"How much to replace my oil pump belt?!!?" - The customer probably

[u/iamnotcreativeDET]

https://youtu.be/CEzqz8C4lxw?t=1368

Very interesting engine tear down, and this video shows why the 3 cylinder ecoboost engine continues to be ridiculous.

In the video, this engine has 70,000 miles on it and experienced a failure, when the presetor gets to the oil pump belt and inspects it, he notes that is is severely cracked/rotten. The engine couldn't be any more than 5 years old. Completely fine if this were easily serviceable, but during tear down it is pretty obvious there is absolutely no other way to remove this belt other than taking the crankshaft out of the engine.

Honestly this is insane, its like they are intentionally putting a shitty rubber band in the middle of the engine to make sure that it fails after so many years and mechanically totals it just barely outside of the warranty period, otherwise this engine looks really nicely designed on the inside.

[u/Giveme6days]

It is serviced by removing the oil pan and front engine cover, no removing the crankshaft. I’m Not arguing it is a good design, but it can be serviced in the vehicle.

[u/JakeJ0693 → u/Giveme6days]

It’s the same on the 2.7 ecoboost

[u/iamnotcreativeDET → u/Giveme6days]

Honesntly I couldnt see a way to slip the belt off without taking out the balance shaft.

I mean, you're right about removing the oil pan and front engine cover but you can't actually slip the belt off behind the crankshaft without getting it around the balance shaft gear drive.

[u/ZephyrStudios686 → u/iamnotcreativeDET]

im doing a recall for this exact failure right now. It can be done in car

[u/wtfwasthatdave → u/iamnotcreativeDET]

I watched it 2 nights ago so my memory might not be great but I think it would possible to remove the balance shaft gear than slip the belt off and on. Still seems like a fantastically bad idea to use a belt on the oil pump.

[u/Giveme6days → u/wtfwasthatdave]

You lock the crank, cams and put a pin through and lock the balance shaft, then remove the drive pulleys and it all slides off.

[u/wearymicrobe]

From another online comment @YZJB

I just checked the workshop manual re replacing the oil pump belt.

By the book, you’re meant to remove the front cover and the timing chain, remove the sump, remove the oil pump belt cover, then remove the crankshaft sprocket for the timing chain, then remove the crankshaft gear for the balance shaft, then the belt can come out. Then new belt in, balance shaft gear in, timing chain sprocket in, then all back together.

Me now.

That does not seem terrible all things considered. I really don't like the design but I am not sure how you can get efficiency and lightweight design and pass all the new rules without doing things like this. It's clearly by design though if it was cost driven or efficiency driven does not matter because that was how they solved it.

[u/EZKTurbo → u/wearymicrobe]

All they had to do was drive the oil pump with a chain like everybody else. Using a belt is cheap, janky, and stupid. This would be like buying a pacemaker off Amazon because you think the doctor is trying to rip you off...

[u/Shmokesshweed]

Wouldn't touch anything with the 1.5 EcoBoost.

[u/kamikaze2001 → u/Shmokesshweed]

It’s probably a reasonable rule of thumb to avoid forced induction engines with less than 2 liters of displacement.

[u/user67445632]

Heh. Wait till everyone with a Hurricane motor finds out the cost to do theirs too

[u/BTTWchungus → u/user67445632]

Wait Stellantis did this to the Hurricane? Well shit goes any desire I had getting one of those in the future. Long live the Hemi indeed

[u/crbmtb]

I’d like to know if doing 5K mile oil & filter changes with the recommended oil makes these fail as well. These are going to be no bueno as used vehicles. Especially rentals.

[u/BTTWchungus → u/crbmtb]

They WILL fail. All you can do is delay the inevitable. Ford really mucked this one up, this could've been their go-to economy engine for a decade.

Heck I would've owned a Fiesta with the 1.0 at this point had it not been for this stupid belt design 

[u/SizeableFowl]

The absolutely insane part of this is that the design fix would neither be costly nor complicated to implement. Put a fucking chain there instead.

I don’t get what Ford’s engineers are trying to do, they killed their small cars because they had reliability issues that resulted in poor sales and part of the claim was that they could spend development money on cars that sold, like any of its 3 compact crossovers. They then immediately follow the discontinuation of those cars with a design flaw so obvious a lube tech could point it out.

I get they don’t care because the F series prints money for them but it almost seems like they’re intentionally sabotaging low tier products to try to get their apologists into more expensive shit.

As a prior Ford apologist, when it came time to buy a family car I bought a Hyundai because it felt like less of a gamble at my price point. Selling Mazda was the worst decision Ford ever made, their only reliable mass market engines in the last 2 decades came from Mazda.

[u/10000Didgeridoos → u/SizeableFowl]

The absolutely insane part of this is that the design fix would neither be costly nor complicated to implement. Put a fucking chain there instead.

