valley_man0505
Member
- Joined
- November 21, 2007
- Messages
- 10
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Appleton, WI
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 Mercury Mountaineer
The vehicle in question here is a 96 Explorer 4.0 and it is being driven by my ex-wife, so I am working on limited information here. After first buying the vehicle used a year and a half ago, CEL came on after 2 weeks. Dealership replaced O2 sensors and 1 catalytic converter and problem went away...briefly. After that, they were unwilling to help since it bad more than 30 days. Since that time, the CEL has periodically come on due to a cylinder misfire--nearly always cylinder 3, but one occasion of a different cylinder (don't remember which one). Also, CEL codes periodically came up that say the catalytic converter needs to be replaced. That is what she tells me they told her at Autozone but I have yet to get a hold of the actual code (maybe Autozone is interpreting a code as being caused by the cat and it could actually be a O2 sensor or something like that).
Yesterday, it got to the point where the truck barely runs and is ready to die. It idles very rough immediately after starting and sometimes dies. I don't think that is related to the cat since it happens so soon after start. It used to go away after warming up, but now it does all the time--even going 70 down the highway (could speed up past 70 yesterday, though). She had the code checked again and it is something with the cat again (damn, i just wish she'd give me the actual code!). How do I attack this? It appears that maybe a lean condition (did get a lean code once with one of the misfires) caused one of the cats to go bad. Which is the more immediate problem since she can only do one at a time for financial reasons (and not even sure if she can do one). Do I go after the lean condition first or the cat. If the lean condition is causing the cat to go bad, I know it will just happen again if I replace that without fixes the lean condition, but I need to get it running now and then work on the rest over the next few weeks. Any suggestions?
Yesterday, it got to the point where the truck barely runs and is ready to die. It idles very rough immediately after starting and sometimes dies. I don't think that is related to the cat since it happens so soon after start. It used to go away after warming up, but now it does all the time--even going 70 down the highway (could speed up past 70 yesterday, though). She had the code checked again and it is something with the cat again (damn, i just wish she'd give me the actual code!). How do I attack this? It appears that maybe a lean condition (did get a lean code once with one of the misfires) caused one of the cats to go bad. Which is the more immediate problem since she can only do one at a time for financial reasons (and not even sure if she can do one). Do I go after the lean condition first or the cat. If the lean condition is causing the cat to go bad, I know it will just happen again if I replace that without fixes the lean condition, but I need to get it running now and then work on the rest over the next few weeks. Any suggestions?