[Tif5572]

Anyone ever have the issue of the computer for the engine and the computer for the transmission miscommunicate and the car go into limp mode?? Just happened to me today and was not fun! I went to pass someone leaving my town and the car just bogged down badly. After shutting it off for a few minutes and restarting it, it was fine but super weird!

 

[maydk65]

Multiple threads on this.

 

[Engineer]

This has happened on mine a few times. Nothing in the DTCs other than communication errors. Starts right back up. Has always happened after I come to a stop from modest speed, then turn left and start to accelerate, just a few minutes after a cold start, if it's going to happen. I've started carrying an OBDII reader in the car so I can always be ready. At least two of the times I had just filled up that day or the night before. So I started thinking this way:

1. Communications failures can be all kinds of things. While they can be hard failures, they can also just be overloaded data links from a lot happening at once. So I don't want to read too much into the communications failures without something else to back them up.
2. I started thinking about what else might make a car stall after driving 45 or so, stopping, turning left and accelerating. Hmmmmmm... Maybe moisture in the tank?

I know my car sat on the dealer lot for months. Check.
Stopping would cause some inertial movement of the fuel in the tank. Check.
Turning and accelerating? Same thing. Check.
Communications failures? Well I imagine if your injectors pull in water and the engine chokes there would be all kinds of messages across the CAN bus in a hurry. Check.

So even though they don't recommend it in the manual, I bought a bottle of fuel system cleaner and put it in and filled the rest of the way with 93. Haven't had a problem since. Did it fix it? Who knows.

 

[Tif5572]

This has happened on mine a few times. Nothing in the DTCs other than communication errors. Starts right back up. Has always happened after I come to a stop from modest speed, then turn left and start to accelerate, just a few minutes after a cold start, if it's going to happen. I've started carrying an OBDII reader in the car so I can always be ready. At least two of the times I had just filled up that day or the night before. So I started thinking this way:

1. Communications failures can be all kinds of things. While they can be hard failures, they can also just be overloaded data links from a lot happening at once. So I don't want to read too much into the communications failures without something else to back them up.
2. I started thinking about what else might make a car stall after driving 45 or so, stopping, turning left and accelerating. Hmmmmmm... Maybe moisture in the tank?

I know my car sat on the dealer lot for months. Check.
Stopping would cause some inertial movement of the fuel in the tank. Check.
Turning and accelerating? Same thing. Check.
Communications failures? Well I imagine if your injectors pull in water and the engine chokes there would be all kinds of messages across the CAN bus in a hurry. Check.

So even though they don't recommend it in the manual, I bought a bottle of fuel system cleaner and put it in and filled the rest of the way with 93. Haven't had a problem since. Did it fix it? Who knows.

Yeah I don’t have a clue as to why mine happened. I always let the car warm up before I go anywhere, even in summer. It happened to me when I was going 25 through town and then I went to hammer on it to pass someone (because they were still doing 25 after it changed to 55😅). I also had the AC cranked but 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ My car was a lease then I bought it right after the dealer got it from auction because he went to auction looking for AWD fusions for me. So
it didn’t sit like yours but who knows. Electrical is so hard to figure out on cars lol

 

[Engineer]

@Tif5572 That is one thing I've noticed though, is just like you, when it's happened on mine it's been when I punch it. And I'm not moving fast either. So like turning left, I'd get through the turn them it would stall. So basically moving probably close to 25 I'm guessing at the stall point. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. Part of the problem is it's so hard to reproduce, and it's so intermittent, that it's really tough to diagnose. I'm just not sure whether the electrical is the cause, or is just secondary. In other words, with all those CAN bus errors, it seems like people are thinking the communications failure is the cause. I'm just saying I think the CAN bus would see a flood of activity if the engine stalls in operation like that, and I imagine data link saturation would cause a rash of communication failures. So I'm not convinced those are the cause. They might be, but I don't see anything so far that tells me that.

 

[Engineer]

Just saw this old post of mine and wanted to mention I also did a battery replacement somewhere in there because it happened one more time. Anyhow, no problems after that. Of course now I'm not driving nearly as much because of the virus but so far so good.

 

[OX1]

Mine did it 3 or 4 times, but has not happened now in almost 2 years.
I have a high end scanner (bi-dir, does live data, etc...) and no issues
I could ever find with it.

 

[Tif5572]

Just saw this old post of mine and wanted to mention I also did a battery replacement somewhere in there because it happened one more time. Anyhow, no problems after that. Of course now I'm not driving nearly as much because of the virus but so far so good.

It happened again after that time but hasn’t happened in a while. But a little over a month ago my husband was driving the car and he went to take off from a light (not punching it or anything) and the car backfired so badly it shut the car off. He started it back up and said it felt bogged down when he would give it gas. Had to towed to the Ford dealer we bought it from and they didn’t find anything wrong. No codes or anything even though the little wrench service light came on.

