My nightmare :X LONG POST

10seccobra

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Hello everyone, little about my self. I run a fabrication/machine shop in london ontario. We also do modular mustangs and custom boosted aplications

I am a ford guy true and true and my other car is an 02 mustang GT Vert Roush clone with a built aluminator 03 cobra heads and a Shelby GT500 ported blower, 6 speed, mini tubbed ect. Love the car!

I have had a few daily drivers while owning the mustang... Grand am GT, Dodge Dakota, Lifted dodge ram crew cab 4x4, and a 1999 Subaru Forester. aslo have a E-250 shop van, F-150 and 03 explorer.

Well I have always wanted a all ford stable at home and was never happy with the Forester although it had some good points I have always loved the LS since the day it came out.

A few weeks ago I decided to upgrade the subaru for a LS. I had orginaly wanted an 01 black v6, it how ever was in horrible shape after the 3 hour trip too see it. I looked at a few more but found what I thought was a good deal on an 05.

I looked at the 05 and just loved it (v8 I might add), ya its no race car but I already have that. I took it for a test drive and it ran perfect quite and smooth. Made a deal certified and etested with warrenty and dropped a $2000 deposite on the spot.

I waited a week to pick it up and had to drive 3 hours to pick it up so I wanted to make sure when I went it was ready to go.

Well the night came to pick it up. I waited at the dealer ship for 2 hours well my car was "on its way" and it finnally showed up.

The car seemed to be running off as I herd him pull up. I had a look and noticed the interior hadnt been detailed. I bitched a little but I had to go as I was dropped off there and had a 3 hour drive home. I get in the car and its running like **** now, I pull out and the car goes into safe mode. (****)

I drove it right back and basicly said what the hell. This car was running perfect and now it barley moves. whats going on. They tell me to leave it for a day and they will take a look. I said kewl, whos driving me the 3 hours home?

Suddenly its going to there mechanic who will stay all night if he has too.

They take me off of there giant lot and bring me too a back yard mechanic. Im already thinking what the hell have I gotten my self into. The mechanic pulls out a scan tool but wont let me see the codes or anything. I explained to them I know probably more then them about cars so if there try to screw me they will be the ones getting screwed. I ask several times to see the scan tool and was told no. I went for a walk to a coffee shop around the corner and said FIX IT!.

I come back 1/2 hour latter and they havnt touched the car. I asked whats going on and still get no answer. I then FREAKED on him and he went right to work pulling the coils off the car as its running :S. He said it was a bad coil and he is looking for it. I told him the scan tool will point him in the right direction! yet again he says no. After another hour I have had enough. I told him to let me see the tool and he still insists that I not so I told them all I am taking my new car and I will be back in 30 min.

I drove it stright to a parts place and borrowed there scan tool.. Well all 8 cyklenders had a miss fire of coarse, it also had a Throttle proccessor code. I figured the 8 miss fires are clearly from the mechanic so i cleared it all and drove back,, It asked like a Bad TPS from the way it was driving. I went back to the mechanics and told him I am using his tool to show him what is wrong.

Guess what? HE DIDN T KNOW HOW TO USE THE TOOL AT ALL,. He then asked the salesmen who sold the car in what ever language if I could teach him?!

At this point Im loosing it. read the codes and the car seems to be fine. I can watch the data stream on his hand held and can clearly see the motor or the TPS are causing the issue as it woud not respond to C/T P/T and WOT correctly. I went back to the part store and asked them if they had the parts.. they did not. So I made a deal. I will fix this at home but they are paying for the parts. They aggree'd and I was on my way home finnaly.

The whole way home I was flicking the ignition to get it out of safe mode. Once on the highway how ever the car ran perfect.. 31 Miles per gallon!!!! I was amazed. I put a half tank in and after an hour the gas needle didnt move. I simply could not beleive it and fell in love with the car it self!

Well I get about an hour from home.. I start feeling a miss, engine light comes on, more misses, more misses and now I m doing everything in my power to make it too my shop.

