We all make mistakes, but at least they usually aren’t federal-investigation-level bad. That’s not always the case when you’re a major automaker, though. The smallest turbocharged engine Ford ever sold in America is the subject of a new National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis because its wet belt system keeps starving the engine of oil, resulting in engine failure well before the belt’s official service interval.
When Ford first announced its one-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine, it seemed like a bit of a packaging miracle. It may have only made 123 horsepower, but the engine block was small enough that one communications team member put it in a carry-on and flew it to Los Angeles. At the time, this was an unfathomably tiny engine for mass-market American cars, but it turned out to have some flaws.
From the early 1960s up until roughly the Great Recession, everyone generally agreed that timing belts go on the outside of engines and timing chains go on the inside of engines. Chains are made to be lubricated by oil, belts historically weren’t. That all changed when Ford rolled out an oil-bathed timing belt on the European-market 1.8-liter TDCI diesel engine. The one-liter EcoBoost was another early instalment of oil-bathed timing belts, and Ford seemed to not quite get it right. By 2018, it had switched back to a traditional timing chain but retained an oil-bathed belt that drove the oil pump.
Initially, the early-series oil-bathed timing belt had a replacement interval of 150,000 miles. This proved optimistic enough to result in an NHTSA preliminary investigation. In 2025, the feds opened up a preliminary investigation into the one-liter EcoBoost inline-three offered in 2014 to 2017 Fiestas, 2015 to 2018 Focuses, and 2019 to 2021 Ecosport crossovers as the result of 355 reports of engine failure. That first stage of the probe is over, and here’s what the report states:
ODI found that the timing belt material may degrade and create debris that clogs the mesh oil pump pick-up screen, resulting in reduced oil pressure in the engine. As additional debris accumulates on the screen, this can progress to a loss of motive power while driving due to a lack of engine lubrication. The failure data provided in response to this investigation revealed an average failure mileage of approximately 70,000 miles, and that 98% of the failures occurred prior to the 150,000 mile timing belt replacement interval per the vehicles’ maintenance schedule. Based on evidence collected via consumer surveys and an engine teardown, failures have occurred despite evidence of proper and routine oil maintenance. The oil pump pick-up screen is not serviceable, so debris accumulation cannot be inspected or manually removed without removing the engine from the vehicle.
Wow. 355 reports of lost oil pressure with an average failure mileage of 70,000 miles caused partially by a part with an advertised 150,000-mile replacement interval is diabolical work. It’s worth noting that back in June, Ford revised the wet belt interval down to six years or 100,000 miles, but there’s another component to this saga common to one-liter Ecoboost engines regardless of whether they use a wet timing belt or a chain: The oil pump drive belt I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. This particular part is more than eleven hours of labor deep into the engine, and that’s on models with a timing belt. It has no scheduled replacement interval, and plenty of people have seen components of this system deteriorate in hilariously sad ways with disastrous results.
Back in 2023, Ford issued a recall concerning 2016 to 2018 Focuses and 2018 to 2022 Ecosports with the one-liter EcoBoost engine. The problem? The oil pump drive belt tensioner. As the recall report states:
The oil pump drive belt tensioner arm retention caulking joint is not robust to the vibration experienced by the component over time, which can cause arm separation. The tensioner arm can contact the engine balancer shaft, which can cause the tensioner arm to fracture. A greater than expected load on the oil pump drive belt may result in belt degradation. Ford’s engine design verification testing did not adequately represent the load on the oil pump tensioner system experienced in the vehicle.
This tensioner failing is pretty much a death sentence for a running engine, and it can come with a spectacular side effect: Shearing the teeth clean off of the oil pump drive belt. That failure mode is going to immediately grab your attention in the next few pieces of media, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize and look at belt deterioration.
“I Do Cars” on YouTube tore down a one-liter EcoBoost engine three years ago and found that both belts were severely cracked. While the exact mileage of this particular engine cannot be ascertained, it did come out of a Ford EcoSport, so it was only a few years old at the time.
