Engine misfire

[ExPlat]

Hi all,
The past two days my 2016 with <11,000 miles has been harder to start and had an uneven idle, stumbled a bit on takeoff. On our way out this morning the ExPlat took much longer than normal before it caught, then gave a little backfire and had a very rough idle. I then noticed the 'check engine' icon had come on so I let it idle and used the MFT to send a Vehicle Health Report. After a couple minutes the VHR was in my email on the cellphone, it said " Urgent Service Required: On Board Diagnostics has detected an engine misfire. Drive in a moderate fashion and contact an authorized dealer as soon as possible. Hmmm...

Our morning errand was a few miles away and there happened to be a Ford Dealership in that direction (not my normal one) so I drove slowly, did our business and stopped at the Dealer. The Service Advisor read my VHR, popped the hood, listened to and felt the motor and told me I could not drive it, not all the cylinders were firing. He said they would provide a loaner vehicle while it was in the shop, I went to the office to do some paperwork and we were out of there in under 20 minutes, amazing.

The SA said they will call when the facts are known, possibly tomorrow, and we drove a nice, nearly new Fusion loaner home. Guess there's nothing to do now but wait and see what happens.

 

[613GT500]

It's likely the injectors, spark plug or coils.
Surprised they couldn't rule those out right away.

 

[thefranchise713]

Ouch... hope it's only a minor fix in the end and not something more major.

 

[ExPlat]

Thanks, these ECB motors are full of tricks, maybe it'll be simple.
About an hour later I had to go back and get something from the car in the shop and the Tech already had the IDS laptop plugged in. I peeked over his shoulder and all I saw on the screen were lines and lines of codes, I tip-toed away and left him to it.

Edit:
My Engine icon on the dash was not blinking. Here is the full VHR that was uploaded from my car to the Ford Owner's website, it repeats itself a few times:

Edit: 09/2019
Ford does not support VHR's any longer, it was discontinued in 2018.

 

[thefranchise713]

The VHR is damn near useless.

With IDS (or a basic scan tool, even), it almost certainly showed a misfire code on one or more cylinders--you just didn't get a blinking CEL because the misfire wasn't "bad enough" (as if any misfire isn't horrible?) to cause imminent damage to the catalyst and be rated as a Class A misfire.

If your repair order shows the exact codes at the end, feel free to share them... I'm curious.

 

[ExPlat]

The Dealer called this morning and said it is a bad Injector, the parts are ordered (injector, gaskets, etc). If it tests okay after the part is installed the car should be ready on Friday. I'll post any Work Order info when I get it.

 

[ExPlat]

The plot thickens... Day 4
My Service Advisor called this morning and injector #3 was misfiring per error codes.
They pulled injector #3 and noticed that it had what looked like rust on it. Replaced with new injector, started engine and the misfire is worse, now #4 & #5 are misfiring.
The Tech thinks maybe bad gas, but not sure because all the injectors would have misfired, maybe. They are also worried about this misfire affecting the turbo's.
The SA has a call in to Ford Engineering but doesn't expect to have an answer until next week.

Looks like my new Explorer will be there a while...

 

[thefranchise713]

Sounds like your dealer is taking care of it right, though. They know there is more going on than meets the eye and escalated it to the experts, and didn't dare shove you back into your vehicle until they were confident that they got it right.

That dealer is a keeper.

 

[ExPlat]

Sounds like your dealer is taking care of it right, though. They know there is more going on than meets the eye and escalated it to the experts, and didn't dare shove you back into your vehicle until they were confident that they got it right. That dealer is a keeper.

Yes, so far the SA seems very sincere, the car was being worked on within an hour of arrival. During our phone discussions today he told me that this could be more serious than at first glance and would not release the car until they believed it was fixed properly. I had to stop by this afternoon to retrieve some gear from the car and the SA said the Dealership Owner was looking at this repair. I guess that's good, I've never dealt with them before but have my fingers X'ed.
I'm not happy about this whole failure but so far it has been fairly painless.

Funny thing is I had an appointment next Monday at my regular dealer to do some other warranty work so had to call them to postpone and ask them to not send the parts back because I didn't show up. We'll get to that another day.

