Driving at Highway speeds when engine started BANGING hard and smoking from under the hood. Immediately pulled over and witnessed a fireball explode from under vehicle. Luckily, no fire, just a huge burst of flames that quickly went out. However, the ground was covered in oil. While I couldn't see it, I thought to myself that a hole must have been punched through the block and the engine was toast. Nonetheless, I had the car towed to my Ford repair shop for a diagnosis. I was hoping, and praying, that I was wrong and that they could repair whatever the issue was. Unfortunately, I WAS wrong. It cost me $100 to have them confirm my initial diagnosis. They 'offered' to replace the engine with a reman for $7500.00!!, which I declined because I believed that I could do much better having a local shop replace the engine with a salvage. So, I do my research and discover that even salvage engines run about $2k with reasonable mileage on them. Some are cheaper, but already have 120,000+ miles, which didn't seem smart to me. I then shopped for a local repair shop that could do the engine swap on a hybrid. The quotes ran from a low of about $2k in labor and parts to a high of $3k in labor and parts. My dilemma was that the low quote was from an engine swap shop that said 'yeah, i'm sure we can do it. We've done some in the past." This did not comfort me. So, I ended up going with the hybrid specialty shop and paid the up-charge for some piece of mind. While, I laid out a lot of money, I'm hopeful i'll have this car for quite some time.

Now, for the rant. WTF?? How does an engine throw a rod and bust a hole in the block at 84k miles. Car has been well maintained, fluids changed regularly, and garaged nightly, unless something is amiss in the engine design or oil pickup? I guess I'll never know, but it is VERY disappointing...