In November of 2001 I left for a trip in my Mercury, about halfway to my destination, the intake manifold of my car failed, the entire contents of my coolant system evacuated in less than one minute. I thought I had ruptured a hose, upon closer inspection; it appeared to me that a hose had blown close to the engine block in a place that I could not see well. A mechanic at the dealership informed me the next day that the intake manifold was plastic and that it had cracked. But luckily for me he would help me out, he happened to have a spare manifold that he had taken off of another car like mine. Apparently, someone had blown a head gasket in their 97 Grand Marquis and the owners were convinced that it was the intake manifold. So the mechanic replaced their manifold and kept their old one that was still good. The mechanic was willing to sell me the manifold and replace the broken one on my car for about half the price it was going to cost me to have the dealership replace it. The dealer would have billed me nearly $600, so I told him to perform the repairs. He told me that they had some problems with the plastic intakes and had redesigned them. The one he placed on my car was supposedly of the new design. Later in a momentary lapse of judgment I told him to dispose of the original, which I believe was cracked in the same place as the one in the pictures found at this website public.fotki.com/trsi/ford_intake_recall/ last night as I was running some errands around town, my car started to overheat. I thought nothing of it I figured I might have a hole in a heater hose. Since I recently started using the heater in the car. The car ran hot all the way home no matter what I did or how much air I tried to pass through the radiator. In the path to or from the radiator from the heater core. The heater hoses go through the intake manifold. The plastic fitting that accepts the heater hose has a hairline crack running its entire length.

- Starkville, MS, USA

Rattling noise coming from engine, on the first start up due to the oilfeed back from lack of oil to the tappets and last several minutes, the hydraulic lifters are not holding their oil pressusre overnight, consumer was told by dealer this is a characteristic of this design.

- Fresno, CA, USA

Engine fire after sitting in driveway for four hours. Referenced in EA02-025

- Rockville, NY, USA