A mechanic trying to find a leak in a Ford Focus engine used a small and relatively inexpensive tool to determine the leak was in a different spot than he initially suspected.
The video documenting the finding comes from Royalty Auto Service (@royaltyautoservice). Royalty Auto Service is a prolific TikToking mechanic shop based in St. Marys, Ga. It went up on Oct. 28 and has gathered more than 221,000 views since.
In it, owner Sherwood Cooke, Jr. discusses a Ford Focus with a coolant leak. But he first talks about the tool he’s using. It’s an Oiiwak-brand video borescope. The borescope allows the user to take a 50-foot cable with a camera on the end of it and see what it sees via a small LCD video screen on the face of the device.
The cost is misleading
He claims, “When I first got it sent to us, I’m like, ‘Wow, this thing is pretty doggone good. I actually bought one for everybody in the shop because they’re like 60 bucks.” (Amazon currently lists it for $72.)
“We were skeptical at first,” chimes in the person recording Cooke.
“Yeah, because it’s so cheap,” Cooke responds. But he’s determined that it’s a good, inexpensive, useful tool for diagnosing where leaks are coming from in an engine.
“Look at this thing, leaking, dripping, dripping, dripping,” Cooke says, seeing this issue on his borescope. At first, it looks like it might be the cylinder temperature sensor allowing the leak. But then they inspect it further with the aid of the borescope.
“Easy to think that that was actually the problem,” says the person recording.
“It took me a minute to get to get to the top of this thing, but this is above it. There’s an outlet right here, and you see that stream of water going right there. See it right there?” he points out. “The water outlet above the sensor is bad,” he says. He then notes that the whole water outlet assembly will need to be replaced.
Cooke is certainly a fan of the borescope. He uses the rest of the video to recommend all mechanic shops to get several for conducting diagnostics.
How does Ford measure up?
As the comments revealed in response to the video, there’s some skepticism around Ford as a car brand, but it may be getting better.
A Ford Authority article from August noted, “In recent years, Ford hasn’t performed terribly well in select customer service studies, much of which can be blamed on the fact that the automaker has experienced its fair share of quality woes in recent years. Coming off years of issuing more recalls than any other automotive manufacturer, Ford has been working to right that proverbial ship, however, and we’re starting to see signs that things are indeed improving – which was once again the case in a newly-released study.”
That showed Ford 8th out of 16 car brands in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) 2024 Automobile Study, beating out domestic competitors like GMC, Chrysler, and Dodge, and scoring just below Chervrolet. Ford also bested brands like Hyundai, Volkswagen, and Nissan, with Subaru, Toyota, and Honda getting the top three spots.
Commenters weigh in
While a few reported themselves fans of the Oiiwak, one was puzzled by the strategy.
“So, here’s the thing,” one offered. “Why spend time using a camera when you know that your going to pull it apart anyway?”
“Because you can literally get a diagnosis within minutes,” another person answered. “Don’t have to tie a bay up waiting for parts and can give the customer a quote without having to take it apart.”
Another pointed out, “I’m replacing one of those today. Waiting on a couple more parts!”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Royalty via online contact form and TikTok comment and to Ford via email.
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