Throttle Body Pandemic of Ford Makes

[jetbird]

Gearge,

I got the evil limp home opportunity in my 03 on the way home from work this week. My car is at the local Ford dealer who does all my service work. They are replacing 4 COP's and plugs at no charge. Hopefully, this will fix the problem. I have 47,000 miles on the car and no problems for the last 25,000 miles. They have been a great dealer up to now; we will see how this works out. Thanks for all the great help you provide.

Regards,

Jim (jetbird)

[George]

Originally Posted by Phillip

The T-bird still runs OK with the throttle assembly replaced. The only weird thing is that the T-bird does not seem to have the get-up-and-go like it did before. It definitely does not run like a vehicle in the limp-home mode, but it just seems like a restrictor plate has been placed on the car. Anyway, I should not complain, as the "wrench" does not appear on my dashboard, but my fingers are still crossed that a COPs issue will not appear in the future.

Phillip; you may have a COP problem. Very often I've heard of them replacing throttle bodies and a few weeks later the COPS. If your not happy, have them look at those when yopu get a chance

Jim: It's great that you have a good dealer - And your still good up to 100,000 miles on the COPS

[donnervogel]

At about 47K miles this past week the dreaded wrench and limp mode. Unfortunately didn't know about this problem and took it to my local mechanic (not Ford Dealer). Of course the problem was diagnosed as the throttle thing so $1000 down the drain with no refund as it was supposedly fixed. Got two miles from the place and back to limp and wrench (or should it be wretch!).
Anyhow after another several days at the garage our guy found the Ford COPS recall (shouldn't they have mailed this info to us years ago???) so car taken to the dealership.
The dealership didn't want to hear about my mechanic's diagnosis and all the stuff I printed up from the Thunderbird forum after finding out about this. They had to "diagnose it themselves." The guy wasn't too pleased that the new throttle was put in at the garage (how do we know it was new? he said), etc. I gave him the stack of info printed up from this forum and told him to give it to the mechanic.
Magically a few hours later got a call confirming COPS was the problem. A day later car is back on the road...hopefully the fix will last. The fix was free but ....
The $1000 rip off is crazy as the mechanic says the flaw in the system makes it look like that is what needs to be replaced. No way you can know and then out $1000 as "no refunds."
Oh well.....

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by George

Phillip; you may have a COP problem. Very often I've heard of them replacing throttle bodies and a few weeks later the COPS. If your not happy, have them look at those when yopu get a chance

Jim: It's great that you have a good dealer - And your still good up to 100,000 miles on the COPS

I guess I will have to wait until the Wrench appears . . . It is not like the problem I had before when the Wrench appeared and the car was clearly operating on less than 8 cylinders. Rather, the car is sluggish with the new throttle body. Don't know what to think.

[Mino]

New to the forum. I have an 03 that has had the coil problem "fixed" and now have a throttle sensor and throttle body problem which are currently being "fixed". Once the new throttle body is in I was told I may still have a PCM problem. The coil problem with the associated gasket problem was covered under a recall, the throttle sensor / body issue by an extended warranty. The money is one thing, the safety and ass pain another. The current problem resulted in being stranded overnight and an $800 tow.

When I had the coil gasket problem I was told that some of those parts which being manufactured at the time had quality control problems and that the new parts corrected those defects. I don't know yet why the throttle parts are failing. Does anyone know if their problems have been corrected or are we simply putting on new but equally defective parts? Until I find out I will be highly disinclined to take this uncertainty out on the open road again, and will likely sell the vehicle should this happen again.

Does anyone have any insight into the "permanence" or quality of these throttle "repairs". Are they really repairs or just equally defective parts replacements.

[George]

Mino:
First of all, WELCOME to The Forum!!
I don't recall hearing from anyone who had one replaced having to have it done over again.
Can anyone here, who had it done, comment?

[Mino]

Thank you for the welcome George. I see you are "Member of the Year 2006", congratulations.