If that’s not enough of a visual, here’s a post from 2024 in the Facebook group “Ford EcoBoost Nightmare” that shows an oil pump drive belt’s teeth sheared smooth off. As the post states, “EcoBoost 1.0 L 2019, oil pump drive belt. All teeth are gone, nothing left.” Check out the severe cracking of the belt, with some chunks missing. That engine would’ve been five years old at the time of this post, and the original poster claimed to have only covered 53,000 miles. Even though wet belts are usually Teflon-coated and made of Kevlar-reinforced Hydrogenated Nitrile Butadiene Rubber, the belts in the one-liter Ecoboost inline-three do seem prone to advanced wear.
Adding insult to injury, owners of one-liter Ecoboost engines wouldn’t get advance warning of oiling issues or belt failure. At least a timing chain with worn guides usually rattles before the system truly fails. This system offers no such external tell-tale. It’s also an expensive set of components to replace. The timing belt alone on an early one-liter EcoBoost Fiesta calls for 11.1 hours of labor, easily a four-figure bill for a four-figure used car. Cheaper than a new engine, sure, but far more laborious to change than a traditional external timing belt.
For now, it’s best to stay away from Ford’s one-liter EcoBoost inline-three and see what the feds find. While only 135,551 cars with this engine were sold in America, wet-belt deterioration is still a big problem affecting cars aimed at drivers who can’t exactly splash the cash. Next up, engineering analysis. Who wouldn’t want to learn what actually went wrong?
Top graphic image: Ford
Put another 100 miles on the 2000 Insight today and it’s 1.0 3 cylinder is doing just fine 215,000 miles later. Averaged 72mpg today.
Those are such cool cars.
My Insights had 290,607 and 280,496 miles when I sold them, and they ran great. Such wonderful little sewing machine motors.
the Honda VFR 750 has gear driven cams and they are wonderful to hear clacking away down there
Sure beats the Sabre/Magna chain-driven ones with poor top-end oiling.
Especially at 130mph.
My VFR800 has chain driven cams :(. But the exhaust still sounds like a symphony.
That shitty 1.0T was the only way to get a Focus in the US with a regular automatic and not the PowerShit. Of course, they went right back to a regular automatic across the board once they stopped selling the Focus here.
Ford KNEW what a POS it was. They just wanted to sabotage small cars here to sell more trucks.
LOL even the most senile in Congress/other federal agencies know that timing belts in oil are fucking stupid.
The 1.0T cars should get a 10 mpg penalty from their EPA ratings, and Ford should be required to swap every single one with a regular non-turbo engine. Replace every PowerShit DCT with a regular automatic. F150 and other truck production should be ground to a HALT until they’re all fixed!
And yet GM decided to do this in the 3.0 Duramax to meet NVH issue related to placing the pump at the back of the engine by the fire wall instead of up front.
Nice article. Just wish I could have read it without the TradeInTuesday video ad sitting and spinning stupidly over 20%of my screen. Little bastard of an ad.
There’s a little X to close out the floating window
“In 2025, the feds opened up a preliminary investigation into the one-liter EcoBoost inline-three offered in 2014 to 2017 Fiestas, 2015 to 2018 Focuses, and 2019 to 2021 Ecosport crossovers as the result of 355 reports of engine failure.”
And I bet those 355 reports are just the tip of the iceberg.
““I Do Cars” on YouTube tore down a one-liter EcoBoost engine three years ago and found that both belts were severely cracked.”
Glad you mentioned I Do Cars. Yeah after seeing Eric tear a few of them down and his comments, it convinced me to avoid any car with an engine with one of these stupid wet timing belts and oil pump belt designs.
Ford isn’t the only one guilty of this stupid design. GM has some stupid designs like this too (like the 3 cyl used in the Chevy Trax).
See comment below:
https://www.theautopian.com/the-feds-want-to-know-why-fords-one-liter-ecoboost-wet-belt-engine-keeps-failing-catastrophically/comment-page-1/#comment-1009901
Well that engine has only be around in volume for around 5 years. If there are issues, they’ll start cropping up within the next couple of years.
I hope you have a good experience with yours. But I’m still gonna avoid vehicles with engines that have wet timing belts and wet oil pump belts.
Luckily, the stealership threw in a free lifetime powertrain warranty with ours. Yes, it has restrictions and limitations, but since it was complimentary with the vehicle purchase, I’m not paying anything for it.
