2000 LS V-8 Seized Engine

[Carbona]

Hey guys, hope you all are having better luck with your LS then I have since I bought mine. I'm not going to get into all the problems I had, rather just the latest and worst problems of all. The day after Christmas during a snow storm, my car stalled in the middle of an intersection, once towed to the local Lincoln Stealership, and 4 days passed, they finally figured out the engine was seized after blowing through my starter. Insurance was then called in and they had a engine reconstruction specialist analyze the motor for possible cause of seizure. Lincoln dealer could not give an even close answer, where specialist forced dealership to disassemble motor and find completely disentegrated #4 piston, only small fragments were left after dealership tried numerous times to fire engine, causing more internal damage then when engine was brought to shop.

New engine was installed, then I get a phone call from the dealership saying AC compressor is now all of a sudden gone also, after new engine has been installed. Engine Specialist informed me that this is due to the engine seizure which dealership should have known about before replacing old AC compressor on new engine.

All in all $7,341.69 of damage that is not covered under warranty due to mileage of vehicle, 122,000 miles, and 4 weeks of not having a car. Package this together with a bad Fuel Solenoid Purge valve, a rear wheel bearing and both front wheel bearings, valve cover gaskets and numerous window drops, I am sad to say I will never consider another Lincoln product for a long time. It is sad too, because I am only 24 yrs old and there was a good potential for a young person to move up the Lincoln product line, sorry, never again.

Question for anyone, can anyone else shed light into the issue with the AC Compressor, if in actuality that the Compressor will die after the engine seizure, or does anyone know Lincoln USA's Tech number so I can call them and try and save myself on some labor from my lousy dealership that doesn't ever call Lincoln to get these answers before just diving in and trying to charge me top dollar to replace everything, rather then what is just plain needed.

Thanks,
Phil

[ February 13, 2005: Message edited by: jonota ]

[Desert Stallion]

It's possible that the engine seizing, while the A/C compressor's clutch was engaged, damaged the compressor's bushing from the sudden and complete stop in revolution while the compressor's momentum would've been trying to keep it turning.

Man, 122k miles on a 5 year old car. It doesn't stop much does it?

As for the other parts like bearings, you can't really fault them for going out after 122k miles. That's a lot of driving. But they don't cost much to replace and they're easy enough to replace to boot.

[Carbona]

Actually, rear wheel bearing was almost $700 to replace since it is the whole suspension knuckle. Fronts were cheaper, about $100 each and I did them myself. Fuel Solenoid Purge valve was about $850 and 7 days without a car. Valve cover gaskets were cheap, about $50 but $500 to replace from the dealer, I did them myself though, what a pain in the ass moving all that stuff out of the way and getting it done.

Nope, car doesn't stop much, I put on 46k in just one year, but it is all highway miles, rear bearing went at 79k.

Anyways, thank's for the response.

Phil

quote:Originally posted by Desert Stallion:
It's possible that the engine seizing, while the A/C compressor's clutch was engaged, damaged the compressor's bushing from the sudden and complete stop in revolution while the compressor's momentum would've been trying to keep it turning.

Man, 122k miles on a 5 year old car. It doesn't stop much does it?

As for the other parts like bearings, you can't really fault them for going out after 122k miles. That's a lot of driving. But they don't cost much to replace and they're easy enough to replace to boot.

[eL eS]

I dont know 122k miles is young for a modern vehicle if it were the model a I would have to agree but I have owned other vehicle well in to the 300K mile territory without such issues.

My LS has 108 and frankly despite the ercuring issue I have had with it I would not expect such a failure. His is in its prime. For what we pay for cars we should not expect something like this.

[Nick]

What caused it to stall though? This obviously isn't normal. No new car should experience such a problem. It could be something unrelated or it really could be a design fault. We need to find out what happened before we point fingers.

[Carbona]

Nobody has been able to figure it out. When it stalled that was the last the engine ever ran. I guess that at one point the #4 piston was broken, then as the dealership kept trying to turn it over the rest of the part disintegrated in the engine only leaving small bits and pieces of the piston left, or it was just fully disintegrated from the beginning, hard to get a complete story out of the dealership. When piston blew it also poked holes in the cylinders and block flooding engine with coolant.

