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I bought a 2001 Escape for my daughter. Although it had 150K miles it was in excellent condition. It really wasn't the vehicle that I wanted to buy for her though but it was what she wanted so what can a father do, lol. The next day after buying it the engine light came on. Then it started having issues, mainly at cold idle. By the end of the first year I had replaced every sensor, coils, etc. At times it would seems to be fixed but it never lasted more than a few days or weeks. Because of the problems with the Escape I now own many electronic tools for diagnosing vehicle problems including being able to connect the car computer to a laptop and read everything that is going on. But the one thing I finally found that was most likely the main problem all along was the gaskets in the intake manifold. Actually, I took it to a local garage and they found that those gaskets were leaking. They were rubber o-ring gaskets and were baked hard. They leaked more when cold so once the engine got hot it ran pretty good. So I was really excited when they fixed it, but!, a couple days later and the problem was back! I decided to pull the manifold to see just what they had done. I found the new o-rings were installed but looking at the manifold I realized it was like a hi-rise spacer so there was going to be another set of gaskets under it. I pulled it off and there was an identical set of o-rings gaskets and they hadn't replaced them! I should have taken the Escape back, they charged $127 to put a $3 set of gaskets on top and didn't bother with the bottom ones which turns out were probably worse than the top ones had been. I replaced those and finally, the Escape was running great.
I also want to point out that I had taken this vehicle to a Ford dealership and they couldn't find anything wrong with it.
And I also want to mention one more thing I found wrong with the Escape. Quite some time after fixing the gasket leaks, maybe 2 years, my daughter started complaining about how it was acting up at times. It would randomly quit running but then start right up. Once again I could not find nothing wrong. I had all kinds of false engine codes which led to me swapping some of the old sensors with new sensors and what not trying to track the problem down. I was really getting concerned that it was going to cause her to be in a bad accident. One morning I went out to take another look, I was out of ideas and really frustrated. While it was idling I started lightly hitting things around the engine compartment and pulling on wire harnesses. I pulled on the main harness going to the computer and the engine stalled. A few more times and it quit running. Started back up, pulled on it and it did it again. It turns out that one of the wires, right at the plug to the computer was broken inside the insulation. With so many wires I don't know how I was lucky enough to find it as easy as I did. But it seemed to have a little kink in it. It was a 12 volt red wire. I repaired the break and really have not worked on the Escape now for a year or more, maybe 2 years except for normal oil changes and such. One thing, what was happening with the broke wire is that the engine will move back and forth slightly when breaking or accelerating and it was pulling on that wire just enough to make it quit running, or sometimes just misfire, etc. And it was sending out all kinds of false engine codes. Hope this helps. I have been through it this vehicle and can't believe how many Escapes are out there with so many problems. And with all I have been through I can't help but believe that many of the problems people are having is being caused by the baked o-ring gasket. Check them out if you haven't. Get a Chilton manual which will explain in detail how to remove the manifold. It really is an easy job to perform and it the gaskets are baked, it is less than $10 to replace them. :shades:
Thanks again.
Stuart
Thanks again
Stuart
My questions are: 1) Has anyone tried to install after market cat converters and having problems again? 2)Was the check engine light still on after installing after market catalytic converters?
Any suggestions, past experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated.
after sitting for awhile it will work just fine .but then the next time i drive it for an hr or more it will do it again ,this has happened 3 times now in the last 4 days any HELP will be appreciated may i add that when a code reader is used it displays no error codes
Thanks for your help--Dennis