2001 4.6 Misfiring (A Sad Tale)
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05-08-2006, 06:13 PM
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2001 4.6 Misfiring (A Sad Tale)
This is my first post so please forgive my clumsiness and BAD spelling.
I have a 2001 F-150 Super Crew. I bought the truck new and I do my own maintenance and troubleshooting. I am a pretty good mechanic and have the necessary tools and equipment so this was no problem. It is knowledge and talent that I ran out of.
About two weeks ago my truck started misfiring for no apparent reason. It was the classical at speed under load miss so naturally I knew it was some sort of ignition problem. I continued to drive the truck, as I knew eventually it would throw a code and then I could get to work fixing the miss. Well after a couple of days and still no code I was getting pretty worried. I took the truck down and changed the spark plugs even though I knew this probably would not work. Low and be hold it didn’t. The truck idled great but ran real bad on the road . Like I said before, the typical high-speed spark plug or coil-over-plug (COP) miss. I know what a COP miss is all about because I have changed three of them. I have a bad habit of washing my engine and eventually water gets down in the spark plug well and shorts out the COP. After changing three of them I figured out how to seal the COP boot with dielectric grease so I thought I had the problem whipped. But, back to the problem at hand for now. After several days of troubleshooting and still not finding a thing I gave up and took my beloved F-150 back to the dealer. This was the first time they had seen the truck since I drove it off the showroom floor. Of course they were glad to see me and yes they had their credit card machine all lubed up and ready to go.
SO here is the story. I live in Maryland and on occasion it gets kind of cool here. It ain’t Wisconsin or Minnesota cold but cold enough to find a bad truck battery. Twice last winter my truck battery died and I had to get a jump so I changed it out. Unknown to me when I disconnected the battery I lost part of the computer diagnostics. (Which you can reset without all the big dollar diagnostics equipment "I now know".) So when my miss showed up two weeks ago the computer could not report it, as it didn’t have the programming to do so. The dealer reset the computer and ran the diagnostics and sure enough there it was. Number three-cylinder misfire. Why the COP failed is still a mystery to me, as there was no evidence of water on it the plug or in the spark plug well. They changed the COP and the miss is gone. Now $251.00 later my truck is back to running like a Swiss watch.
The point I am trying to make is the potential loss of computer programming from simply changing the battery and you won’t know about it until it is too late. So use a power backup of some sort when you disconnect the battery. I was lucky, as my problem was not fatal. Also I learned that my fool proof COP sealing job probably ain’t.
Thanks
I have a 2001 F-150 Super Crew. I bought the truck new and I do my own maintenance and troubleshooting. I am a pretty good mechanic and have the necessary tools and equipment so this was no problem. It is knowledge and talent that I ran out of.
About two weeks ago my truck started misfiring for no apparent reason. It was the classical at speed under load miss so naturally I knew it was some sort of ignition problem. I continued to drive the truck, as I knew eventually it would throw a code and then I could get to work fixing the miss. Well after a couple of days and still no code I was getting pretty worried. I took the truck down and changed the spark plugs even though I knew this probably would not work. Low and be hold it didn’t. The truck idled great but ran real bad on the road . Like I said before, the typical high-speed spark plug or coil-over-plug (COP) miss. I know what a COP miss is all about because I have changed three of them. I have a bad habit of washing my engine and eventually water gets down in the spark plug well and shorts out the COP. After changing three of them I figured out how to seal the COP boot with dielectric grease so I thought I had the problem whipped. But, back to the problem at hand for now. After several days of troubleshooting and still not finding a thing I gave up and took my beloved F-150 back to the dealer. This was the first time they had seen the truck since I drove it off the showroom floor. Of course they were glad to see me and yes they had their credit card machine all lubed up and ready to go.
SO here is the story. I live in Maryland and on occasion it gets kind of cool here. It ain’t Wisconsin or Minnesota cold but cold enough to find a bad truck battery. Twice last winter my truck battery died and I had to get a jump so I changed it out. Unknown to me when I disconnected the battery I lost part of the computer diagnostics. (Which you can reset without all the big dollar diagnostics equipment "I now know".) So when my miss showed up two weeks ago the computer could not report it, as it didn’t have the programming to do so. The dealer reset the computer and ran the diagnostics and sure enough there it was. Number three-cylinder misfire. Why the COP failed is still a mystery to me, as there was no evidence of water on it the plug or in the spark plug well. They changed the COP and the miss is gone. Now $251.00 later my truck is back to running like a Swiss watch.
The point I am trying to make is the potential loss of computer programming from simply changing the battery and you won’t know about it until it is too late. So use a power backup of some sort when you disconnect the battery. I was lucky, as my problem was not fatal. Also I learned that my fool proof COP sealing job probably ain’t.
Thanks
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