Sad thing is, all parties involved in this, dealership and insurance all keep referring to an engine as a "Maintenance Item", but for some reason I can't quite agree, with a vehicle that costs upwards of $42,000 and being just over 4 years old, I should not have to put another $7,300 into it by installing a fresh "refurbished" motor because Lincoln/Motorcraft doesn't even make new engines.


quote:Originally posted by Nick:
What caused it to stall though? This obviously isn't normal. No new car should experience such a problem. It could be something unrelated or it really could be a design fault. We need to find out what happened before we point fingers.

[Desert Stallion]

There's only so many reasons for a piston to come apart... detonation, physical interference, excessive compression... and from your story I'm going to theorize that, in the middle of your snow storm, you somehow ingested snow, ice, or water into the intake, which was sucked into the #4 cylinder when the intake valve opened. The water was then compressed by the piston moving upwards with both intake and exhaust valves closed, except that water doesn't compress well, and your motor experienced the old addage of "What happens when the ireresistable force meets the immovable object," the result being the piston shattered due to experiencing stresses it was never designed to take.

This wasn't a design flaw I don't think. Just a freak accident. The technical term is 'hydrolock'. It can cause all sorts of havoc inside your motor, like spun bearings, broken connecting rods, shattered pistons, etc.

[Carbona]

Good man, you guessed my Insurance claim to the T. That is the same exact story i'm fighting with insurance at the moment. It is in the final stage that, "If the specialist can not 100% determine the exact fault of the motor, the insurance WILL pay my claim to hydrolock." Now they are saying there is no way to inject water into the motor, because I have the Cold air intake module that was being sold on here, but they said unless they can prove otherwise, that is still a possible reason.

quote:Originally posted by Desert Stallion:
There's only so many reasons for a piston to come apart... detonation, physical interference, excessive compression... and from your story I'm going to theorize that, in the middle of your snow storm, you somehow ingested snow, ice, or water into the intake, which was sucked into the #4 cylinder when the intake valve opened. The water was then compressed by the piston moving upwards with both intake and exhaust valves closed, except that water doesn't compress well, and your motor experienced the old addage of "What happens when the ireresistable force meets the immovable object," the result being the piston shattered due to experiencing stresses it was never designed to take.

This wasn't a design flaw I don't think. Just a freak accident. The technical term is 'hydrolock'. It can cause all sorts of havoc inside your motor, like spun bearings, broken connecting rods, shattered pistons, etc.

[Dereck]

Hi All

Is the LS V8 engine the same one used in the Jaguars, if it is a few years ago Jaguar had a problem with the cylinder liners causing engine lock up.

Regards

Dereck

[Desert Stallion]

The LS's motor is a de-stroked version of the Jag engine.

But that is an interesting point. I haven't heard of those issues with the LS, but that's not really the crowd I run with either.

[Carbona]

Not really sure. However, one thing I heard was my car supposidly had a "bigger V-8" engine then the usual one used in most LS's. They said 2 V-8 type engines were made and my original engine was the bigger of the 2. Not sure how true that is though.


quote:Originally posted by Dereck:
Hi All

Is the LS V8 engine the same one used in the Jaguars, if it is a few years ago Jaguar had a problem with the cylinder liners causing engine lock up.

Regards

Dereck

[eL eS]

Try posting this on flatratetech.com in the ford consumer forum maybe a tech there can add some insight to this. The hydro lock theory does sound like the most likely consider the dynamics of water under both cold and hot conditions under the hood. Cold air concentrates moisture and heat accelerates condensation on surfaces.

You very well could have condensation build up in the air intake tube or intake manifold aft of the throttle body and eventually met a saturation point that induced hydro lock.

I know they test in as extreme conditions as possible to find out what will happen to the entire automobile but these are usually controlled environments. You definitely encountered something unpredictable.

I seriously doubt the CAI induced this casualty. Magnusson Moss act should prevent such a conclusion from denying you a warranty repair if you were covered at the time.

