just got home from a 12 hour bus ride as my 95 aerostar,4.0, awd,w/approx 165,000km, let me down.here is my problem: the van was losing power through the Rockies. Took the van to a Ford dealer, asked them to do a tune up, oil change, and a general look-see at it. Found a plugged catalytic? converter, replaced it, cleaned the MAF, checked computer codes, told me that I should replace the plugs "in the next little while" I drove it for 100km, found a wire connector loose, (don't know what it does) returned to the dealer the next day, they connected it, and sent us on our way. The following day my wife & kids set off towing a light tent trailer,(900kg) got about 10km and k-blam, look ma - no engine! My wife told me that she had just pulled out to pass a motor home and trailer, (this was up a long grade) heard a rattle, lost power, lots of brown/grey smoke, and stopped. When I called the Ford dealer he told me that 3 plugs were burnt off and one of them was oil soaked and I think he said there was a hole in the piston. Can anyone think of why this happened? I guess I should mention that a couple of weeks ago the van was in an accident that caused us to replace almost the whole front axle/diff. from the left lower support arm across to and including the right hub cap. So much for my relaxing holiday!

 

That's a lot of bad luck in a short time. If you look on the bright side, it's only an engine and not a major suspension piece that came apart while the wife and kids were on the road. They can't be replaced. If you want a guess, I would suspect the crankshaft position sensor was damaged in the prior accident and allowed the electronic engine control (computer) to feed the wrong timing/spark advance information. The knocking and rattling sound heard beforehand was the ignition occuring at the wrong point. That said, I would have expected an error code to pop up during the dealer tune-up process. Just a guess. Some of our worst vacation experiences turned out to be the most memorable. Good luck!