Complete Engine Seizure

[bskoglund]

So driving home today my explorer seized up completely and died. While driving roughly 65-70mph (at the time) the whole car shook quite a bit (almost violently), jolted a little, RPM's were all over the place like the engine didn't know what gear it wanted to be in so it tried them all, twice. Then the RPMs died and I had zero acceleration and I realized the engine seized up. After rolling to the side of the road I did notice a very faint burning smell in the cabin but after getting out to check the engine bay, there was a very obvious odor of skunk in the air which may have been it. Check engine and oil pressure light were on and luckily I had my code reader with me so I checked to see if any codes popped up. After a few attempts to read the ECM, my reader did not find any codes. However, earlier in the day the check engine light turned on and the code was p0112 (Intake Air Temperature Circuit Low Input). I cleared the code attributing it to a bad/dirty MAFs. I did notice the leads right out of the connector were exposed but did not think it would lead to engine failure. While on the side of the road I tried to restart the engine, It would start up with very little trouble but would die again after 2-3 seconds. After waiting about 15-20min while on the phone with a tow, I tried one more time to start the engine. This time it started up and kept running but the idle was very rough, RPMs kept dipping and then the wrench icon came on which if i'm not mistaken indicates problems with the throttle body/motor/position sensor. And then the check engine light came on and the code read p0112 again. I'm hoping that a new throttle body motor and or position sensor and a new MAFs and new leads will fix it but i'm at a bit of a loss. I understand no acceleration due to a bad throttle body motor. But violent shaking and catastrophic engine failure doesn't seem to fit the bill for a simple bolt on $70 part. Any insight would be great.

My mechanic experience is far from master but i'm not new to the game of engine repair/maintenance. And the explorer in question in an 06' XLT V6 with 161K miles and this is the first major problem to arise only after a misfire problem with the #6 cylinder which was fixed by the dealership at roughly 80K miles.

 

[2000StreetRod]

not seizure

Engine seizure means that the crankshaft will not rotate due to hydrolock, bent rod, destroyed bearings, etc. Since your engine will still crank and even run it is not seized.

Since there is 161K miles on the odometer I suggest a compression test of at least one cylinder in each bank. Low compression of all cylinders in a bank indicate a slipped timing chain for that bank.

 

[Trac Marks]

Probably shouldn't have any "exposed leads" anywhere under the hood, so I'd also look into addressing that - are wires pulled from their connector?. Could be the reason for the P0112 CEL to begin with, but arbitrarily clearing codes does not correct. Hope you get it figured out, nobody likes catastrophic failures such as these.

 

[Flag Gibby]

Like what Trac Marks said, fix the exposed wires on the MAF sensor and look for any others. The MAF wires shorting out can and will cause havoc on the system. There was another individual a while back that was having major random PCM issues with his vehicle too and found exposed wires about 1" from the connectors hidden under the plasic heat shielding. If once the exposed wires are fixed everything runs normal, I would say that the issue was purely electrical and there may be nothing wrong with the throttle body. However, it wouldn't hurt to replace the electronic throttle body with that many miles on it.