Had this been an aircraft the FAA would be all over even if there was no loss of life. The automotive industry would definitely benefit from investigating such circumstances as yours but no manufacturer is concerned enough to pursue X-Files, if you will, such as yours.

They should take a page form the FAA’s play book and investigate problems like this... Hell it could have ended in a fatality. Thankfully you are safe.

[Desert Stallion]

quote:Originally posted by Carbona:
Not really sure. However, one thing I heard was my car supposidly had a "bigger V-8" engine then the usual one used in most LS's. They said 2 V-8 type engines were made and my original engine was the bigger of the 2. Not sure how true that is though.


They may be reffering to the 'bigger V8' in comparison to the 'smaller V6' the LS comes standard with. Not sure, but I thought the LS only had the 3.9L?

[Carbona]

Nope, I said the same thing and they insisted that Lincoln made 2 models of the V-8 with basically everything exactly the same, but one being slightly bigger. I couldn't get any straight answers out of the guy as he was only a middle man, but that is what they told me.


quote:Originally posted by Desert Stallion:


They may be reffering to the 'bigger V8' in comparison to the 'smaller V6' the LS comes standard with. Not sure, but I thought the LS only had the 3.9L?

[Nick]

If that's true, maybe Ford used the 4.0L jag engines with the Lincoln software and model specific hardware.

[Desert Stallion]

Huh, I think I smell bullsh*t. :rolleyes: I mean c'mon, the 3.9L is the smaller corporate cousin of the Jag's 4.0L, and Ford don't make a V8 smaller than 3.9L, at least not for sale in America. I do think there's a Euro motor in the 3.2L-3.5L range. Also Yamaha makes the 3.4L SHO motor, but that's not important.

Being totally bored right now I decided to do some research on the Nickasil cylinder lining and discovered that it can cause catastrophic engine failure when the motor is run with high-sulfur content fuels.

Now, fuel companies are supposed to monitor the sulfur content of their fuels to keep them safe for use in all engines, but sometimes this type of situation happens. In fact in some midwest state there was an instance where a fuel company let a tanker of sulfur-rich fuel get out and they had to buy a couple hundred people new fuel pumps from using the contaminated fuel.

What I would do is have the gas in your tank analyzed for high sulfur content. If you can't get insurance to pay for it, you can get the gas company that you bought the fuel from to pay for the damages that their fuel caused to your engine.

If that's the case.

[Pragmatic]

Both the V-8 and he V-6 use iron liners.

From Wikipedia (on the Jaguar version of the engine:

"The AJ-V8 was designed to use Nikasil-coated cylinders rather than the more-common iron cylinder liners. However, like the BMW M60, high-sulphur fuel reacted with the Nikasil liners and caused engine failures. Jaguar replaced affected engines, and has used conventional cast-iron linings ever since."

[jdsimons]

Well i am no mechanic by far in fact i am probably the most mechanically declined person i know. But i was wondering; these motors are like all aluminum right. Well i have heard good both and bad things about being aluminum, If pistons are aluminum and if they get hot enough won'y they lock up. Even though aluminum is a lot lighter the melting point isn't as extreme as other metals. But again i am not sure if can happen or not. pretty interesting to find out though. I have a dodge intrepid with 230,000 mile and motor still runs, never replaced wheel bearings, fuel pumps, or anything like that.

[ February 07, 2005: Message edited by: jdsimons ]

[eL eS]

quote:Originally posted by Desert Stallion:
Huh, I think I smell bullsh*t. :rolleyes: I mean c'mon, the 3.9L is the smaller corporate cousin of the Jag's 4.0L, and Ford don't make a V8 smaller than 3.9L, at least not for sale in America. I do think there's a Euro motor in the 3.2L-3.5L range. Also Yamaha makes the 3.4L SHO motor, but that's not important.

Being totally bored right now I decided to do some research on the Nickasil cylinder lining and discovered that it can cause catastrophic engine failure when the motor is run with high-sulfur content fuels.

