Ford's Incredible Exploding Engines

Image Source: BBC

One of the big regrets I've had after continuously shelving blogs over the years is that I've had a lot of smug 'I told you so' moments pass me by.

A number of years ago whilst working for a tool supplier, we had a regular customer who came in from Ford's research centre at Dunton, and I remember when he first mentioned the Ecoboost engine that was in development, and that nobody really thought it was a good idea.

I don't think anyone was convinced that squeezing around 100hp out of a one litre, three cylinder engine with an aluminium head was logical. The level of tuning necessary to gain that sort of power and the high tolerances involved, I reckoned at the time, would lead to engine failures way before the cars could be considered 'old'.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the title of this post, five years later Ford is now being inundated with engine fires and cracks! The design seemed ridiculous from the get-go, although it isn't just the puny engines involved that are having those complications. Maybe Ford deserves a bit of bad PR after pulling production from Europe and moving it to Turkey and China? All I know is that I'm looking for my next vehicle very carefully indeed.

Source:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45628325