Looking for help!! I got a 98 explorer eddie baurer. this is my wifes car. I bought it with 80,000 on it and it has been a great little suv. up untill this past tuesday she called me on my cell and asked me to come get her at the grocery store. So I dont know about you boys but when the wifester clalls and shes broke down you kinda shift your butt into high gear. I tried to get a read on this over the phone and she is pretty good about diagnosing problems she tells me that it keeps stalling when she drops it into gear. then restart idles fine then go to drive and it stalls she told me it kinda feels like its tight. funny thing is it will go into reverse fine. she told me she could back it up the whole way home. by this time im already on the road with my 04 fx4 and the car dolly. I get there and back up to the car and she starts it and drops it into gear and its ok. no stalling she puts it through the gears it has mysteriously fixed itself... she opts to drive it home about 1/4 mile from home she comes to a stop sign. and it stalls again after 3 unsucessful attempts to get her to roll again. I pull around to hook up the dolly 4th time she tried again it went into gear without stalling and drove the rest of the way home. now I dont trust it for her and am considering taking to the local ford dealer to look at it. there is no check engine light on or any problems the car has 105,000 now never had a tranny slip problem. any ideas from my ford family? thanks Bob in Pennsylvania

 

Kinda sounds like an IAC problem, but not exactly. You never know though, not all act exactly the same way. I wonder if you or your wife had feathered the gas pedal, with the other foot on the brake, you might have had better luck when putting it into gear? Anyway, check this link out, it might be what you need.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...r_IAC_Fix.html

BTW, I see you're just above the mileage mark for a tune up. Has it had it's 100k tune up yet? Fuel filter and all that stuff?

 

you know I never gave alot of thought to the tune up idea, when something runs fine you just keep puttin gas in it. now that you mention that my wife was complaining a couple weeks back that it seemed to have a miss. and I did notice that the on board console computer thingy in the center of the car that the eddie baurers have has indicated a drop in fuel economy from about 21mpg to just over 17 mpg. I had bought plugs a while back they are hanging in my shop on a nail dont tell my wife... I will also check sensor you mentioned and I will let you know thanks for rattlin my cage sometimes outside ideas help alot. thanks again

 

Hey, what happens on the board.....stays on the board. ;-) Make sure they are Motorcraft plugs, anything else will give you troubles. Would be a good time too to change the wires. Hint: there's an access panel in the wheel well passenger side to access the rear plugs. You'll need a long extension.

 

Definitely do the plugs, wires, air and fuel filters. Also, check for loose vacuum lines. You might want to pull the codes. There can be a code stored even if CEL is out.

 

ok boys i spent most of my saturday trying to get a stuck plug shell out of my 04 fx4 still workin on it. then i moved over to the wifes explorer and I put on new motorcraft plugs, took the IAC off and cleaned it Cleaned the mas air sensor. your right the back plugs on passenger side take patience, fired her up and she set there and ran like kitten. we decided to give her a try and take it to town about 5 miles I noticed just a little miss at low rpms up hill. got to the stop sign in town and it kinda surged and bogged down almost shut off i quick got my right foot to the gas and held the brake pedal with my left foot. and milked it the rest of the home. now i noticed it does not do it at all stops just now and then I am gonna test the IAC for voltage and ohms. any other ideas are very welcome thanks guys.

 

fuel fliter?

 

I'm thinking that fuel filter is a good idea, and maybe check fuel pressure. If the engine running rough, it may set a code that could be read. Take it to one of those auto parts stores like auto zone and check for codes.

 

Most autozones will read the codes for free. Call ahead to confirm. get the codes and post them here. Don't buy what AZ tells you to. Sometimes a code can be the symptom of something else.

 

ok I had a filter in the shop and grabbed a trouble light and lifted the explorer up and found the frame clip on filter. no biggee right? it has those darn little slide on disconnects which i am familiar with so I go to my tool box and fetch my cluster of diffrent size slide ons. after much bitchin and cussin I finally get the old ******* to give up and you guys you might have been right it happend to be a motorcraft filter doesnt neccessarily mean someone else didnt use a motorcraft. any way it was kinda hard to blow through but it did with some effort. so i grabbed up my other filter and made sure it was facing the right way clipped on one end the foward side and can you believe this im sure you can the damn filter is one of the short tubed ones for the duckbill set up. which does not give you any clearance for the release clips; so i head to auto store get the right one and hacksaw the other tube off leaving me little or no spout to get hold of. i ran a tap up in the tubing slipped the release and finally got it off and switched to the new filter. what a damn day it is running nice at idle anyway i didnt have a chance to take it out on the road yet. we will find out tomorrow when we take it to church. never pays to be in a hurry anyway I want thank all you guys for your input I did also remove and clean the throttle body. was a little dirty not too bad. thanks again I will keep you all posted. Bob in pa

 

took the explorer to church today and it didnt miss a beat no stalling or anything. after last nites fiasco with the filter. I did change the filter and also cleaned the throttle body. I am darn glad I to be member of the ford truck enthusiats club let me tell you. Maybe now I can help somebody else! thanks again guys.

 

Right on! Thanks for the feedback and glad it worked out. If the stalling rears it's ugly head again, I'd seriously consider replacing the IAC.