It covers pretty much everything from the turbo all the way through the wheel bearings. The limitation is that it will only cover replacements up to the NADA blue-book value, so once the vehicle depreciates to $8K or so, they’re not going to pay $8K for an engine replacement. And the caveat is that I’m not allowed to change the oil myself. I can bring it to any licensed facility, but there is less paperwork involved if I bring it to the stealership where it was purchased.
So I pay them for two oil changes (less than 3,000 miles each time) and one tire rotation per year. I could probably save $100/yr. if I did those myself, but keeping the warranty intact is worth that to me. I just sit in the showroom and read a book for the 30-45 minutes of wait time and let somebody else get dirty for a change.
Oh yeah if you have a lifetime powertrain warranty, then use the hell out of your Trax and see how far you can stretch that lifetime.
And Farley thinks we should leave repairs to Ford, when they design shit like this.
While also complaining that no one wants to work for Ford as a mechanic…
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ford-motor-ceo-jim-farley-mechanic-shortage-autos-skilled-workers-334ae52d?st=Khnh8p&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
$$$ for their already full service departments.
You may want to read his original comments. He doesn’t mind folks working on their own vehicles or other entities working on them, but certain things should be dealer-only. He used the example of his daughter’s boyfriend loading an aftermarket “tune” onto his F-150 which caused damage to the engine. If he’d used a Ford-approved “tune” it wouldn’t have had the failure.
Oh great… and I literally just put my daughter’s Ecosport up for sale 10 minutes before seeing this story.
Duh! The poorly made belt sheds rubber like a tire blocks the filter which blocks the oil which makes the engine go boom.
Timing belts in general are a bad enough idea to start with, but, hey, lets have one permanently soaked in hot motor oil, that should be better, right?
belt<chain<gears
Timing belts are okay if they are dry and are designed to be servicable… like on many past Hondas.
Even then, at their best, they are still always inferior to chains. And chains are still inferior to gears.
Hell, I’m still running my original timing gears after 62 years.
That said, I also have a car that appears to still be on its original timing chain at 76 years, but 1940s era Chrysler products were on a whole different level when it comes to mechanical durability
Chains used be be great in the past, but due to cost savings they also suck nowadays. In case it needs to be replaced, it’s more work, than a timing belt.
In my ’73 BMW 02 there is still the original timing chain, unknown amount of miles on it. Works great.
But there are so many modern cars that start having issues with the chains, even at low milage…
From what I’ve read, it’s not that there’s problem with the chains themselves, it’s that the chain tensioners are sometimes made of cheap plastic, which fails, causes the chain to become loose, and then destroys the engine.
This is it exactly.
My 92 Saturn with the single overhead cam had a timing chain. It was the tensioner that broke and then the timing chain later.
Lesson learned was to sometimes drive without the radio blaring.
Would have heard the rubbing chain and the repair would have not included a cylinder head removal and valve job.
Another reason I love the GM Single cam V8’s – one short little timing chain with two sprockets and no tensioner.
The chains themselves also got worse. Back in the day, there where engines with double chain links. This was reduced to single links. And guess what…with this change, the issues with lengthening of the chains started.
Of course the tensioners are an issue and need to be checked or replaced.
For real I had a ’83 533i with a timing chain and who knows how many miles. Even my ’00 323i had a timing chain and 215K miles on the clock when I sold it but no online reports that timing chains were problematic on e46s. And then starting in the late aughts early teens you see even more manufacturers switching to timing chains, presumably because of pushback against expensive belt changes but you start seeing all these different cars with timing chain issues! And it’s like what happened this is a settled technology. BMW’s turbo four (N20) was known for timing chain problems despite their past history of near bulletproof timing chain systems. VW, Audi, and Nissan all had issues with timing chain tensioners and guides. No doubt there’s others I’m not aware of. Such an obvious case of value engineering something to the point of ruining it.
BMW started having problems with E39. There are several reports for example on the M52B28TÜ2, which is the first one with the single chain links.
In general a great engine and very reliable and I personally did not have any issues on mine that had 400k km on it, when I sold it. But anyways, you can find reports on that engine.
And yeah…the later I4 engines are famous for it. Which is a shame, as the very old I4 engines like in my 1802 are famous for being reliable.
