Car Troubles

[groops]

G'day all.

This is a bit of a story, so if you have time, enjoy the read.

I haven't really posted too much on these forums, but tend to have a good browse when I can. My name is Mikey and I have an AU III XR6 - Blueprint - 5spd - 2002.

I bought the car in January of 2005 and on the way home one of the hoses between the radiator and the engine split and I had to drive back to the dealership (approx 15kms) to get that fixed. I thought, ok, well it was only a hose, it happens.

About a month or 2 after I got the car, I noticed an abnormally loud ticking noise coming from the car. The kind of noise that you can hear while doing 110kph down a noisy highway and still hear it over the engine noise. NOw I'm no mechanic, but I've usually got some kind of a hunch if something is wrong or not. Spoke to a few guys that know a bit more about it, and was told that it was probably a lifter, or tappit. (Can you guess where i'm going with this?!) - One of these guys has one of the faster WRX MY01 Sportswagons in AUS - MRT re-built most things in his car except the body, interior and wheels...314kw @ wheels. 0-400m - 11.18sec. so I figured he knew pretty much what he was talking about...

Took it back to Ford, and they assessed it and told me that nothing was wrong with it and that I shouldn't worry about it. - March 2005

I copped that sweet, until August of that same year when I could still hear it.

Took it to Ford again and they again told me nothing was wrong - August 2005.

The new car warranty ran out 15th October 2005.

May this year I met a guy that built engines for a living. He heard my car and without a hesitation, you guessed it, "problem with the lifters". He even pinpointed it to cylinder 5 or 6.

Funnily enough, now that it's out of warranty "There seems to be a problem with your lifters", "they're making an abnormally loud tapping noise" - Good one Sherlock. - The noise was no louder or softer then March 2005...

Since then I've been at battle with them about who should pay for the repair of the this. I don't know exactly what would be involved in this repair but it was quoted at about $2000 or somewhere thereabouts. Ford Australia offered me a 50% contribution to the repair as part of their 'good-will' policy. In my mind, this wasn't right because the problem was there when in warranty and they disregarded it. Well after many phone calls and messages and emails and letters, and even discussions with the ACCC about it, I still had no result for them to honour the fact that they'd done the dodgy on me.

I was preparing over the last couple of weeks to go to the ACCC and make a formal complaint and getting all my paperwork together.

Tuesday morning (18th July) I was pulling into the street where I work and suddenly lost a whole lot of power in my car and the engine was making a noise that resembled the same noise that was made when you put a plastic 'clacker' in the spokes of your pushbike to make it sound like an engine.

Luckily enough, though, the Dealership I bought it from, the one where my mate is the dealer principle, is about 400m down the road from work. Called him up and took it down there. The first thought that their techs had was that it was a big end bearing or something like that. They told me that they'd have to do a 'Strip and Asses' and that it would be $300 if Ford wouldn't pay. I agreed.

Well.

Took their loaner car (12 month old Falcon XT in Zest Green *bleh*) and waited for their response. Called them on Friday to find out if they'd had an answer. - get ready

"In cylinder 5, the valve inlet lifter fell into the cylinder...it damaged the piston and sylinder walls and the cylinder head. In turn it put the wrong pressure back on the Big End Bearing. The engine has to be rebuilt."

Any surpirses???

So far, they've submitted the quote by the repairer to Ford Australia and we're still waiting for a response...What fun I've had this week.

Reason for putting it here??? No major reason, I just needed to vent and this seemed like the place to do it.

Hope to hear a response from them sometime this week.

Pity though, because I planned to take the car to Wakefield on Monday next week. Well, I'll have to go again with my car another time.

Oh and on that subject... When I get the car back, should I be easing the engine in, or should I be driving it as normal??? - I've had 2 opinions. One said that I should be really easy to it because the wear and tear will be higher when it's been rebuilt becasue of it all being new and soft. The other opinion is to get the most out if it I should drive it the way I want it to perform...any experiences to back this up???

Mikey.