Hey All,

New to the board here and I hope you guys can help me out. I have a 2001 Ford F-150 (4.2L V6) that I've owned since '03. She has served me well but I can tell she's getting a bit long in the tooth. The current mileage is at about 167,000 and I'm hoping to get another 30K at least.

This morning I started her up and when driving away I noticed a bit of a sputtering while accelerating down the street. When I got on the freeway I noticed everything was riding smooth but every time I slowed or stopped and then got back up to 1500 RPM the sputter was there again.

This weekend I got the oil changed and later that evening I noticed the Check Engine light was on. It would go on and off since then. This morning with the sputtering, the light was off.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Has anyone experienced this before? I'm thinking it's about time for a tune up but those can get pricey and I'd like to avoid it if I can. Thanks!

 

Respectfully, with 167k and apparently little trouble, you got a bit complacent about the day issues would come.
Get the code when it appears again and you will have a place to begin for the cause of the trouble.
Otherwise it's just guessing trying to get lucky.
Good luck.

 

Plugs, wires, and maybe a coil pack.

Get the codes read!

 

Codes were P0301 and P0305. Garage says it's the coil pack for cylinder 1 and 5.

 

The V-6 has ONE coil pack that feeds all 6 cylinders, and has conventional plug wires. If the plugs have more than 60k on them, change them. If the wires are original, change them. Use only Motorcraft plugs and wires.

 

That sounds like my issues, except I had the P0170 and P0174 codes(system too lean). I replaced the isolator bolts and the upper plenum gasket set, new plugs and wires, new air filter and fuel filter. I am still having some missing type issues. Sometimes when i accelerate from a stop it "misses" but mostly if I am driving around 60 mph and either accelerate manually or with the cruise it "misses" or hesitates as well. Have not replaced the coil pack yet.

 

Shorty,

I had those codes before too. Replacing the oxygen censors helped as it was running lean. Try the coil pack replacement. Just buy the part and do it yourself. Very easy!!

 

The coil 'pak' has 3 seperate coils.
These coils are selected through lead pairs by the rotation order matrix in the computer program.
Here are the cylinder pairings for each coil.
Coil 1 sparks cylinders 1 and 5.
Coil 2 sparks cylnders 3 and 4.
Coil 3 sparks cylinders 2 and 6.
This igniton is known as a 'waisted spark' system.
When the cylinder in the order is sparked, the mate cylinder is coming up on it's exhaust stroke and takes very little energy. This is the part that is called 'waisted'.
If the coil is faulty, neither cylinder will fire when it's turn comes and sets both cylinders' codes.
The cylinder pairs were selected by what mate cylinder is in it's exhaust cycle and by the 'main bearing positions' vs each cylinder to try and even out the crankshaft and block web loading during the power strokes.
As a reference, the old Briggs & Stratton single cylinder motors that had magneto ignition produced a spark on 'every rotation' of the crank but only spark that did any work was at compression/ignition time.
Good luck.

 

I wound up replacing the coil pack, which was one solid piece, and wallaaa instant fix. No more hesitation and missing.