Hi there,

I have an 05 F150 SCrew, 5.4L, 4x2. The check engine light came on as I was driving home last night. This will be my first un-planned trip to the dealership for a warranty repair. Here are the symptoms; check enging light flashes on and off, the truck has a miss, rough idle and there is a strong smell of un-burnt fuel coming out of the tail pipe. The horse power has decreased by roughly 50%. I suspect a bad spark plug coil or a stuck open injector. When I get the truck back, I'll post the fix. Anyone else have this experience?

Shawn

 

So I made an appointment this morning and my wife agreed to follow me to the dealership just in case. When I started the truck, it sputtered a little and ran the way it was the night before. The dealership is about 10 miles away so off we went, needless to say, the truck stopped running 3 miles from the dealership. I was going up a slight hill when I lost vertually all power, I heard a couple pre-ignition knocks and turned the truck off. Called the dealer as I sat on the side of the road, and they passed me on to Ford roadside assistance. I had forgotten about this service and was happy to get the tow covered under my warranty. Very cool.

I talked with the service writer a few hours after the truck arrived and they had found one of the fuel injectors stuck open, so it was replaced. There was a TSB on the spark plugs, so the plugs were replaced as well. The oil was going to be changed and they were going to sniff the exhaust to see how the cat. was working. Expecting good news from the service writer during the second call, I was bumbed to find out that my truck was still running poorly after the injector & plug replacement. I didn't get details about what the issue is now that parts have been replaced, but I am getting a little nervous now...............

Anyone else have this experience or something similar?

 

interesting..i was thinking throttle position sensor.

 

TPS is/has been a common issue on the 5.4L's. Mine needed one at 30K and would throw a code, go into limp mode and limit power. A full key on/key off cycle would usually clear it.

 

My 03 had one of the spark plug wires (allright, its not a wire, but what the h*$% would you call the little rubber thingie that has a spring in it that goes from the coil to the plug ???) develop a small hole that was causing a bad miss. Code reported was a missfire in cyl 8; after some looking found problem; replaced thingie, and all was well. Have since replaced truck with a 06, which may or may not devleop same problem.

 

The injector going bad could have taken out the cat, if it's plugged it will run bad.
On a slightly worse scenario if the injector pushed too much fuel it can hydro lock the engine and bend a rod.

 

Hi Shawn1024,

I have a similar problem on my '06MY at exactly 10k miles. The truck ran real rough like it was in limp-home mode and the next day it would not start at all (DOA). I got the service engine soon, electronic throttle control, battery MIL lights as well as a "Check Gauges" in the message center display. I had to have it towed to the dealer.

The service manager thinks that the problem is electrical? I am not sure and I do not have a good feeling either.

When I have more information, I'll post it.

Tom

 

ohboy44 - you hit the nail on the head. After the bad injector & plugs were replaced, the truck still wouldn't run correctly. They pulled the cat and found that it had more or less melted down inside. The cat was replaced, and the truck runs like a champ! Thank goodness there was no apparent internal engine damage. I suspect that injector was bad from the get go because the truck always idled a little rough and I had a couple other situations where the truck would miss for 10 seconds or so, then clear up and run fine. The engine idles & runs smooth as silk now.

tm85478 - Let us know what happens with your rig, I am interested if your truck had the same problem as mine? I did not experience the same issues with the electronic throttle control, battery MIL lights or Check Gauges warnings that you saw in the message center. I simply had the check engine light flash.

Thanks for the input & responses.

Shawn

 

Shawn,

The dealership replaced the ECM (waited over a week to get it). The truck runs fine now but, I hope I don't have wiring / electrical issues later on.