Indeed-I had a M52B25TU in my car and from what I read timing chain problems were not unheard of but nowhere near as common as the N20 had where it was common to need timing chain guides under 100K miles / 161K km. Interestingly I don’t think I’ve read of a similar timing chain issue with the N54 even though it came out around the same time, though reportedly it suffers from a number of other issues.
Daily’d a 1948 Plymouth in the late 1980s, owned two 1949 Plymouths – can confirm. 1940s Chrysler, burned by the Airflows, was conservative, well designed, and well built.
https://itisgood.org/auto-biography/#48Plymouth
Yup. And despite the many thousands of Honda timing belts that go neglected they still roll… I’ve seen engines with 250K+ miles on their oem-original timing belts.
They looked rough but were still in service.
Give me a SERVICEABLE dry timing belt every time. You know the maintenance needs to happen, you do that and the water pump, and you’re golden.
Lots of issues out there with stretched timing chains, bad tensioner, worn guides etc. that require unplanned and significant expense.
And make the engine non-interference so if it does break, it doesn’t destroy the engine. The minuscule decrease in power and increase in emissions is worth it.
Both of these comments are “the way.”
If Ford does a recall for this, I guarantee that it will be a software flash that recognizes a clogging oil pump screen (due to fluctuating oil pressure) and turns on the check engine light. They won’t inspect and replace the belt as part of the recall.
And as a salvage car buyer, the number of these cars with these engines have already peaked and are on the downslide meaning that owners have already been screwed and have moved on from all of these trash heaps and now own and daily other vehicles.
Used to see the little Fiestas and EcoSports everywhere for a few years, now I don’t even see them offered as junk. Most are already gone.
This is interesting insight.
Honestly I still want Ford to put the 1.5L I3 with a manual transmission in the Maverick.
You save about 250lbs of weight, which I bet the bed can handle, so instead of 1500lbs of payload you get 1750lbs.
I bet there are other weight savings to be had as well, like a rear seat delete.
That being said the Maverick should get an optional split bench setup, and and optional jump seat setup (as in the split bench with the 2 seat bench section removed and vice versa)
You save 100% of the weight because the motor says boom goes the dynamite
I doubt jump seats would fly in modern rear seat occupant safety during crash testing.
The “jump seat’ in this case would be a regular split bench rear truck seat, but you just don’t attach the 2 seat part of it, you just have the single seat portion of it.
It’s a jump seat in the sense that the majority of the rear of the cab is for cargo, but you got a spare seat if you need it.
“For now, it’s best to stay away from Ford’s one-liter EcoBoost inline-three”
Now and forever.
I could never understand why during their redesign they kept the wet belt for the oil pump. The plastic oil pump its self is know to cause issues. You have known problems but fixed half it it sort of. Then said good enough. Just do gears and call it a day.
I’m guessing it’s for the same reason every other thing gets half-assed. It is nearly impossible to argue with a money guy in front of a decision guy. The decision guy is always going to side with the money guy because a) the money guy’s pitch saves money TODAY and 2) the money guy is usually the decision guy.
I’m sure that’s part of it. I wouldn’t doubt some probability/ risk analysis on potential warranty pay out vs saving 7 cents.
It does save them like . 1mpg
Eventually saves them infante mpg because it’s not moving and is mechanically totaled.
There are enough bronco sports out there that will be in good condition and looks decent. I’m really curious if someone comes up with some kind of bullet proofing kit for maybe $1500 or under. You can probably buy a blown engine one for about $1500 to $3k. Im sure it’s a hateful job and lots of hours but might be something there. I can’t see putting another stock engine in one.
Absolutely. along with stop start in non hybrids wet belts have probably been the worst way to hit CAFE requirements.
At least you can fix the stop start quickly and normally cheaply.
A tensioned rubber belt running millions of revolutions in hot oil; what could go wrong?
Sounds kinky.
Just electrify all the things. ICE has jumped the shark with complexity in the name of emissions reduction. At least centralized thermal power plants can run in their sweet spot to minimize emissions while scrubbers take care of most of the rest.
I test-drove the 1.0 Fiesta. It was a decent enough performer, and fuel economy numbers were stratospheric for an ICE engine. I’m glad I didn’t buy one.
Wet belts were a horrible idea, stay away.
