner. Maybe. Unlike the oil pan, where the proper procedure to get a good seal was well known from the jump, the phaser issue may not have been properly identified by Ford engineering. How many repeat phaser repairs did we have on FRF from ’17 - ’19? More than a few.

However, the phaser repair is labor intensive, and cost intensive, so I believe fewer of the phasers were needed to reach the CSP threshold - several hundreds in parts cost, plus the labor.

The failure rate is unpredictable, largely influenced by maintenance practices, and use case.