This is about my mother in law's 2001 Crown Vic. 4.6 liter engine, automatic transmission, about 115,000 miles on the car. The car sits without being driven for 6 months of the year, my mother in law is a snowbird and goes back up to Ohio for Spring and Summer. I have no real maintenance history on the car, she does not know if it has ever had a tune-up. She brought the car to my house today for its yearly oil change and during lunch she said the engine felt like it was skipping or hesitating. She also said it had a lack of power and was getting bad gas mileage. I test drove it before changing the oil or anything else and when going about 30 or 40 mph it definitely did have a bad skip or miss in the engine. It would happen 2 or 3 times in quick succession and then go back to running normally. I could also punch the gas and it would clear up and run OK. It seemed to happen more often under a load such as going uphill.
During my test drive I stopped at the BP station, filled the tank with BP 87 and added a bottle of High Mileage Regane. Prior to putting gas in it the tank was about half full with Walmart 87 mixed with however much Walmart gas she put in before parking the car 6 months ago when she went back home to Ohio. I drove the car maybe 15 miles further and it seemed to run a little better, the skip/hesitation was not as bad and not happening as often.
When I got home I changed the oil and cleaned the MAF sensor with CRC MAF Cleaner and let ot dry while changing the oil. I also replaced the air filter today. I took another test drive and the skip/hesitation was still there at slower speeds just not nearly as bad. I did scan for trouble codes, there were none stored and none pending. The fuel trims on my scanner all looked OK to me but I am no expert at interpreting those.
My mother in law drove back to her house 60 miles from here, she called us when she got home and said the car was running much better and not having the problem nearly as often. I would appreciate any help or info from the Ford guys here, I do not know Fords very well myself. Is there a sensor or coil pack problem that happens on the 4.6 or I was thinking maybe it is a Throttle Position Sensor going bad? I think the Regane and quality BP gas helped some but would not have been enough to completely fix the problem. Thanks for any help on this, I would like to fix it for her, she is on a fixed income and can not really afford to take it to a shop.
During my test drive I stopped at the BP station, filled the tank with BP 87 and added a bottle of High Mileage Regane. Prior to putting gas in it the tank was about half full with Walmart 87 mixed with however much Walmart gas she put in before parking the car 6 months ago when she went back home to Ohio. I drove the car maybe 15 miles further and it seemed to run a little better, the skip/hesitation was not as bad and not happening as often.
When I got home I changed the oil and cleaned the MAF sensor with CRC MAF Cleaner and let ot dry while changing the oil. I also replaced the air filter today. I took another test drive and the skip/hesitation was still there at slower speeds just not nearly as bad. I did scan for trouble codes, there were none stored and none pending. The fuel trims on my scanner all looked OK to me but I am no expert at interpreting those.
My mother in law drove back to her house 60 miles from here, she called us when she got home and said the car was running much better and not having the problem nearly as often. I would appreciate any help or info from the Ford guys here, I do not know Fords very well myself. Is there a sensor or coil pack problem that happens on the 4.6 or I was thinking maybe it is a Throttle Position Sensor going bad? I think the Regane and quality BP gas helped some but would not have been enough to completely fix the problem. Thanks for any help on this, I would like to fix it for her, she is on a fixed income and can not really afford to take it to a shop.
