I fought with Ford over warranty rates,labor hours, and more other things than I can remember for 35 years but I disagree with some of what's been said. The design of the 1.5 block sounds like what GM did with the Vega 40+ years that failed miserably.I suspect the engineer was instructed to reduce the weight of the block by someone who didn't understand what the result would be. Ignorant instructions=lousy results. In the 90's, the design engineers' bonuses were based on the cost of manufacturing and weight of the component they designed, when stuff failed and came back under warranty the expense was charged to warranty, not engineering. In the late 90's they decided the engineer was responsible for the cost of fixing his design,too. All our brake rotors got thicker and vibrations disappeared. We had been having U joint failures in F150's at 15-18,000 miles, that stopped like someone threw a switch.
Removing the keyways wasn't done to reduce manufacturing cost, it was done to enable more exact cam timing-pin everything in place and torque it up- AS LONG AS IT HOLDS, the timing is spot on, not within tolerances. Cars are more complicated than ever but they last longer than ever before. When I started at the dealer in 1975 we were doing valve jobs and transmission overhauls on 30,000 mile vehicles, an 80,000 mile car was a clapped out junk and if a 100,000 mile car came in everyone wanted to look at it. 5 or 6 year old cars were rusted out junk.
A lot of has been ex hippies my age rave about their VW beetle, my memory is better than that. The engines failed so often that I bought a valve guide driver to rebuild them while working at a gas station. A beetle with a fresh tune up could squeeze out 28 mpg, my 2.0 EcoBoost AWD Escape averaged 27.3 on a round trip to Va., including traffic like I've never seen and cruising at 75-80 on the highway with the a/c on. A beetle wouldn't go 80 and forget a/c.
The first year and a half of Escort production had interference engines with a timing belt, then Ford got sick of paying for major failures and for decades if it had a timing belt, it would free wheel and not hit valves. When the 1.6 appeared in Fiesta's and Escape's, I assumed they were chain drive like the 2.0. They were not- they were belt drive, interference engines. Thanks to European influence. In 2016 I priced a timing belt replacement on an Escape, $981 at 2016 prices, so I could try to convince the salesmen to recommend the 2.0 instead. Ford says the belt lasts 150k-but if it stretches or breaks the engine is junk and your high mileage Escape is totaled. So, at what mileage do you spend over $1000( I didn't include a water pump in my quote)?
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