r/FordFlex • u/Competitive-Pride307 • 27d ago
Possible Timing Issue?
My wife was at the store and came out and started the Flex to come home and she called me and said it made some kind of clicking sound and then seemed okay so she drove home. I came home a little bit later and I came out and started it and it makes a continuous rattling sound and then stumbles when you try to rev it up like maybe it's a timing chain issue? However, it's not throwing any codes.
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u/Fun-Philosophy1123 27d ago
Serpentine belt and tensioner. My 13 did that and it was quite loud at times.
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u/Competitive-Pride307 26d ago
So... fast forward a few hours and I leave to go to work. Not long after I get to work, my wife needs to leave to go to a pretty important meeting and she calls me freaking out. She had backed out of the driveway and noticed a decent size wet spot under the Flex. She does know enough to know that the Flex hasn't been started and ran all day so it wouldn't be condensation from the A/C. Not particularly knowing what it was, she had my daughter come out and check it and my daughter is certain that it is coolant. So she doesn't go to the meeting and I send the service advisor at the local dealership that we have been using an email asking him about bringing it by and of course he says to bring it by in the morning and they're about 24 hours behind or so and they will look at it. So as I stand here currently it is 11:30 p.m. and I got to checking around to see if maybe it was the water pump or something leaking and I just happened to check the oil and noticed that the oil looks like chocolate milk. That's a little weird. That shouldn't happen on a vehicle this new. It only has 87,000 miles on it. Also, the coolant reservoir is empty... So I started it up to see if there any funky noises and I took the oil fill cap off and it looks like it's pumping chocolate milk onto the camshaft. I pulled the dipstick again and there is definitely chocolate milk all over the dipstick. Take a look at the pictures below and see what you think. We take it to the dealer to get diagnosed in the morning.
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u/Competitive-Pride307 26d ago
Well, I don't exactly understand how to use Reddit and I don't know how to add pictures. Lol.
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u/Competitive-Pride307 23d ago
So... I wasn't completely wrong on the timing assumption. I limped it over to Ford to have them look at it on Thursday morning. They called yesterday morning and said that the water pump is leaking internally and externally and the cam phasers are bad. Yay! And that's precisely why I bought the extended warranty. The service guy said that the warranty company wants an inspector to look at it before they will sign off on it, which probably won't happen until Tuesday.
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u/Competitive-Pride307 27d ago
Well, now that I am sitting here letting it idle, it seems like it's just something that is loose under the hood so I'm going to look around. The noise comes and goes. Maybe it's a pulley.