S550 GT oil drain plug

[bob]

Ford installed these wacky drain plugs in our S550's. I want just a hex bolt like every other car but the clever guys at Ford give us things that fail and things not immediately available. These plugs are $50bucks for fancy ones to the $10 from Ford. I found a cheap plug by accident. This Dornan Plug #097-826CD is $6 at the autoparts store. Because you can't just put a hex bolt in your oil pan it is a good idea to carry one of these as a spare. I'm a safety wire nut so I drilled a hole in the flange to put wire through.

 

[bob]

 

[JDee]

My '16 GT has a hex bolt. Never seen one of those gizmos before.

 

[xr7]

Those plugs are used on lots of F150's. Luckily my 2018 3.5L EcoBoost due to a vendor supply issue mine has the aluminum pan. Coming from a salt encrusted state, Minnesota, I am OK with the plastic pan from a corrosion stand point. What gets me is how the morons could put a goofy plug like this is an oil pan and have the plug aimed at the trans and sway bar. There is a need for a senior engineer that has real world experience to slap some sense into these morons. The line I heard was "we design these things to work, not to be worked on." Rant over, Thank you.

 

[bob]

My '16 GT has a hex bolt. Never seen one of those gizmos before.

Maybe 2018+???

 

[JDee]

Those plugs are used on lots of F150's. Luckily my 2018 3.5L EcoBoost due to a vendor supply issue mine has the aluminum pan. Coming from a salt encrusted state, Minnesota, I am OK with the plastic pan from a corrosion stand point. What gets me is how the morons could put a goofy plug like this is an oil pan and have the plug aimed at the trans and sway bar. There is a need for a senior engineer that has real world experience to slap some sense into these morons. The line I heard was "we design these things to work, not to be worked on." Rant over, Thank you.

LOL! Beauty rant! We need a good rant now and again, nicely done!

 

[JAJ]

That's the plug that's used on the Voodoo. It's been on since 2015 all the way through to 2020. They work fine and don't have a history of problems. That, and they're stunningly cheap - they cost about $3 from a Ford dealer.

I'd speculate that Ford chose them for two reasons - first, they go in a composite oil pan (making it out of composite makes it easier to shape it to hold 10 quarts) so they don't want guys with wrenches stripping out the threads in drain holes. Second, it's a lot bigger than the usual M12x1.75 threaded plug that Ford uses. That means it drains 10 quarts of 5w50 as fast as the old plugs would drain 4 or 5 quarts of 5w20. Speed matters in the oil change game.

 

[byronj]

Have you considered getting the aluminum UPR plug? Once you put it in you don’t need to remove it. you just twist the drain spout and drain it. You can even attach a tube to it to direct the oil flow.

 

[blacksheep-1]

Have you considered getting the aluminum UPR plug? Once you put it in you don’t need to remove it. you just twist the drain spout and drain it. You can even attach a tube to it to direct the oil flow.

UPR makes some really cool stuff, most road race guys ignore them because they got a bad reputation for their (drag race oriented) chromoly K members failing on road courses, but just about every drag car in the state of Florida runs UPR stuff.

 

[xr7]

Have you considered getting the aluminum UPR plug? Once you put it in you don’t need to remove it. you just twist the drain spout and drain it. You can even attach a tube to it to direct the oil flow.

I would use the UPR plug or would consider swapping in a different pan.
Don't get why they didn't put a metal insert in for a drain plug.
Detroit Diesel 60 series used plastic pans with inserts. Volvo offered a plastic pan on there class 8 trucks in the past. The only problems with them were from idiots sliding a pan of charcoal under the engine to warm it up in severe cold weather.

 

[Meateater]

Have done numerous track days and 4 oil changes on my 5.2 with that plug. Never a problem. Not drips from the plug. So far so good.