Powertrain Malfunction Light

[dogbus]

Greetings,

First time poster. I am at the absolute end of my rope with this car. About a year ago, the powertrain malfunction light began to light up and put the car into limp home mode. Upon restart of the car, the light would go away and the car would function as normal. After driving it for a while, it would happen again and be fixed with the same "turn it off and back on again" procedure. What triggers it is seemingly random, sometimes taking a turn too fast will cause it or it will randomly trip while driving on the highway. Sometimes even while idling at a stop light. Could be 50 miles between faults, could be 15 seconds. But at least once every time it's driven.

I let this persist for a while before going to a mechanic who said nothing was wrong with it (thankfully, without charging me for DX). Eventually, I replaced the stock TPS with a Duralast one. This fixed the issue for a while before it came back in full force as it was before. It is a stock 2008 Ford Explorer XLT and is currently throwing codes P2135P, P0443, and P2135. Any help?

(It may be relevant to note that before this was happening the car has had some bad stuff happen to it. Most notably, it was driven with a broken radiator and overcooked itself so much that it was screaming and beeping and throwing alerts before dying on the side of the road. I pushed it home and replaced the radiator and it seemed fine after that. At one point it was driven through a large puddle at speed which somehow killed the engine, as it stalled and wouldn't start back up for about an hour, but seemed fine after it started up again.)

 

[Turdle]

disconnect your purge solenoid and lets take a look inside the wire harness side of the connector. Looking for any sign of heat damage which indicates a poor connection inside the connector. A tiny eyeglass size screwdriver can be used to reform, or bend, the tiny metal connectors into a better connection.

The tps fluctuations could just mean you need another tps setup, either pedal or throttle body. However as above I would look into the connections in the circuit being flaky as you stated you drove into deep water.

 

[dogbus]

disconnect your purge solenoid and lets take a look inside the wire harness side of the connector. Looking for any sign of heat damage which indicates a poor connection inside the connector. A tiny eyeglass size screwdriver can be used to reform, or bend, the tiny metal connectors into a better connection.

The tps fluctuations could just mean you need another tps setup, either pedal or throttle body. However as above I would look into the connections in the circuit being flaky as you stated you drove into deep water.

>The tps fluctuations could just mean you need another tps setup, either pedal or throttle body.
What do you mean by this? Replacing the throttle body?

 

[Turdle]

>The tps fluctuations could just mean you need another tps setup, either pedal or throttle body.
What do you mean by this? Replacing the throttle body?

No,
there should be a throttle posistion sensor on the throttle body, and a throttle position sensor ( pedal position sensor) on the pedal.

 

[JAWIT]

Eventually, I replaced the stock TPS with a Duralast one. This fixed the issue for a while before it came back in full force as it was before. It is a stock 2008 Ford Explorer XLT and is currently throwing codes P2135P, P0443, and P2135. Any help?

I went down this road before, and attempted to use an aftermarket TPS, which only made the problem worse. I ended up replacing the entire throttle body assembly with OEM Motorcraft, which came supplied with a new TPS. I wasn't able to get the old TPS off the throttle body, and it wasn't that expensive to buy online. This corrected the issue I was having with the wrench light and engine shut down.

Also, look very closely at the pigtail wiring that connects to the Throttle body TPS and MAF sensors. You may have to peel back the electrical tape to see if any of the wiring insulation itself is brittle and cracked. If so, it should be replaced or at a minimum, taped up in a way so that the individual wires do not touch each other. It's a common issue on these vehicles as they age.