I posted this in the tranny forum, but it may be more suited for the engine forum; I've got no idea...to the story:

I was exiting from the highway yesterday and was slowing down as I took the off-ramp. Suddenly, I felt a very small bump (like when you pass over a seam in the road, except only one bump instead of two for both axles) - no bang, no weird noises before, during or after. The off-ramp sloped uphill, so I went to hit the gas and got no throttle response. The motor was still on, idling smoothly at ~800rpm, but NOTHING when I hit the gas. At first, I thought it dropped out of drive, so I put it in neutral but again, no throttle response. I noticed now that the orange wrench light on the left of the dash was on. I pulled over, put the truck in park, shut it off, and restarted. It was fine after that, and has been fine the couple times I've driven it since.

Any idea what happened? Should I have it looked at? It's an '06 5.4 V8 with 69k on the clock. I just had it aligned and the tires rotated a couple days ago...not anticipating that being related, but I suppose they could have knocked a sensor or wire out of whack...again, no idea. I'm hoping you guys can impart some knowledge.

Thanks in advance!

 

The orange wrench on the dash means a communication issue between the electronics on the throttle body and the gas pedal itself. Since this vehicle has no throttle cable it relies on that communication to know how far to open or close the throttle plate.

If you look in your manual if you have one, it does say in there what the wrench means.

I'd be willing to bet that it just somehow lost communication for some reason and didn't allow the plate to open until it was powered off and reset when the key was turned again. I have heard of a few others having this issue and it seemed to be solved each time by simply turning the truck off and then back on again.

 

Wow, ok...to be honest, I didn't even check the manual - I assumed the wrench was a general "check engine" light. If I had known it was much more specific, it would have been the first thing I checked.

That diagnosis makes sense...is there any fix for it? Or just accepted as the occasional hiccup?

 

If it happens frequently, you may need a new throttle body assembly.

 

Ok, hopefully it will continue to be fine - thank you for the help!