2010 Ford Explorer SUV

Answers

• stever Guest Posts: 52,454

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  That's a major bummer. What happened to it?
  
  Did you buy it new? Was it serviced at the dealer?
  
  Have you talked to the dealer or Ford about why it failed and what did they tell you?

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• rblei72 Member Posts: 4

  January 2015

  It's a friend of mine, and it was bought with around 20,000 miles on it. They hit a deer twice within 2 months and had front end damage both times (including radiator repair). Now a mechanic never looked at it, only the body man. When the vehicle stopped running, my friend was told that there was antifreeze in the oil. They towed it to the Ford Dealer. We believe that there must have been some damage to the engine from the deer collisions, but the insurance is giving them a hard time. Not sure that they can prove it, now he is looking at $6000 for a new engine or $5100 for a re-manufactured one. And still making a payment on the vehicle.

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• stever Guest Posts: 52,454

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  Maybe a claim could be made against the body shop and your friend could get two insurance companies yelling at each other long enough for them to figure out it's cheaper to split the cost with your friend. Stranger things have happened, but it doesn't sound good.
  
  The core will likely have to be returned but maybe the mechanic can tear it down enough to figure out why the engine quit and would be able to say whether it was related to the deer strikes or not.

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• rblei72 Member Posts: 4

  January 2015

  Thanks Steve, I will suggest he see about having the engine torn down.
  

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• thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,745

  January 2015

  I can see tearing the engine down and proving what failed, but not why it failed. That could never be anything more than a subjective opinion at this point.

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• stever Guest Posts: 52,454

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  Good point, and the other issue is how much it would cost to get that "subjective" opinion. Could be throwing good money after bad, unless the tech just happens to see something "funny" while the parts are getting moved back and forth.
  
  I know you're in big-time deer country @thecardoc3. Ever see a car come in the door with engine damage from a deer strike that caused coolant loss down the road or something else out of the ordinary? Bent valve cover perhaps?

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• thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,745

  January 2015

  I've seen some deer hits do an amazing amount of damage, and I've seen repairs that erased every bit of the evidence as well as the complete opposite. It's all speculation at this point and ultimately the person who would lose as everyone was trying to prove anything would be the tech assigned to repair the truck now while everyone else is playing hot potato with the "who's gonna pay" game.
  
  Engines don't just quit with all of the coolant suddenly in the oil. That actually takes some time to occur and there are plenty of clues that something is happening that are difficult to overlook while it does. Who's to say that it didn't get cooked when one of the deer hits took out the radiator? If there is no evidence of further damage, then nothing else should be done at that time. Who's to say that maybe something else happened sometime in the vehicles life? An overheating event can often times appear to have not caused any damage and then when a head cracks or a gasket fails even a couple years later most wouldn't think about that old issue having possibly set the stage for some future failure. About the only thing we can really be sure of is that we can't be sure and the best one can do is to only really tell what is going on right now.

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• rblei72 Member Posts: 4

  January 2015

  Thanks guys I appreciate all of the responses and will relay the information to my friend.

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