Anyone had this happen?

[Frodo]

Went to accelerate and enter freeway. Punched the gas and the car took off and then engine quit. Pulled off road and looked at warning lights. Wrench was on and check engine light. Turned car off and wrench went out but engine light stayed on. Car seemed OK now. Pulled into service station and looked at manual. Wrench was "limp home" electronic throttle conrol problem" and Check engine light was emissions. It is at the Ford garage now. Anyone else had this happen. 2003 Bird 46000 miles. I have extended warranty.

This page contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated. As an eBay Partner, and Amazon Associate I may be compensated if you make a purchase at no cost to you.

 

[George]

No problem here, but possibly water in the COPS (coils over the plugs). There have been quite a few issues with water getting under those seals. Keep us informed please.

 

[Frodo]

Update

Ford diagnosed electronic throttle and replaced. $433 later drove home and same happened three times. Took to Ford today and mechanic had same happen but no codes showed up. Now talking to factory engineers. It acts like fuel gets shut off but on computer every thing looks OK. Ideas??? Bad fuel?? Hoston is in the process of chaging over to 10% methonal so maybe the new gas is raecting with dirty tanks?? Last gas fill was Shell. Anyone have fuel problems?

 

[Frodo]

Update Problem solved

Master Mechanic could not find fault with the new throttle sytem, fuel showed to be okno problem codes. He decided to stress test the sparkplug coils and 4 failed. Replaced with new coils and car is back to being a tiger. I had noticed that the bird didn't quite have the pep I thought it had while new but just shrugged it off. If you are losing pep and or have the dreaded wrench come on and car stall check the coils under stress if every thing else looks OK. The mechanic also talked to some Lincoln mechanics and they said th e LS V 8 had some problems with multiple coils going out. Same engine I think.
Happy driving

 

[George]

Frodo:
Thanks for the update.
I thought it would be coils in my post #2. But I also thought it would be water related.
Do you know if they found moisture in the coils, which caused the failure?

 

[Frodo]

No water

No water in the coils. They just failed under stress. Gas milage has improved from 20 to about 21 GPM

 

[Lee]

The seal around the coils and plugs let loose and water got in causing my 02 Bird to sputter like it got a tank of bad gas. Had less than 10K on the Bird. They replaced several coils and plugs and put a new seal in... I have only had one other incident since. Went to pass another vehicle, punched it and the engine stalled out. Had to throw it in neutral and restarted it on the fly.....

 

[roryazure1957]

Ok for now

My 2003 has 44,800 miles and no problems with anything ever so far and I seem to have more miles on my car than the other folks I've met.

 

[George]

Frodo: I thought I had posted something about replacement coils but cannot find it so I will start a new thread for them.

 

[dchamb]

about the methanol....my manual says absolutley no methanol should go in car. Has that changed?

 

[George]

Since Frodo had coil issues and some cars are prone to this here are a few notes from others and how they found out:
"My car developed a missfire but only very occasionally. I had a dealer tell me that my coils were shot and the cavety was full of oil and water too. I brought the car home and found that they never opened the hatch to actually look inside. When confronted with that, they simply said it was common and that was probably what was wrong with mine.
I went to another dealer and they found a very small leak in the rear of the passenger gasket. They said it was not going to be a problem for some time, but I had it replaced anyway. There were no codes and no indication of a missfire. all that was several months ago.

Last week, it really started missing. I took the car to a little town Lincoln/Ford dealer and the first thing they said to me was the full of oil and water splash. I assured them that was not the case, so they put it on a different computer and it identified coil 4 as being bad. 4 is the rearmost coil on the passenger side.
One coil and a sparkplug and I was up and running again. I supplied my own coil as I bought a couple a few weeks ago, just in case.
In short, I got hosed by dealer #1 and actually complained to the better business bureau.

I know someone else that had some coil trouble on 2 occasions as well. All the troubles seeem to me on the passenger side, his, mine and now others. I also know that the early gaskets were prone to leak and Ford made a running change. If any of you have a very early '02, I suggest you bite the bullet now and get those gaskets changed, especially the passenger side."

 

[George]

One more:
"Before I let you guys know my final bill for the coil repair I will attempt to explain the cause for their failure.
A leaking valve cover gasket on the passenger side caused a chain of events which had the other side of coils trying to compensate which led to 7 of 8 coils going south. When they pulled the valve cover off the drivers side they said that gasket looked okay but that they would keep an eye on it & have both sides checked before the warranty runs out.
Now for the cost. Stress testing the coils & replacement $1009.10. Then a COP tune up which was to change the coil boots & spark plugs for $447.07. Then replacement of the valve cover gasket which was $425.05 for a grand total of $1881.22. Since they said 7 of 8 were bad I had them change all of them.
If your bird is approaching the 35,000 to 40,000 range I would ask your dealer what they would charge for a look see at this area. Add in the 4 new Pilots, front brakes,oil & filter change & engine de carb & fuel injector cleaning for a grand total of $3637.40."

Okay, I am posting this stuff to help us all understand what may happen along the way. So, don't forget to read the Replacement coil thread:

Top Issue- 02-05 Ford Thunderbird Ignition Coils COP

2002-2005 Ford Thunderbird and Lincoln LS have a widely known issue with Ignition coils going bad and also fouling out spark plugs causing misfires . Just by replacing these components, you may be able to bring new life to your engine! At the time of this post, 59.30 for an entire set of...

forums.fordthunderbirdforum.com

 

[George]

I am not sure that the TSB ever got posted. Very often our dealers do not know that these exist so you may want to print it and have it handy, if you have these issues:

 

[jtharaldson]

Tsb

I am not sure that the TSB ever got posted. Very often our dealers do not know that these exist so you may want to print it and have it handy, if you have these issues:

I tried to open this, says the file is damaged, I would love to read this, my 03 is in the shop now getting these replaced, 53,000 miles

 

[jtharaldson]

Coils

Well I'm glad I found this forum, I really thought the dealer was sticking it to me, but I can see, this is a real problem. My extended warrenty is paying for 7, I have to buy one, I guess it's around 1000 bucks 😱

 

[George]

[Quote: I tried to open this, says the file is damaged, I would love to read this, my 03 is in the shop now getting these replaced, 53,000 miles]

JT:
It just opened on my system, from this thread. So here's three suggestiions:
A) Go to this forum from another computer and open it there.
B) Go to the dealer and suggest they look up buletin number 03-14-4 on their OASIS System
C) PM me your email address, and I'll send you the PDF file via email

It would be better to open it and print it. That way you are dealing from fact when you see the dealer