I intend to ask the service department handling my current repairs if they will approach Ford with my questions / concerns about the throttle repairs and report back if I learn anything.

I'd hate to think what would happen should one suddenly lose power, the engine defaulting to idle as mine did, while on the interstate in a metropolitan area and passing a semi with one or more vehicles foolishly riding ones bumper (as often happens). Its disconcerting to realize engineers, who consumers are basically forced to trust, are building vehicles with such vulnerabilities. Has anyone converted their T-Bird to carburetors and a "real" throttle cable? ;-)

Which brings up a related point, and don't let me hijack this tread, but power response to pushing on the pedal to pass in this vehicle is, what should I say, awkward? When pressing on the pedal to pass the vehicle seems to need to think it over for quite a while before abruptly adding gas and downshifting. Sounds appropriate enough, but the end result is a very awkward / hard application of power. Awkward in the sense that one is usually changing lanes (ie turning slightly) when the power comes on, which throws the vehicle a bit off balance. Too much electronics involved I expect. I've found by far the best way to pass quickly is to shift manually. Can fully "automatic" passing be "de-tuned" or smoothed out somehow?

[Mino]

I just spoke with the service manager handling my repairs. Apparently the problem is the PCM (Power-train Control Module) and not the throttle body. No estimate on when the new PCM will be available, its currently on back-order. He did tell me that he is not aware of PCMs being inherently defective due to quality control problems etc, and has seen very few such failures. Apparently my problem was a fluke and not necessarily likely to be repeated. That is of some comfort.

[George]

Interesting,the dealer saying that. If they're not a problem, why do so many dealers have problems getting them ? BTW, Read up on this by doing a search. I believe it was TBIRD GIRL that found some in FL

Now, you said, "but power response to pushing on the pedal to pass in this vehicle is, what should I say, awkward? When pressing on the pedal to pass the vehicle seems to need to think it over for quite a while".
I believe that to be transmission response. Maybe Quickdraw can weigh in here on this. But, many owners had similar issues and ultimately had their transmissions re-flashed and problem solved. You may want to look into that as well.

[Mino]

Thank you George.

When I first became aware of the passing issue, I thought it was due to either the intake's brains or the transmission's brains. But I thought it was just something I'd have to live with in the computer age. Based on your thoughts I'll ask the dealer about re-flashing the transmission. Thanks again.

By the way, you've already got my vote for 2010 Member of the Year. :-)

[George]

Mino:
No problem. Now try this link and my post #8 - open that TSB.
http://forums.thunderbirdforum.com/s...ead~t~3607.htm

Thats the TSB that Ford should have for reflashing. BTW, you can find lots of stuff here by using the search function. Even if you don't have a problem but thinking about a subject TBIRD related. You can probably find it here somewhere.

As for member of the year, I don't think they do that anymore, but thanks for your vote anyway.
George

[Mino]

Just spoke to the service manager. Apparently Ford issued a programming update(s) for the transmission. I may not have the latest which may be the cause of my problem. He's going to look into it.

Not sure why the PCMs are a bit difficult to get. Either they seldom if ever fail so they are not locally stocked, or they fail a lot thus keeping them in short supply. He did tell me that the last time he did have to order one he was told it would be a week or two, but received it in about 4 days.

[yrbamje]

George,
Do you suppose the Lincoln dealer would be more "up" on these problems or are they unique to Tbirds?
Jim

[George]

Absolutely Jim:
I switched about 4 years ago to Lincoln. Couldn't believe how much the Ford service department didn't know about our cars.
As you're probably aware the engine/drivetrain are Lincoln LS, so they have same/similar issues. Therefore more familiarity with the mechanical end.

[B.Burrell]

Thank you all for your posts. I'm taking my bird in to the dealer in the morning well armed thanks to all of you. I have the dreaded "My wrench lite is on and I don't feel like moving" syndrome going on with my car. I think you might have saved me a lot of money and aggravation. I'll let you know what happens.