Ford Maintenance: Cost, Coverage And Schedule (2023) (2024)

Ford doesn’t offer a free maintenance period, but it does offer a prepaid option called the Ford Protect Premium Maintenance Plan. Coverage can last from two to eight years. Within those time periods, you can also choose whether you want to cover less mileage or more.

For example, you could choose 8 years/60,000 miles or 8 years/150,000 miles. The coverage pays for as many scheduled services your car needs, whether services happen every 5,000, 7,500, or 10,000 miles.

Here’s what the Ford Protect Premium Maintenance Plans include:

• Full synthetic or conventional oil changes
• Replacement of normal wear items like wiper blades and filters
• Multi-point inspection
• Tire rotation
• Brake pads
• Spark plugs
• Engine belts
• And more

That’s a lot of stuff, but you wouldn’t need all of those changed at every service, of course. Prices aren’t published on Ford’s website, but we did some digging around on forums and dealership websites. It seems that Ford service costs are priced at around $100. So, a maintenance plan that includes 10 services would be about $1,000.

Recommended Car Maintenance Schedule

Below is an example maintenance schedule for Ford vehicles. Modern vehicles come with computerized maintenance notifications, so follow those or the maintenance schedule in your owner’s manual if different than what you see here.

According to RepairPal, the annual cost of a Ford maintenance plan is $775, which is about $65 per month. However, this average cost will depend on your location, vehicle make and model, and the type of car engine.

General Ford Maintenance Cost

Maintenance is all about taking care of your vehicle ahead of time so that fewer things go wrong later. If you don’t follow a good maintenance schedule, there’s a higher chance you’ll have to pay for expensive repairs down the road. Also, it can be harder to sell your car if you can’t provide a good maintenance history. Lastly, regular maintenance is often required to keep a factory or extended warranty valid.

So, now we know why we need to do it, but how much does it cost? Let’s look at a few standard maintenance items you can find with different Ford models.

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Tire rotations are pretty cheap. Oil changes can also be more affordable than what you see above if you go to a chain or even change your own oil.

Next, let’s compare five-year Ford maintenance costs for a few different models. We’ll compare models from 2016, so you can see what maintenance costs for older cars are like. When you get a brand-new vehicle, you shouldn’t have to deal with high maintenance costs. But as cars age, different things like brake pads and engine belts will start to wear out. In this comparison, we’re looking at what you would pay to maintain a 2016-model Ford for the next five years.

We used the True Cost to Own calculator on Edmunds.com for this information. Keep in mind that the calculator uses localized data. We used a zip code in Portland, Oregon to get these results, but you’ll probably see different prices if you use the calculator yourself. The calculator also assumes that people drive 15,000 miles per year. That’s pretty close to the national average, but you may drive a lot more or a lot less. That also affects maintenance costs.

One interesting thing to note is that most of these Ford maintenance costs are in a pretty similar range over the five-year period. But let’s not forget to account for the value of each car. You can see that the 2016Ford Focusmaintenance cost is much higher compared to its value than theF-150or theMustang.

Common Ford Repair Costs

Repair costs are another big part of the total Ford maintenance cost. The difference with repairs is they are generally unpredictable. Now, if you’ve been driving with your engine light on for the past three months, you know you have to fix something. But normally, repairs come out of the blue. Here are a few repairs that you might encounter with Ford:

If you don’t want to write a giant check to cover an unexpected repair, you should look into some third-party extended warranty options. Also known asvehicle service contracts, these plans can extend coverage for your Ford long after theFord factory warrantyexpires.

Extended warranties repair parts after a failure during normal use. They won’t cover modified parts or misuse. Plans range frombumper-to-bumper warrantiesto basic powertrain coverage, and they can be a lifesaver when an expensive repair pops up. Many people buy them for the peace of mind that their car (and budget) is taken care of.

Our team surveyed 1,000 customers who had extended warranties on their vehicles. Of those who used warranty coverage, about 92 percent said the warranty covered some or all of the cost.

The best extended warranty companies will give you time to go over the whole contract and make sure you understand everything. Here’s what you can expect to find from the top providers on the market today:

• Coverage up to 250,000 miles
• Repair shop is paid directly by the warranty company
• Choice of any certified repair shop you want
• Low or $0 deductibles per visit
• Perks like roadside assistance and rental car benefits

All of our recommended providers performed well in areas like customer service, industry reputation, and coverage options. Compare quotes from them right here: