random stumble while driving

[Digitalgp]

Past few weeks maybe even going on a month now I've been having an issue with my '15 XLT to where once every so often it will stumble and feel almost like its going to stall and its only happened during deceleration or idle. Nothing came up on my scanner. Its very basic so it doesn't do tests or any of that fancy stuff. Brought it to my mechanic....couldn't find anything. Took it to the dealer. They had it for a couple days before giving it back. Couldn't find anything either, but recommended the BG induction service. I declined and did the seafoam treatment on the intake & in the gas tank at home. That seemed to help for a little while, but it started happening again, but like I said its very seldom. The one morning I was leaving for work it started fine, but then started running rough once I put it in gear for about a minute making the check engine light blink. It came up with a P0206 injector 6 circuit malfunction & P0306 cylinder 6 misfire, but went away after a minute. Put techron into the gas tank on my lunch break & filled up the next morning, seemed completely fine for over a week, even drove it over an hour away for the Metallica concert without any issues. I've been keeping my scanner with me. Last week it started acting up again with the seldom stumble, not throwing any codes, but it showed the P0206 in pending however it eventually went away and then came back into pending yesterday. Spoke to my mechanic and he says since I did the seafoam and the techron he feels the injector itself is on the way out and needs to be replaced so I am having that done later this week since I'm not comfortable touching fuel system related stuff on my own.

Sorry for my long story, but I just rolled 191,000 miles am I good to replace just one injector or should I bite the bullet and have him do all 6 while he's in there? The Ford ones run about $70 a pop which seems cheap for a single injector, but does add up when your replacing all of them. I haven't had to replace injectors out of necessity on any of my cars before so I'm not really sure what the smart thing to do would be.

 

[ProjectSHO89]

The P020x DTC could be the injector (x), its connector (pigtail), the wiring back to the PCM, or the PCM itself. Since this is an electrical circuit fault, all the cleaning stuff was irrelevant to the current intermittent (electrical) fault condition.

Personally, I wouldn't replace any more than the suspect injector without good cause. It's really up to you, though.

 

[Digitalgp]

Ok, I'm just going to stick with having him do the one injector then. I don't know how common it is for something like this to happen on these 3.5's, but I feel like if I didn't have my scanner with me the cause of that stumble would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I will follow up when the job is done

 

[peterk9]

There are other threads on stumble/hesitation as well.

Peter

 

[ProjectSHO89]

but I feel like if I didn't have my scanner with me the cause of that stumble would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Yeah, pretty much. These days, anyone who wants to self-maintain needs the correct tools on hand and the tools are becoming more complex and capable compared to those of previous generations of both vehicles and their owners.

Since there is a specific injector circuit fault code present, presumably set during the stumble episode, it would be best to resolve it first rather than go on a search for all of the possible causes of a stumble/hesitation (there are quite a few).

 

[Digitalgp]

Got the Explorer back with the new injector and so far seems to be running nice & smooth again. No stumbles no pending codes.

There are other threads on stumble/hesitation as well.

I read through some of it when this first happened to me. I can't help but think maybe because this happened to me maybe its happening to others as well. Not necessarily an injector issue, but a code that comes up in pending without setting the CEL and goes away because the issue causing the stumble or hesitation happened once and didn't occur again within the cycle.