We’ve spent some words already admiring mechanic extraordinaire Victor Shack, and how he never hold back when describing his many problems with the car parts, engineering, and manufacturing of the vehicles he works on.
No surprise, he’s in top vulgar form in a recent video that takes us underneath a late 2010s Ford F-150 truck that is getting some engine work performed by Shack and his team. Rather than the engine, Shack’s big complaint is with the oil pan on the truck that is made of plastic and has a plastic plug that he sees as inferior.
Worse, the location of the plug almost directly in front of the truck’s stabilizer bar means oil being drained from the pan is going to spray against the bar and easily cause a mess during the course of an oil change or lots of other routine maintenance procedures.
“Plastic oil pan with plastic drain plug. You pull that thing, you turn it, and it ricochets the oil off the sway bar. That’s beautifully engineered. Then bounces it back down onto here making a mess for you to clean. Imagine doing this, crying like this. It’s hot, and you’re going to drain your oil and try to put that thing back, and you think it’s going to be staying?”
This quote was edited to remove his curse words.
Are plastics a problem on Fords?
Shack appears to be much more of a proponent of oil pans that are made of aluminum or other durable materials, rather than plastic car parts that are seen as cheap and inferior.
For what it’s worth, the folks on Reddit debating the merits of plastic oil pans on an F-150 seem to be on Shack’s side. There’s plenty of criticism in their discussion about how by trying to save a few pennies per unit on car parts Ford and other automakers may be creating lots more problems that then get passed down to vehicle owners.
Among Shack’s other complaints, lots of the component parts underneath the truck appear to be Chinese-made, and the engine block appears to be made out of aluminum rather than cast iron, which is generally seen as more durable and reliable.
“I get more and more amazed, man. Every time I take a new piece apart I find out that it’s a bigger piece of [junk] when I get into it. I’m real, I’m not even attempting to rebuild this pile. I’m just putting a used motor in.”
Time to clean up the mess
Commenters on the clip were quick to defend the F-150 as a hallmark of performance and reliability for current day trucks, with many of them taking issue with Shack’s poor opinion of the brand.
“I put 200k on a 2018 f150 and never had to worry about the drain plugs falling out never even replaced the o-ring so it actually makes it really handy to just reach under there with no tools,” one wrote.
Another acknowledged the problems and messiness caused by the awkward positioning of the oil pan: “Got 2 coworkers, one single 1 asked to use the driveway/garage of the other to change his F150 ecoboost oil, most of it ended up on the driveway. Wife/War Department is still mad about the stain.”
@victorshack Just another F150 everybody says is good. These are definitely throwaway cars.
♬ original sound – Victor Shack
And another said Shack should engineer a solution to solve the oil splash problem and go into business for himself rather than complain about it.
“your missing the boat vic. you should design an anti splash device that you hang on the sway bar. you would nake millions.”
The Daily Dot reached out t Shack via direct message, and to Ford via email.
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