I need some help/advice. I got my first CEL while putting around Cades Cove in SMNP today. No audible sounds, just the light. Everything felt and ran normal, fuel mileage and gauges were good as well. The autozone scanner read P0284, cylinder 8 contribution/balance, recorded twice. We cleared the codes and drove on back to the campground. All seems good. The truck is completely stock minus airbags, shocks, steering stabilizers, and trac bar. 2011 July 2010 build date. I had shift solenoids replaced due to weird shifts and clunks into reverse, but that's about it.

Yesterday, while the wife was driving and I was drooling on the window, nothing in tow, pulling a step super slow hill, the truck felt like it skipped a gear and then slammed into first from third. Of course I thought the wife did it, but then I got the go to $&@! look which meant she was driving as usual. Was this the event, did cylinder 8 have a hiccup? Would it have taken until the next day, maybe 75 miles to record the DTC?

What do you recommend that I do? For now the code is cleared and so is the rest of our vacation through the end of July. I don't want to waste time at a dealership when I could be site seeing, but I also don't want to mess up a good motor and void my warranty.

I drained the water separator for kicks, none. I floored it after clearing the codes for a few seconds, based on the drag marks and grin, the motor seems great.

Advise?

 

These trucks with the PCM are great at masking problems as much as possible till you have a concern that is so bad it can't compensate.

I'd get it read with a code reader that will read the ford codes.

I don't have too much faith in the autozone readers for the late model vehicles.

 

Injector#8, mabey went on vacation too !