98 coil probles

[drgraham]

I have a buddy the has a 98 amt and has been having coil problems, has had to replace three of them over the past two yrs. I am a little vague of these and am looking to find out how difficult it is to replace these and the cost of them. The shop the he uses want $1400 to replace the rest of them, I thing w/a little education we can do if better. Also interested to know what would be causing these to fail, w 110k miles. Any ideas?
Thanks David

 

[SHOZ123]

What's an amt?

 

[Ian Macoomb]

drgraham:
I have a buddy the has a 98 amt and has been having coil problems, has had to replace three of them over the past two yrs. I am a little vague of these and am looking to find out how difficult it is to replace these and the cost of them. The shop the he uses want $1400 to replace the rest of them, I thing w/a little education we can do if better. Also interested to know what would be causing these to fail, w 110k miles. Any ideas?
Thanks David

The coils on the gen IIIs seem to be failing quite a bit. I've had 3 bad coils myself and I've replace 7 of the 8. The front 4 are very easy to change. Anybody can do it. The rear 4 are a different story. The Ford dealer charged me 2.1 hours to change my plugs and the guy who did it had never done it before. Changing the rear coils is no different than changing the rear plugs, I'd have them do both at the same time in fact. What I'd do is change the front plugs and coils myself and get a mechanic (any mechanic since most dealers have never done it anyway) to change the rears.

I can 8 brand new motorcraft coils to you for $500 to your door. I found a shop here that carries them but it takes a while. The low Canadian dollar makes it a bargain for you guys. The price the dealer charges is at least double that.

So for a total of maybe $650 he could have 8 brand new coils and be good for another 5 years or 60k miles or so (that's when mine started going).

 

[Ian Macoomb]

Just a thought, maybe the best thing to do would replace the rear coils when getting the cams welded. Cam welding should cost about $450-$500. For the cost of the coils ($250 for 4 from me) he could have two problems solved.

If you haven't heard about the cam problem check out www.v8sho.com. If you don't think it can happen to you it can and probably will if you don't have something done about it. V8sho has documented 210+ cam failures and something like 13 new cases this month alone. While that's only 1% of all the engines produced but I'm thinking we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. How many cases go unreported because the owner isn't a internet person and knows nothing about the site? How many people had failures and moved on? I'm guessing probably a few. How many people have been bankrupted by an expensive repair? How many people have committed suicide because of the financial hardship? I wouldn't be suprised if someone has.

 

[E1]

Great advice. I'm replacing a destroyed head on a `99 that just turned 50,000 miles and shows nothing but great love in its keeping. Perfect upkeep won't save you on this one.
Thanx for the head Kirk.