Just bought a 2001 CV Need Help Please.

Hi, My name is Eric I am 40 and new to the forum. I love ford vehicles and just bought a 2001 Ford CV LX with 199K miles. It is a local 3rd owner car, and is really nice and clean, but needs some work to get it running right. I thougt you guys could help me straighten things out a little quicker and with less money, than if I just started replacing things I think could be causing the problems.
Ok Im going to work on one thing at a time so here is the first thing I want to take care of.
SYMPTOMS:
1. Ruff Idle at start, bucks and and shimeys when cruising.
2. Sometimes at idle the car will rock almost like it has a CAM, other times its as smooth as a sewing machine.
3. Check Engine Light activated on the way to the parts store. He scanned the car and said it was reading 3 of 4 Oxygen sensors were bad, 2 in the front bank and 1 in the rear.

WHAT IVE DONE SO FAR.
4. I bought Lucas Fuel Injection Cleaner Filled Up the tank and added that
5. I bought MAF cleaner and cleaned the MAF " i only cleaned it from inside the air tube I didnt have the special torx to remaove the MAF cap.
6. Filled the car up with fresh 87 octane gas.
7. I have driven maybe 40 miles since I bought the car last week.


I would appreciate some direction, I know many of you guys have lots of experience with these cars and I know this old crown vic is going to serve me well. I just need to get it sorted out a little..Thanks In advance ..Eric in Cartersville GA

2

Welcome to the forum. There is also a smaller forum associated with this one called www.crownvic.net that you may be interested in looking at.

The rough idle and shaking can be caused by a minor vacuum leak. And it will give you the same codes as a bad O2 sensor. Use a little starter fluid to CAREFULLY spray around the engine to see if you can locate the leak. (The idle will increase when you get the right vacuum hose).

On cleaning the MAF, you have to remove it from the housing if you can't get a shot of fluid on it. If the MAF is close to the end of the air tube, you may be able to spray the cleaner directly on it. What you are needing to clean is the wire that the air flows over. And an investment in a set of Torx sockets is worth it. (I think I bought mine at Harbor Freight for about $10. They fit a 1/4 " wratchet.)

Lotsa of luck with your CV.

Thank you i thought i was registering for crown vic.net but i mist have got ceossed up somewhere.

Eric, it would be very helpful if you could give me the trouble codes from your vehicle when they were scanned. Before you go on a parts changing spree, it\\'s important to properly diagnose the problem.

O2 sensors should be replaced every 100,000 miles, unless otherwise stated by the vehicle\\'s manufacturer. Since you said your CV has 199,000 miles on it, it\\'s quite possible that all of them are way overdue for replacement. O2 sensors will go bad, and when they age, they become "LAZY", meaning, the respond slower when detecting leaner or richer fuel mixtures, or whether or not a catalytic converter is working efficiently. However, if you can give me the specific codes it might be able to tell me that you have a problem somewhere else, such as if the code was reporting the O2 sensors with a lean condition, which could be from a vacuum leak. Ford 4.6 intake manifolds from 2001 on back were made of an inferior material, causing them to warp and have vacuum leaks.

Let me know the codes and we\\'ll go from there.

Thanks Mesa, I unhooked the battery cable when I cleaned the mass air flow sensor and the check engine light went out. It has'nt come back on yet, however the car is still loping, bucking and missing as I drive with a very light throttle, If I get half throttle or so, it pulls smooth and strong. I work from home and only drive maybe 25-30 miles a week, so since I cleaned the MAF , poured in some Lucas Fuel Injection cleaner and added a full take of gas I only have about 60 miles logged on the tripometer.
I called around to a couple of parts stores and they said they can't pull a code unless the check engine light is on. Last night I started the car and let it Idle about a half hour in the driveway to see if it would come back on but no luck, for the first 10 minutes it sounded like it had a miss in the engine and the exaust note had a slight put-put-put sound. After that it was sewing machine smooth for the next 20 minutes.
Lastly when I drove to the post office today I gave it about half throttle on the last 1/4 mile before my drive and when I pulled in the driveway and got out of the car a very, strong sulfur smell hit me in the nose like a brick.

I know these are some random sounding desriptions , but I do very much appreciate the help..Thanks in Advance Eric.

Eric, what the guys at the parts store didn't tell you, is that there could be "Pending Codes" stored in your vehicle's PCM, which a good scanner can retreive. Pending Codes will not cause a MIL, Malfunction Indicator Lamp, or the more common name of Check Engine Light, to come on. Pending Codes are caused by a change in the programmed parameters within the PCM. It will monitor the data from the sensor sending it back out of range parameters. if it continnues for a while longer, the PCM will then set it in memory as a hard code, causing the check engine light to come on.

So, you can do one of two things, wait until the check engine light comes back on and then have the codes read again by a code reader or a good scanner, or see if one of the parts store acutally has a good code scaner and not a code reader, so they can retreive the "pending codes".

As to the putt putt putt sound, that's from a cyclinder miss, which could be caused by a bad spark plug, or bad coil pack, including the boot attached to it. On a 2001 CV, each cylinder has its own coil pack.It could also be caused by a dirty or bad fuel injector, or even a bad intake manifold and or gasket, which the 4.6 had problems with, all the way up to and including the 2001 model year.. So again, without the ability to look at "Live Data" from your engine, or having a trouble code to work with, I can't do anymore at this point.

There's a number of things I could tell you to check, but that might be a waste of your time. I'm not about to tell you to change parts, because without that code data, you could just be wasting your money. Just let me know when you are able to retrieve the trouble codes. From the description of the problem you just described in your last post, I suspect that it's only a matter of a short time before the check engine light comes on again.

Eric, also meant to tell you that when the guy at the parts store told you the codes he pulled from your PCM indicated that the 02 sensors were bad, shouldn't have said that. He should have given you the codes and the trouble code info that went with it. There are a good number of trouble codes for O2 Sensors, BUT, that doesn't mean that the 02 sensor or sensors may be bad.

Click on the link to see a long list of OBD trouble codes for your CV. Look closely at how many relate to the 02 sensor. See what I mean?

http://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/