Last night was not fun. I was driving from home to New York. Literally half way, the engine just completely died on me. The first thing I figured was it might be a dirty crank sensor connector. That seemed to work for a bit, but as I progressed it got worse, to the point where it really wouldn't work. What's odd is that within this time, at one point I managed to get on the highway for about 40 miles before it happened again, and after that it got significnatly worse, finally to the point where it would not start at all.

I then called for a tow truck. So, while sitting, I tried to diagnose. Here is what I've figured out:

1) I don't have to fiddle with anything, but if I let it sit for long enough it will just start.
2) When it doesn't start, the THEFT light starts blinking. When it does, the THEFT light remains off.

I am thinking it may be something getting hot and just completely failing, but not sure what. When I got my truck last weekend it came with a report with it that it had just been at the dealer for a new PCM. The report said that the alternator had a bad diode and 8 out of the 10 coils were bad. I have replaced the alternator but not the coils yet. This failure literally goes from engine running perfect to not running at all, and no roughness, chugging, etc. in between. I had already ordered a set of coils that I was going to change, but the blinking THEFT light has me wondering if that means I should investigate something else. I would rather not take this to the dealer if I can avoid it, but if I have to then I will.

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

-Ted
2000 Excursion Limited 4x4 V10

 

Hi FordCrusherGT

What about a faulty key/PATS receiver? Do you have a spare key to try?

I would say you need to slap a code scanner on it to see if any fault codes are stored first.

I find it hard to believe you have 8 out of 10 coils that are bad especially as you say the engine runs sweet when it is running.

Regards

Dereck

 

I thought about a faulty key. I do not have a spare, the truck only came with one, but I ought to order one. I will talk to my dealer about getting a second. I'm not sure about the receiver, either, is this accessible somewhere where I could check the connector, maybe?

As to the coils, these things can fail in different ways. What I notice with this is that at low RPM/high load situations there's a miss. I've seen this as a failure mode of the EDIS coils, which are pretty similar in concept. Plus, the coils themselves are cracked and look like they need replacement, so I think it's worth while to replace them.

 

Hi FordCrusherGT

Have you resolved this problem yet?

There is a PATS reciever on the lock cylinder and a module behind the dash somewhere to the left of the radio.

Regards

Dereck

 

Hi Dereck,

I haven't gotten the issue solved yet, but I haven't been working on it, either. The truck has been at my friend's shop to deal with changing the rear pads/rotors, engine oil, and trans flush, plus plugs and coils. I am hoping to get it back in 2 weeks. I'm not in any particular rush as I don't really need it right now and I've been driving my fun car while the weather is nice.

 

I have read up a bit more on this issue. TSB 01-6-2 was released for diagnosing PATS issues. Seeing as it was published March 16th, 2001, that would indicate that they were having problems with it early on, seeing as my truck is only a 2000 model year. I have since instructed my friend who has the truck now to schedule an appointment with the Ford dealer to get it in and have this issue diagnosed. The TSB seems to have a pretty clear layout of diagnosing and determining potential problems with it. One other potential issue being noted is the possibility of a poor power or ground to the PCM, which can cause similar issues.

To compound issues further, my fun car had a failure this past weekend, and is now not driveable, so I believe I am just going to put the thing away for the winter rather than rush to fix it now, as I had several other items related to this failure that I was going to do over the winter. The Excursion is 200 miles away at my friend's shop in New York, and the only car I have to drive right now is my Suburban, which I was working on selling and has a bad transfer case.

Hopefully this issue will get resolved by week's end. If the techs at the Ford dealer are good, they should be able to get it done quickly and I should be able to pick up the truck this weekend. I hate it when all this stuff happens at the same time.

 

I just got the call back from the Ford dealer, and the truck is finished.

Now, let me give the full time line here. After this issue happened, I left the truck with my friend at his shop with the instructions to do rear brakes (the rotors were warped), change the coils and the plugs (8 of the coils were bad), trans flush (needed it), oil change (needed it), and coolant flush (figured the cooalnt was probably original, and so it was a good idea). The truck was sitting at my friend's shop for 2 weeks before he started work on it. Once he started working on it he worked slowly, but got it done in 3 days time (not 3 full days of work).

Yesterday, he took it to the Ford dealer. Today in the afternoon I got a call from the Ford dealer saying that the truck was finished. Apparently the transceiver in the steering column was dying, and so it needed to be replaced. I'm going to pick up the truck this weekend. If it has the same problem on the way home, then I know that they didn't fix the problem.

In addition, I had them get me a new key and remote since the truck only came with one set when I bought it. So now I will have two keys/remotes, and hopefully a truck that won't shut off at random while driving it.

 

Keep us posted!

How in heck do you warp rear rotors?!? Drive backwards a lot?

How could it possibly run with 8 coils bad?!

 

I've seen rear rotors get warped when I was a mechanic, so that's not completely unheard of. My concern would be if the reason was because of a bad caliper, which would then cause it to warp again if it wasn't corrected. Hopefully my friend who did the work would have caught that, we'll find out.

As to the coils: these coils fail in pretty interesting ways that still allow the car to drive for a long time. The primary failure is not that the coil actually stops working, but that the insulation surrounding the coil stops insulating. What this will end up meaning is that, under certain loads, the spark will then jump from the coil to some other piece of metal that's not the spark plug, creating a miss. Sure enough, in overdrive with the torque converter locked up below 2000 RPMs, I noticed a hard miss. The truck did still drive, but I noticed the issue. My Town Car (which had EDIS, but the coils are effectively the same in how they operate and fail) had this problem where the insulation broke down within the EDIS coil, causing a very similar hard miss. New coils solved the problem.

Although I suppose the real answer to your question of how it could drive: "Built Ford Tough."

 

see you learn something every day.. I did not know the 00 has a PATS II system on it. Good thing I have two keys.

 

I wish that they didn't put the PATS system in this truck. It's completely an insurance issue and a way for them to charge us more money on what become dealer-only repairs. Insurance companies want anything that prevents the car from being stolen, because that means that it saves them money on having to pay for stolen vehicles. Nevermind the fact that it adds parts that create a single point of failure that can strand you, potentially in a very bad situation. A system that is not crucial to the actual engine operation that, if it fails, leaves you stranded is a bad engineering decision.

Imagine having a system like that on an airplane, and it failed on you right after takeoff when you were 50 feet above the runway, nose in the air. I've done landings like that before, but for those of you haven't, trust me when I say you really don't want to!

I have never had a car stolen. I've had them broken into and vandalized (neither of which would be prevented by this sytem), but never stolen. However I now HAVE had this anti-theft system cost me a total of $600 - $300 for the tow and $300 for the repair - not to mention another $150 to have the special key made up, as opposed to $5 if it was just a normal Ford key. Will the insurance cover any of that? Of course not!

If your car gets stolen, it's just that - a car. Insurance pays up (that's what it's there for), and you go out and buy another one. Sure, nobody wants that to happen, but it's still just a car and not your spouse or children. But when this system fails and costs you a good sum of money plus has the potential to injure you should it happen in a bad situation (I live on a very twisty backroad with lots of blind corners that people go flying around), that is just irresponsible.