Now, fuel companies are supposed to monitor the sulfur content of their fuels to keep them safe for use in all engines, but sometimes this type of situation happens. In fact in some midwest state there was an instance where a fuel company let a tanker of sulfur-rich fuel get out and they had to buy a couple hundred people new fuel pumps from using the contaminated fuel.

What I would do is have the gas in your tank analyzed for high sulfur content. If you can't get insurance to pay for it, you can get the gas company that you bought the fuel from to pay for the damages that their fuel caused to your engine.

If that's the case.

This happend in Florida recently. It was total chaos.

[Desert Stallion]

Any news?

[Carbona]

I just spoke with Insurance again, and the final assesment came back from the specialist and went to be reviewed by the Supervisor, which then passed it up to a Manager.

If read from the report correctly, the assesment read "Probable cause of engine failure is due to pre-detonation caused by low-octane fuel. However, can not rule out possiblility water damage as potential cause."

The insurance asked me to answer a question about a week and a half ago, the question was "Where do you get your fuel from?" I responded the following, "I fill my tank from 3 regular locations, Mobil, Sunoco and Haffner's, all reputable stations in my area. I then explained that I ONLY use Super Unleaded <91+> octane fuel due to my knowledge of the engine having a higher then normal compression ratio which if low-octane fuel is used, could cause pinging, knocking and pre-detonation, which will be compensated by the Lincoln's computer system which will monitor the engine for signs of pre-detonation and adjust the ignition timing accordingly."

Insurance agent responded "you seem to know your vehicle rather well and I trust that you have done it not harm as even the appraisor determined that from the cleanliness of the motor and internal parts, it was very well maintained. Thank you for your answer."

So to now go back to the original solution set forth by the insurance agent, "If the specialist cannot find an exact underlying cause of the motor failure, we will cover the claim." If this is both what he "said" and what they "do", then according to the statement <However, can not rule out possiblility water damage as potential cause.> they should in fact go by their word and cover the claim. I hope to have the final answer by tomorrow if not Friday the latest.

Wish me luck!
Thanks for checking up!

quote:Originally posted by Desert Stallion:
Any news?

[jonota]

And the verdict is???

[Carbona]

I spoke with a supervisor on Friday. Offered me a settlement of $2,000. I explained how my regular agent who was on vacation said if I got the undecisive answer, my claim would be covered. He went along and said, "well it is a large bill, we need to work something out, since the appraisor doesn't really think water caused the damage". He then changed the settlement to 1/2 the full bill, plus the amount they still have to pay for the time and labor that the appriasor spent having the dealer take the engine out of the car and disassembling it a bit. I said I would think about it over the weekend, but would like to speak with my original agent working the case on Monday. I will call him back on Monday after he has some time to settle in and catch up and see if he can offer me something better, otherwise I have a lawyer already lined up that can send in a letter on my behalf.

Still more to come...

quote:Originally posted by jonota:
And the verdict is???

[Nick]

Don't settle for anything less than full. THat's why you pay insurance anyways. ;) It'll take some doing and resoluteness on your part, but keep at it. Good luck.

[pepsi2185]

Yo bro did you ever get an answer from that insurance company

[Carbona]

They ended up giving me about 70% of the total bill after they tried to fight for the deductable and depreciation.

Thanks,

quote:Originally posted by pepsi2185:
Yo bro did you ever get an answer from that insurance company

[pepsi2185]

Sweet. I know thats not the whole bill, but still better than footing it yourself. Glad to hear you got something. It seems like these days without an attourney you dont get anything.

[Carbona]

Well your right about that, cause even though I wrote up the 5 page report on everything that happened and definitions of hydro lock and detonation, had it approved by an engine specialist, then had my lawyer give it a thumbs up, that is when they got scared and gave in and gave me more money. They didn't believe I had a lawyer involved yet until he mailed the letter for me along with the engine specialist putting his John Hancock on it. Luckily I used to work for the lawyer in question so it was pretty much a returned favor no money swap but I think it still took some lawyer pressure to get anything really completed.

quote:Originally posted by pepsi2185:
Sweet. I know thats not the whole bill, but still better than footing it yourself. Glad to hear you got something. It seems like these days without an attourney you dont get anything.