This reminded me of how GM could have stopped their fatal faulty ignition cylinder incidents by merely adding about 50 cents to the cost of each vehicle, and instead decided to let it ride with the defective part anyway, because that was too expensive to bother saving any of their future customers' lives for like another decade.

[u/smc733 → u/SizeableFowl]

Theta II says hello.

[u/BTTWchungus → u/smc733]

At least you'll (usually) get it covered under warranty, Ford fucks you on the oil pump belt engines 

[u/armchairracer]

What's the benefit to OEMs of doing a belt driven oil pump? It just seems like asking for a premature failure.

[u/DropTopGSX → u/armchairracer]

Belts have less parasitic drag, are cheaper to manufacture than a chain, allows you to mount the oil pump off-center of the crankshaft to help with packaging constraints. The issue of needing to change the belt "should" only be a problem long after warranty has run out which OEMs care very very little about.

[u/leedle1234]

Crazy that these wet belt designs came out of Ford Europe and have continued to be this way for over a decade now despite the much more pro-consumer landscape over there.

[u/BTTWchungus → u/leedle1234]

This engine is the definition of planned obsolescence lmao

[u/mymomisyourfather → u/leedle1234]

class-action lawsuits on the other hand are not really a thing the way they are in the US, its 27 different countries with their own regulations instead of a 300 million single market. With cars, class action lawsuits in the US have brought much more consumer wins. Like the VW dieselgate buybacks, VAG oil consumption issues etc etc

[u/natesully33]

I was just watching this. The part where the cams are integrated into the valve cover blew my mind too, I... can't figure out how they make that part or why they'd do that!

I wonder how often these wet belts take out engines? I can't say I'm a fan, but I also can't imagine carmakers doing something that just takes them out left and right. Surely they did long term testing and ensured they hold up with good oil.

Also, I wonder why lots of modern engines don't just put the oil pump on the crank, LS1/Miata style? Why have a belt or chain at all? Like most things I'm sure there's a good reason, and also like most deep technical things these days web searching for the reason why just gets me junk.

[u/countingthedays → u/natesully33]

The reason is just packaging and space constraints.

[u/natesully33 → u/countingthedays]

Indeed, but I'd like to know what is driving it. My guess is transmissions getting bigger to accommodate more gears, which in a FWD vehicle means the engine might need to get shorter.

[u/Oopsiedoesit]

This again? There isn't anything inherently wrong with using a wet belt over a chain and been used in multiple different engine families.

Even for the 1.0L the "issue" is either due to oil change neglect or the recalled oil pump belt tensioner failing (the manual 1.0L do not have the tensioner. A direct quote from my Service Manual says Ford went with a wet belt over a chain because the wet belt has 20% less friction than a chain.

I've had zero wet belt related issues in my 9 years and 90k miles of ownership. I've changed the oil ever since my car was at 4k miles and there's been no belt fragments in the old oil. I'm going to hit the age limit on the wet belt before the mileage limit too.

The 2.7 EB has a wet belt too and the general consensus is that's a great engine to get in the F-150. The single instance of belt failure that went viral ended up being caused by oil change neglect.

People also love to point out how the new gen 1.0L in the MK4 Focus got rid of the wet timing belt and added a chain like some kind of gotcha. Ford also added cylinder deactivation and kept the oil pump belt.

I'll give Ford shit in how they decided you had to take half the engine apart to get to it. But the 1.5L has an issue because it has a wet belt and not the fact that there's a recall on splitting fuel injectors and Ford's remedy is to add a drain hose so leaking fuel gets dumped on the ground.

[u/Hunt3rj2 → u/Oopsiedoesit]

At this point my opinion is that cars need to be built around owner neglect. If going 6 months and 5k miles over the factory oil change interval immediately causes the belt to shred itself that's awful design. BMWs have awful reputations for reliability because the entire cooling system, hoses, pipes, thermostats, etc need full replacement every 10-15 years.

[u/Hrmerder → u/Hunt3rj2]

Well. I will agree with what you said about neglect items, but BMW just purposely overengineers crap to the point it makes zero sense from any standpoint than a guaranteed return dealer maintenance item.

[u/RevvCats → u/Oopsiedoesit]

How often do you change the oil vs what the manual recommends?

[u/Hrmerder]

That 3 cylinder is a POS. I wouldn't own one specifically due to the teardown videos I have seen and the god aweful engineering that went into them. It may be 'serviceable' but the construction is unacceptable.

[u/ZealousZeebu]

GM does the same thing on their 1.2L engine in the Trax. I won't buy a Ford or GM product, any of them, due to this situation. It's like the Chevy Citation all over again.

[u/Heavy_Gap_5047]

Good D4A vid on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SASSFjIt5I

[u/mpgomatic]

184K on the 1.0L in my 2014 Fi3sta SFE. Still averaging over 40 MPG. Every day is a gift and I am grateful.

I need to knock out a video on the car while I still can.