Unexplained Shutdown

[dogfriend]

I was reading another thread and it reminded me of something that happened last summer.

I was towing our camping trailer (~2000 lbs +/- 500lbs) up a pretty steep hill. The road is about 8-10 miles long, 5 -7% grade, elevation between 5000 - 6000 ft above sea level.

No problem getting up the hill, but just as I crested the top I eased off the throttle just a little bit. The engine completely shut off. I was able to restart no problem, and it never happened again.

Has anyone ever had a similar experience? This has never occurred again since and I don't have any idea why it happened in the first place.

 

[Magicfan25]

My 98 did that once about a month ago. Was on the turnpike for about 2.5 hours... no problems. Got home, went in the house for maybe a half hour. Came out and go to the end of my street (like 8 houses down) stopped at the stop sign, hit the gas to go and it just sputtered and died. Cranked right up, no codes, no ill effects. Been fine since...

 

[dogfriend]

The weird part about mine was that I wasn't stopped, I was moving at about 20-25 mph and had just finished climbing a steep hill. The road leveled out some, but was still a slight uphill. I just eased off the throttle a little, not all the way, and it just shut off. It didn't stumble or buck, it just quit. I put it in N, and started right back up.

 

[mattadams]

I wonder if that could be the ignition module that ford had the recall for? APparently they had problems with cars just "shutting off" with no warning ora nything, right in the middle of traffic. Typically people could just start it up and it would start just fine, but it would happen every now and then...

 

[MrShorty]

Unless there was another ignition module recalled, I think that is the TFI-IV module used on my '87 BII and others: Never used on Explorers that I'm aware of. My BII did it to me on the freeway one day; just cut out and stopped running. Let it sit for a few minutes and it started right back up.
This doesn't necesarrily mean that the same thing couldn't be happening to yours, but that there haven't been enough reports of problems to warrant a recall.

 

[dogfriend]

For my 97 Ford integrated the TFI module into the PCM. My Chilton manual says they did this when they went from EEC-IV to EEC-V (OBD2).

It was kind of like just shutting the key off when it happened.

My parents had a 1984 Ranger that had the TFI problem. It was fixed by Ford, but they didn't trust it and ended up selling it for that reason.

My 89 Ranger never had that problem, even though it was on the list of vehicles for the Class Action Lawsuit here in California. I got the notices from the lawyers, but never heard the settlement terms. The lawyers are typically the only ones who get any significant amount of cash from any of these class action lawsuits.

 

[jasonb]

mine has done that once. i too was going about 20mph coming up on a red light. it cranked right back up and i haven't had it do it again. this was after driving about 2 miles from the house and occured about 4 months ago.