I get the the shop with it just stumbling at 10PM at night, grab my tool and start reading it. A miss fire, H and D miss fire and of coarse the Throttle prosser code. At this point I figure fix the TB issues then see if the miss fires clear up.


The next day I picked up a TPS sensor, had then pay for it over credit card. Still didnt fix it so I picked one up from the junk yard for 100$ out of my pocked ( full TB with all sensors) I then threw it on and sure enough the car drives again (yay) no more safe mode but still missing like crazy and pulling miss's on H and D.

I went back to the part store and picked up some coils.. Car started running much better with 2 coils but still missing on 8 and like crap over all..

Next I thought i woud toss in some new plugs, why not.

I put in 8 new plugs but no diffrence.. Still runs like crap. I start testing the injectors while its running. Sure enough injector 8 is not firing right.

WOW ;(

At this point Im thinking.. What did they put in the fuel system? it was perfect now after e test this thing is running horrible and how in the hell did it pass etest like this anyways?

Soo I pick up a fuel filter and tear off the fuel rails. I put them on our tester and ran all 8 at 32 PSI with cleaner on the bench.

3 had clogged jets, 2 wouldnt even fire. I eventually got all 4 jets working on 6 and slowly brought the last 2 back to life..


with all 8 working I blew out the lines and replaced the filter that pissed out dirt and brown when discunected. I then put the new one in and the car back together.

SUCCESS!!!! It runs smooth again. Praise the lord I thought.

At this point I was 200$ in parts and about 13 hours labour.

I take it out for a sping.. I hear spark knock now. OR light rod knock or piston slap...

GREEEEEEEEEAT!

After some driving I really feel it spark knock.. I drove it for about 50 KMS ( i think 30miles) and notice my gas gauge is moving very quick. I figure the filter was leaking so I checked it out and sure enough its fine.. Where is my gas going>?)

I checked for knock sensor code figureing the computer is throwing fuel like crazy and pulling spark causing the fuel to go..

NO codes tho..

I then added some fuel injector cleaner to the system and 30$ of 91..

With in 70ks of light light light driving I still have no codes and I am on empty again.. This car is now worse then my 99 dodge ram with a 318 long box 10 inch lift and 38 inch mud tires.. I cant beleive it..

More gas again. another 30$ witch worked out to 22 leiters of fuel as I checked this time lol. and 79 k;s yet again and I need more gas.. I think that works out too like 7 MPG or something :(

I took it out on the highway, went back up too 20 MPG crusing at about 55mph and the gas gauge stopped moving :). Sure enough back in the city Im seeing 10 MPG and watching this gas gauge move again :(

Engine light came on soon after. rear catalitic converter 02 has went.. Well Im still not thinking this is the cause at the rears are for the cats and not used by the PCM to control fuel trims..

I have since put 200 k's on the car going thru fuel worse then my 700HP mustang on ethonal at this point wondering wtf is going on..

I am getting missfires at random on 8 still. I m thinking either the injector is done of the cylender is missing lots of compresion..

If anyone has any ideas or a good base Miles per Gallon these acheive I would be very happy to know so I have a goal to get the car too.

Im not blaming this car.. I am blaming the dealer tho..

Other things that dont work at this point are rear passenger window and the CD player but at this point they are the least of my conserns at this point..

Any tips would help!
 
Its a 32 valve V8 and its a heavy car. I average a good 15mpg driving it hard.
 
Are you seeing a TPS failure or an ETC failure? ETC Failsafe on these cars is usually caused by one or more failing COPs (usually on cylinders 3 or 4, which are closest to the PCM); one of their failure modes causes interference that the PCM reads as an ETC failure.

I can't tell for sure if you did this or not, but the rule of thumb on the LS's AJ is to replace all of the COPs and plugs together. A bad plug can damage a COP, and vice-versa, so if you don't replace them as a unit, you can end up chasing the same misfire over and over again. The only way to tell if a COP is bad is to have it load tested (they don't always throw codes when they misfire); load testing involves removing the COPs, so it's usually more cost-effective to skip the test and simply replace them all. (Plus, the LS's COPs are rather craptastic in the first place, so if one's going, the rest usually aren't far behind.)

