2002 Ford E350 at 39,000 miles one spark plug blew.. out of head. Ford dealership said they would only replace the entire head at a cost over $5,000 dollars. Had repaired with helcoil at local repair shop. Again at 79,000 miles two spark plugs blew out of head. Not yet repaired.

- Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Ford E-350 with 5.4 Triton V-8 in HVAC service truck. Blew spark plug out of # 7 cylinder @ 92,000 miles on 5/15/06. Lost day of work to make repairs on truck, repair parts $130 on 6/22/06 blew spark plug out of #2 cylinder. Put truck down for 2 days while repairs were made. I had all plugs removed 4 of the remaining including #2 were bad. That's 5 of 8 that the threads were compromised. All of these were factory installed original plugs. I had the repair shop install repair sleeves in all the plug holes. The terrible part of all of this is that I may have been lucky. I didn't have to remove the heads, if the head is damaged beyond repair the only recourse is to replace it, not usually a real major job. But thanks to Ford engineers the only way to replace the heads is to remove the complete cab. In a pickup it's tough in a van who are they kidding.

- Oxford, OH, USA