This is why I would not buy a 2.7 V6 in either a truck or Bronco. Over 100 years of building cars and ford still makes avoidable mistakes.
Mate this engine to a Powershift for the chef’s kiss of Ford’s job #1.
Exactly what I was thinking – this seems sooo similar to Ford’s “hey, we’re going to make a dry clutch DCT that’s cheap enough to put in our cars, unlike those pricey ones the Europeans use for some reason. What can go wrong?!” idea.
To be fair, Getrag had a hand in the Powershift, so it’s not like the Germans get a pass.
I thought they drove well, too. Notchy and direct like a manual, and the gear selection was always pretty decent. You had to take a lot of care not to let it creep or ride the brakes though, which are things Americans don’t do.
Yes, and I think towards the end of the run, revised crank seals appear to have helped. I had a late Mk 3 Focus with the DCT and it was trouble free, and a very nice driver.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the same engine used the Bronco Sport? Good luck with that! Hard to believe all the crappy designs coming out from a lot of manufacturers.
I’ll keep my 2004 Toyota. 200k. Purrs like a kitten. 24 mpg with a V6. Cold AC! Amazing!
They don’t make em like that anymore!!
Yep, they have already been several grenaded. 3 year old car basically mechanically totaled. I don’t understand why they didn’t at least throw the mavericks hybrid in there. They should have made both standard hybrid then levels of hybrid with full ev options. But who knows what hell ford has waiting in that department.
Can’t go wrong with a 04 to 09 Toyota hybrid. They just go and don’t complain.
We know someone who got a Bronco Sport new for their daughter as a graduation present. It’s a 2022 with the 3 banger, oil pump failed at 68,000Mi after a fight with Ford since it was out of warranty they got a new engine minus kicking in $1000 they kept it but still sucks… but it’s Mi, they are under the usual Ford brand loyalty drug, so they will just keep buying Fords…
Ironically the Bronco Sport replaced a hand-me-down Mercury Mariner that was worn (157k) but clean and not too much rust…
Escape was definitely a better product. I think they really nailed the bronco sport design they just made it’s a ticking time bomb. With a horrible power train. It’s especially bad for them in they have gotten a lot people to give them a second chance with bronco sport. But I don’t think many of those people will ever give them another. They never take that into their calculations. Probably some of that is the Michigan brand loyalty bubble. But they must be awake most of country getting away from that. There always the don’t buy this from ford even with ford engineer families. Or wait a year. As far as I’ve heard it’s firmly in the don’t buy. Maybe this ev platform will be ok and have a bronco of some form on it.
Unless you get the higher trims that can option the 2.0L. Although you’re still saddled with the 8F35 transmission which has its own issues.
Are there any cars with wet belts that aren’t reliability nightmares?
So far, the wet-belt 1.2LT 3-cylinder in the 2nd-gen Trax, and earlier in the new small Trailblazers seems to be holding up decently.
There were some teething issues in the timing programming during a stop-start event in the 2024 models, and that one class-action lawsuit started by the lawyers for the two people sharing one Trax that suffered a catastrophic engine failure at 10,400-ish miles, but so far these engines seem to be holding up better than the F*rd turbo-3s.
We have a 2024 Trax LS and it’s been just fine for the 31 months we’ve had it so far.
GM seems to have a hit on their hands with the Trax, so far so good and yeah I’m not seeing a lot of horror stories about it yet…
The Trax 1.2-liter is going to be interesting to see long term. Chevy is selling a lot of them.
What worries me is not the 60,000 mile within-warranty failure rate. It’s the 60,001-150,000 or so range where it is out of warranty but should otherwise be a solid reliable vehicle still but may not be worth enough to fix if the belt goes.
This is the mileage range that seems to be plaguing the Honda Accord 1.5 turbo head gasket.
Ours came with WarrantyForever included in the cost of the vehicle.
Engine Coverage:
Engine block and all internally lubricated parts, including crankshaft, bearings, pistons, camshaft, lifters, cylinder head, valves, rocker arms, pushrods, timing components, manifolds, flywheel, balance shafts, harmonic balancer, valve covers, oil pan, oil pump, fuel supply pump, vacuum pump, dipstick, seals, and gaskets. Also includes electric oil pump, motor/generator, drive motor dampener, belt tensioner, high voltage cables, and internal fasteners.