FWIW, my '06 usually runs around 20MPG in mixed driving. Additionally, Ford issued a TSB back in '04 or '05 that said 91+ is required, despite the "recommended" language in the Owner's Guide and on the filler door.

Edit: I don't know if it holds true in the Great White North, but Ford has an extended warranty on the COPs in the '05s. The details are posted around here somewhere, but you should be able to ask your local Ford dealer if it still applies to your car.
 
And how much did you pay for the privilege to work on this car? :)

My '05 averages 20-21, no drama interstate to in town.

On yours, did you disconnect the battery and reset the PCM? Personal thoughts is your car might have sat for a long time, got funkies growing in the tank that your test drive and the dealers prep work caused to start going through the fuel system. Once everything clogged up the puter could advance timing to the moon without it detonating. Now that you have it fueling again it torched the cat before it realized it was overfueling. Bad COP's are notorious for screwing with the other sensors.

If it were mine I'd start over, reset everything and let it relearn. BTW, the lie-o-meter on the dash isn't the most reliable thing for mileage.

Good luck,
Jamie
 
My '06 gets mid 16-MPG in town. If I drive like I'm transporting dynamite then it can hit 17. Of course, if I drive like I stole it then it can easily hie 8-9 MPG too. Although, in all fairness, to hit the low-end MPG range usually required me to go do something like AutoCross. Lowest I've hit with spirited city driving was around low 14-MPG.

Over the road I get around 26-MPG without much effort. Usually drops 1-2 MPG in mountains.

I second what others have said about just replacing all the coils and plugs at once. The Visteon brand seems to be the go-to replacement, but you can also use the Accel coils if you swap the connector pin-out. There's a thread buried on here somewhere all about it. The coil covers won't fit but the guy who did the swap said it was a night tight fight and hasn't had any water intrusion issues.
 
OP, How is the MPG being figured out, by the car display or hard math (note to our friends in the South up here our Canadian gallons are ~20% more than US gallons, so there's that variable as well).

Sounds like you got off to a bad start with your LS, hopefully it works out.

By watching just the gas gauge only I'll go on to say that with some cars, not necessarily the LS, the the sender unit can go bad ie: the gas gauge doesn't move proportionally with the tank level so you could 'run out of gas' at a quarter tank.

On the LS's you should keep it above ~1/4 tank at all time 'cause who doesn't want to gas up this sexy beast at any opportunity (obviously the guys averaging <10-15 mpg) lol.

Any pics of the 'stang?
 
Why would you not just return the car and get you money back?? Seems crazy to do all this work and spend the $$. You can find another clean, mechanically sound, LS for way less effort than you are putting into this one...
 
Engine light came on soon after. rear catalitic converter 02 has went..

all the driving done with those misfires (especially while trying to get it home when you had to keep restarting it) has killed the cat, the other ones are also probably almost toast.

these cars are notorious for going through coils, and as mentioned, one of their biggest quirks is a faulty coil emitting interference that the computer mis interprets as a faulty throttle body.
 
read thru most of it, skimmed the rest. Did you ever replace all the coils? If not, do it!!! Should have rented a car and drove back home.
 
And how much did you pay for the privilege to work on this car? :)

My '05 averages 20-21, no drama interstate to in town.

On yours, did you disconnect the battery and reset the PCM? Personal thoughts is your car might have sat for a long time, got funkies growing in the tank that your test drive and the dealers prep work caused to start going through the fuel system. Once everything clogged up the puter could advance timing to the moon without it detonating. Now that you have it fueling again it torched the cat before it realized it was overfueling. Bad COP's are notorious for screwing with the other sensors.

If it were mine I'd start over, reset everything and let it relearn. BTW, the lie-o-meter on the dash isn't the most reliable thing for mileage.

Good luck,
Jamie
Was thinking the same thing. You will drive yourself crazy trying the chase down the "ghost-in-the-machine" if you haven't reset everything. Good luck. Sounds like you could really use some about now.
 

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