The Ford stealership (the only one within 30 miles) refused to even attempt putting in a helicoil with the cylinder head on the car. In fact, the service advisor said they wouldn't even put a helicoil in to begin with -- they'd have to put an entirely new cylinder head on it.
The local (non-stealership) shop, the only one in my small town, didn't want to accept the liability of getting metal shavings in the combustion chamber -- I even offered to sign a release, but no dice. They were concerned with firewall clearance issues, the long "access tunnel" (requiring extensions that would wobble around a tiny bit -- not good when creating threads) and metal shavings.
For LE$$ than it would cost me to have the local shop remove the head and fix the threads, I can remove it myself, have locking steel inserts installed in ALL of the spark plug holes (so I'll never have this problem again) and get MSDS headers installed. Sure, it'll take a few evenings/weekends, but I've got all the tools and a big garage to work in.
So then, it's OFF with the head!
