Monday night, on the way to Fenway, my truck started to give the infamous shudder when pulling away from a stop sign or accelerating at slow speeds. Then yesterday it started happening on the highway after hitting 50 mph. So since I was in Portsmouth, I went to the dealer to see what could be done. It was 3:30 when I came in off the street and explained to a service writer the problem. He went and got the service manager to take a ride with me to see if I could make it happen again. Well no sooner did I hit 50 mph and the tranny shifted into overedrive, the truck shuddered. I asked if they had had any trucks come in with any tranny problems, which he told me no. So since I live 30 miles from the dealer they pulled it right into the garage to diagnose the problem. They hooked up thier diognostic equiptment and took it out to test it under load, since thier was no codes in the computer. They did a power balance test while road testing and found cylinder one missing under load. They replaced the number one spark plug and coil. Runs great now. All this and was out of there in under an hour! Cudos to Portsmouth Ford. P.S. I thought at first it was the beginning of the dreaded Transmission problem. I have had nothing but 33,000 carefree miles since taking delivery 15 months ago. This was a relief, and they made it extremly easy for me. Almost makes me have faith in dealer service. I said almost.

 

Hey SK,

Glad to hear your troubles were fixed fast and to your satisfaction. I almost thought for a minute that you were leading up to the infamous drive line thunk.

Later,
~DM~

 

screwking...

it's kinda odd that the on board diagnostics didn't catch your cylinder misfire and cause a check engine light...but glad to hear that you got away from the dealer unscathed and truck fixed...!

troy

 

did you get to examine the plug to see why it may have failed?