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It's Doing it again!!

DarkFox1

Explorer Addict
Joined
July 20, 2000
Messages
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City, State
Augusta Georgia
Year, Model & Trim Level
'97 Mountaineer
Ok. heh, I dunno who all kept up with my story, but.. about a month ago, I was having horrible gas mileage, extremly sluggish throttle response and just an overall bad driving experience.

I cleaned my kkm, reset the computer and the difference was night and day.. gas mileage jumped from 10-14mpg and I was having no problem.

Well, about a week ago, it all started again, now its slower than ever. My powerband is limited to 2000-3000 rpm... anything above or below that I simply don't get anything out of it.

Today I was messing with a guy in a delsol who was trying to go around me (just cos he was ricey like that hehe) and punched it.. it wouldn't downshift at all and he sailed past me like nothing..

Whats going on with this thing? I take it to the shop, they say theres nothing wrong, I'm not exactly financially fit at the moment to pay $700 for a new transmission. Is it something I'm doing? How do I resolve such? and lastly.. shouldn't a v8 mountaineer be faster than a stock del sol?
 



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Well, maybe the high-windedness if normal. The explorer 5.0 has a truck cam which means that it makes most of it's power down low, and gives out in the upper-rpm's. Although something is probably wrong if you're getting 14 MPG. That's pretty low. Did you ever replace the TPS?
 






oh thats the best its gotten in a year.. usually it gets 10mpg

I took it to the dealership and told them to check my sensors, they said all of them checked out and it didn't throw a code.

My parents say I'm asking too much of it, and one guy told me I dont know how to drive.. but I can't beleive its this slow. I took off from a redlight the other day and it was so slow one of those huge lexus LX470s went around me before I broke 30. I'm not just comparing it to other cars either, it feels sluggish, I feel like I hafta be heavy on the throttle just to get it up to speed. Today it took it to 4000 rpm to get to 30 from a dead stop going down a very steep hill. I dunno whats going on, that CAN'T be normal! even tho the dealership tells me it is.
 






What do you got for mileage on it?
 






~63,000 I actually think its in the 62s.. but it may be upper 62s oils been changed on time since we got it except for once.
 






I wish I was closer to georgia so I could come down there in my mom's truck and test drive the thing. Then we would really know for sure.
 






I'm tempted to go to another dealership and test drive a 5.0 XLT from '97.. 2wd, but I'm afraid they'd get suspicious if I were that picky and then never came around again heh, especially if I punched it and said "hrmm, I wish mine did this"

many people have told me it could be the transmission position sensor, even the head of the dealership's parts dept. but he said since it threw no code theres nothin they can do, could 1 sensor do all this?
 






What about a plugged catalytic convertor?
 






Might sound stupid but maybe your throttle cable has stretched and aint opening the butterfly far enough, mine was so bad i could not use my cruise control except down hill with a tail wind. but i drive a 92 4.0?!?!
 






You might try a different brand of gas. I had an 85 Bronco II and always gougt gas from the same place( I can't remeber brand of gas I was buying) I switched brands and never had a problem after that.
 






hrmm, the cat thing and the cable thing sound possible. I have the stock cats on there, and I have been having problems with surging under cruise control when its 1st engaged.. it eventually evens off.. the dealership says "its supposed to do that" I follow my uncle on a 3 hour trip each summer to the beach.. and when we're cruising I have a difficult time keeping the space between us level, even tho hes crusing at the same speed as I am.

Right now I've been getting 87 octane at "mc murphys" its right next door to our new superwalmart, I dunno if its walmart gas, but its the cheapest in town and all I can afford to run this gas guzzler on at the moment. I'd like to try high test.. but maybe after I win the LOTTO..
 






Nah cant be a cat, I had a bad cat and that didn't hurt my performance really.
 






Have you tried plugs and wires?
 






well I juts got off the phone with a shop, they want $50 to do a diagnostic.. I'm gonna hold off for that kinda price. The guy told me that I am probablly just asking too much of it since its 4300lbs and only 210hp, and theres "nothing you can do" to get it more HP because of lack of parts, however, he did suggest that my sensors may not me optimally functioning.

One thing the guy said that I can kinda agree with is "new cars are made to last through the warranty, after that, the dealer could care less if it fails"

I'm on an extended warranty but it only covers extreme things like engine block cracks and dead transmissions.
 






DarkFox1,
Do a tune-up on your truck. Replace the spark-plugs to platinum, replace spark-plugs wires to MSD or equivalent, change your oil to synthetics, check if you have any air leaks (this could be the reason why you're so slow), reset the computer, drive for about 100 miles and see if it takes the changes.
 






heh, I don't have $400 or whatever for those insanly expensive spark plugs and wires. My oil was just changed about 1k miles ago.

After I reset the computer the engine was REALLY quiet, I couldn't even tell it was running.. now its back to normal, lotsa fan noise. it doesn't seem to have any air leaks, but its hard to tell considering the belts and fan and whatnot are hurling air at me heh how would I check such a thing? (btw how on earth do you even change the spark plugs? I can't get to about 3 of them)
 






Where are you buying them at,there is other places besides Ford.Spark plugs are not that hard just time consuming they make a hell of a difference,I changed my factory plugs at 90000 and it is like night and day
 






do they even make MSD wires for our trucks? I can't find any. Kinda hard to price em heh

I dunno, I want to make sure that is the problem before I spend a dime, I can't go throwing away money right now
 






I would start cheap and just do plugs first and then go from there.
 



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You can spend $20 for Bosch which are OK or spend $55 for Jacobs www.jacobselectronics.com with a lifetime warranty. I got those wires and man, oh man do they help me. Eliminated a miss and smoothed a higher idle down to 700 rpm. I would look at your PCV octopus and follow all of your vacuum lines to see if any have become loose or melted against the block. Make sure your air filter is clean and that the air passage is also free of any obstructions. You may even run a can of throttle body cleaner through as well as injector cleaner (2 bottles on empty tank) and see what happens. Most of these are cheap.
 






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