Ford F-150: Heated vs. Non-Heated PCV Valves

A customer recently came into my store looking for a PCV valve for a 2004 Ford F-150 with a Triton 5.4L. The part he was given wasn't anything like what he needed. My question is two-fold, 1) What are the Ford engineers thinking and 2) what is the correct part? It looks nothing like a normal PCV valve, it has a wiring harness connector on it. The worst part is, none of our vendors offered anything like it. Not even Motorcraft.

Currently, Ford uses heated and non-heated PCV valves. The purpose of the PCV heater is to prevent the PCV valve from freezing in cold ambient temperatures. Heated PCV valves are heated either by water or electric.
Water heated systems use engine coolant to heat the valve to prevent freezing. Electrically heated systems use a heating element enclosed in the PCV valve to prevent the valve from freezing.

Ford currently uses two types of electrically heated PCV valve systems:

* Thermal harness controlled – On vehicle application that are equipped with a thermal harness to the PCV valve. The thermal harness only provides electrical continuity to the heating element when temperature are less than
40°F (5°C +/- 7°F (+/- 4°C)) . Typically this harness is located close to the PCV valve.

* PCM heater controlled – On these applications the PCV heater is turned on by the PCM. When the intake air temperature is less than 32°F (0°C) the PCM grounds the Positive Crankcase Ventilation Valve Heater Control (PCVHC) circuit and turns the heater ON. When the intake air temperature exceeds 48°F (9°C) the heater is turned OFF. The PCV heater is also OFF when the engine is not running to prevent unnecessary battery drain. The heater is also OFF if the vehicle charging system is above 16 volts. This minimizes heater element overload.

Courtesy ALLDATA