 

[ExPlat]

Day 7...
The Service Advisor called today with the message that Ford Engineering authorized the Dealer to replace all 6 injectors, apparently hoping that will fix this misfire problem.
It should take two days for the parts to arrive then 2 more days for the install and re-diagnosis. I really can't complain, this is a thorny issue and not easy to figure out.

 

[ExPlat]

Stopped by the Dealer this morning and they had done a test on the gasoline, no problem found. They suspect the gas in the tank prior to the last fill up was bad, could happen to anyone.
Ford Engineering also gave approval to replace the fuel rails and associated parts. The injectors are in stock now but they are waiting on the fuel rails to show up. I was able to look at the work being done on the motor, man, this is a big job, expensive too.
The SA also said Ford Eng was not concerned about the turbos at this time.

 

[blwnsmoke]

Sucks that it happened to you on such a new vehicle but if an injector has rust then it sure sounds like bad gas caused all of this (can't blame the vehicle on this one). Do you know where you filled up? Name brand or independent?

Sounds like you are at a very reputable dealership who truly cares for their customers.

 

[ExPlat]

Agreed, I don't think this is the cars fault.
I always try to get my fuel at top tier stations, the last two fills were at known name brand stations, go figure.
Ford Eng seems to be allowing the Dealer to do a thorough job and I'm sure glad about that.

 

[Machine090767]

I am glad everything is slowly working out.

 

[peterk9]

Agreed, I don't think this is the cars fault.
I always try to get my fuel at top tier stations, the last two fills were at known name brand stations, go figure.
Ford Eng seems to be allowing the Dealer to do a thorough job and I'm sure glad about that.

I always get my gas from the same station since I don't travel a lot. If I had to fill else where it would still be the same brand.

Peter

 

[ExPlat]

I am glad everything is slowly working out.

Thanks, hope to get past this and enjoy the car for a long time.

I always get my gas from the same station since I don't travel a lot. If I had to fill else where it would still be the same brand. Peter

We travel a bit so I stick to the major brands but sometimes even that can't prevent trouble. The SA said they see this type thing from time to time, just not as bad as my case - I guess it doesn't take much water to mess things up. The SA and Tech are assuming it was bad gas as there is no other logical reason this would happen (unless it was a prank).
I've been driving a long, long time and this is a first for me, just lucky I guess.

 

[thefranchise713]

I'm just impressed that they're calling it bad gas and STILL warrantying the repair. That's remarkable.

 

[blwnsmoke]

I'm just impressed that they're calling it bad gas and STILL warrantying the repair. That's remarkable.

I've been thinking the same thing. A little bit of water in the 6.7 Powerstroke and the customer is hit with a $10,000 bill.. and yet Ford is covering this.

 

[ExPlat]

The gas/fuel test came back clean so whatever theory they might have was not proven by the test. The only real facts that are known is the car failed and there is a trace of rust on a couple injectors. The Dealer was cautious and would not proceed until Ford Eng gave them permission for specific repairs. If there had been contamination or water in the fuel this might be a different story. However, the SA was unconcerned and said 'bad fuel could happen to me, you or anyone' which leads me to believe there is some wiggle room in this repair.
In truth, I do feel lucky that this is proceeding the way it is.

 

[champco]

The gas/fuel test came back clean so whatever theory they might have was not proven by the test. The only real facts that are known is the car failed and there is a trace of rust on a couple injectors. The Dealer was cautious and would not proceed until Ford Eng gave them permission for specific repairs. If there had been contamination or water in the fuel this might be a different story. However, the SA was unconcerned and said 'bad fuel could happen to me, you or anyone' which leads me to believe there is some wiggle room in this repair.
In truth, I do feel lucky that this is proceeding the way it is.

The rust on the injector makes little sense. Rust takes time and for it to be even surface rust I would think it would be more then a few days exposure, however diluted with gasolene to be rusted. Besides the air moving would make it difficult for the water to just sit there and rust way. Getting it fixed is a blessing and they can blame anything they want. My first thought was it would be cam or crank sensor had come loose.