Turbocharged / Supercharged / Enhanced Engines:
All of the above-listed parts or equivalent plus: turbocharger, waste gate controller, intercooler, hard lines, compressor, clutch and pulley, bypass valve, injection pump, lines, and nozzles.
Transmission CoverageAutomatic:
Case and all internal lubricated parts, including oil pump, valve body, torque converter, clutches, gear sets, bushings, solenoids, electronic shift control unit (internal only), transmission mounts, cooler, hoses, dipstick, and tube, plus seals and gaskets for these components. Also covers powersplit device, reduction box, and internal fasteners.
Drive Assembly Coverage: Front Wheel Drive:
Final drive housing, and all internal parts, including: carrier case, gear sets, chain and sprockets, bearings, bushings, axle shafts, axle hub bearings, propeller shafts, universal joints, drive shaft support, fasteners, seals and gaskets for the components listed above.
Of course, there are caveats and limitations. I hope we never need to use the warranty.
Nice. Haven’t driven a Trax but I just got out of a Trailblazer rental with the 1.3T 3-cylinder. I was prepared to ridicule the vehicle and that engine but came away impressed for what it was. If they stay reliable, it and the Trax will be nice vehicles for a lot of people.
Not even including the Trailblazer, the 2nd-gen Trax has already outsold the entire 22-year-run of F*rd’s Ranchero in just three model years. (2024-2026)
There are over 780,000 1.2L 3-cylinders out there in the Trax and Envista alone. Add in the Trailblazers and Encore GX and you’re looking at close to a million of these little powerplants out there since 2021. Even more if you include overseas models like the Seeker.
Ford Engineer: Hey, we are getting heaps of reports that the wet belts in this engine are failing well ahead of schedule. What are we allowed to do?
Ford Accountant: *tap tap tap* Well, it looks like we would lose too much profit if you replace them both with chains, so pick one and do it.
FE: But, they are both failing and both cause engine failure? Wouldn’t it make sen….
FA: Choose one before I move you to the LLM integration department.
Ford Operations: We built it proper, we did!
FA meets FO.
Can’t wait for Mazda to bring back a rotary-
Curious to hear about this more from our European commenters where this type of setup and failure is far more common, however it also seems that they place far less value in reliability than US customers do, or at least used to and replace cars far more frequently.
Not European but we get the Euro(UK) Fords in New Zealand cos the steering wheel is on the correct side of the car. Years ago we nearly bought a Fiesta Sport with the 1.0 Ecoboost AND Powershift gearbox. My wife preferred the VW Polo. We dodged a bullet there! Fords market share since the Powershift thing went down has plummeted. The Escape wasn’t a great seller (we had one of those and it was actually OK my parents have one and its really good, but neither had/has the powershift), my wife really wanted a Puma due to its cute looks, but when I told her about the wet belt thing she said that was the dumbest idea she had ever heard and my wife is engineering illiterate so that says a lot. When we went to trade our Escape in we were told we’d get nothing for it because of the Powershift gearbox even though it didn’t have one, thats how bad the reputation is. Ford sells three cars here in any meaningful numbers, Ranger, Everest and Transit. They are a shell of their former selves. They used to be one of the biggest brands on sale in this country. My parents and grandparents always had Fords.
Major one is from PSA. Everyone seems to have a horror story.
Ford wouldn’t want their economy cars to last too long. Got to keep the customers coming back!
Come back to what? They have no economy cars. The $20k Maverick hero ballooned like Farley’s bonus check after Ford declared victory in their war on quality.
I suspect these would be lots of people’s last Fords ever.
You’re probably right.
The last car anyone in my family bought from the big three was a brand new 1992 Dodge Caravan. The sliding door fell off its track in our driveway right after we brought it home from the dealership.
It’s been only Toyotas and Hondas ever since…
Not if it’s metro Detroit. We have a lot of “it has to be big 3” no matter what types here… After my monumentally poorly made and engineered GMC Sierra, back to Hondas for me… won’t make that mistake again…
“back to Hondas for me…”
Watch the 1.5t and 2.0 Hybrid head gaskets.
No wonder Nissan, Hyundai and Kia dealers have no incentive to improve. Not when avoidable mistakes like this keep customers coming in the door.