 

[Engineer]

It happened again after that time but hasn’t happened in a while. But a little over a month ago my husband was driving the car and he went to take off from a light (not punching it or anything) and the car backfired so badly it shut the car off. He started it back up and said it felt bogged down when he would give it gas. Had to towed to the Ford dealer we bought it from and they didn’t find anything wrong. No codes or anything even though the little wrench service light came on.

That's really strange, and doesn't sound right to me. If there was anything that happened that caused the car to shut off because of a bad backfire like that, it should have stored codes. I would expect to see something like a 030X misfire code, for instance, or maybe a catalytic code or something like that even. Probably a whole rash of comms error codes as well.

I would recommend doing what I do: I carry an OBDII reader in the car with me at all times. That way, any time anything happens, or even if I just want to check, I can plug it in and read the codes right there, wherever I am. That's something I would recommend to anybody, not just with this car but with any modern car.

But again, I think it's very strange that the Ford techs didn't find any codes. I think it would be very unusual if there were no codes after that situation occurred.

By the way, how often are you driving the car? With the pandemic a lot of folks aren't driving their cars as much. Make sure you don't let gas sit in the tank forever and get stale. I'm not saying that's what happened at all, but just be aware.

 

[OX1]

That's really strange, and doesn't sound right to me. If there was anything that happened that caused the car to shut off because of a bad backfire like that, it should have stored codes. I would expect to see something like a 030X misfire code, for instance, or maybe a catalytic code or something like that even. Probably a whole rash of comms error codes as well.

I would recommend doing what I do: I carry an OBDII reader in the car with me at all times. That way, any time anything happens, or even if I just want to check, I can plug it in and read the codes right there, wherever I am. That's something I would recommend to anybody, not just with this car but with any modern car.

But again, I think it's very strange that the Ford techs didn't find any codes. I think it would be very unusual if there were no codes after that situation occurred.

By the way, how often are you driving the car? With the pandemic a lot of folks aren't driving their cars as much. Make sure you don't let gas sit in the tank forever and get stale. I'm not saying that's what happened at all, but just be aware.

There is a huge long thread on this. It's happened to at least 30 of us. Hasn't happened to me in almost 2 years, but just did it again couple weeks back.
I have a high end bi-directional scanner. Nothing comes up, no codes. nothing in the module scan. Nothing odd in live data (not that I was looking at it during event, obviously). Read through that thread, one guy had some harness replaced that was chafing, and claims that fixed it. I never really looked into that, as mine stopped as mysteriously as it started (until very recently)

 

[DaMiFo]

Do you guys have a full gas tank when this happens? One thing that people are discovering on the Edge forums I am on (tho with the 2.0's, not ST's or anything) that nearly all owners who experience this have recently gotten gas and the tank is full or nearly full.

Just a thought.

 

[19sport]

That's an interesting note, good to know. I had this happen once, at 1238 miles after taking a right hand turn - went to accelerate, got nothing and noticed the car was in full accessory mode. It started right up with no issue (never even came to a stop).

Checking my gas app, I had filled the car at 1214 miles, so the full tank theory fits my experience.

 

[Engineer]

Folks who are having this happen, do you "top off" your tank when you fill up? I'm wondering if the fill-up is flooding the evap canister maybe. Of course I've had this happen 2 or 3 times, but it's been a long time now. I ran a bottle of Techron through, and changed my battery, and it hasn't happened since.

 

[19sport]

In my case it was 3 days after I got gas. I only let the pump run until it shuts off on its own.

 

[OX1]

Do you guys have a full gas tank when this happens? One thing that people are discovering on the Edge forums I am on (tho with the 2.0's, not ST's or anything) that nearly all owners who experience this have recently gotten gas and the tank is full or nearly full.

Just a thought.

The odds are infinitesimal against me having had a full tank the 4 times it happened. One time it happened on a long trip (where I didn't get gas, but went close to full range). Don't normally top off, but I have here and there. Flooding the evap canister and car shutting down (un commanded) leaves ZERO trace in the ECM?

I put my money on some weird programming issue Ford missed. Hence why the ECM records nothing, it thinks everything is normal.

 

[Tif5572]

That's really strange, and doesn't sound right to me. If there was anything that happened that caused the car to shut off because of a bad backfire like that, it should have stored codes. I would expect to see something like a 030X misfire code, for instance, or maybe a catalytic code or something like that even. Probably a whole rash of comms error codes as well.

I would recommend doing what I do: I carry an OBDII reader in the car with me at all times. That way, any time anything happens, or even if I just want to check, I can plug it in and read the codes right there, wherever I am. That's something I would recommend to anybody, not just with this car but with any modern car.

But again, I think it's very strange that the Ford techs didn't find any codes. I think it would be very unusual if there were no codes after that situation occurred.

By the way, how often are you driving the car? With the pandemic a lot of folks aren't driving their cars as much. Make sure you don't let gas sit in the tank forever and get stale. I'm not saying that's what happened at all, but just be aware.

I’ve worked through this whole pandemic and actually started working in a covid testing lab in June so I drive it a lot! I’ve put about 23k miles on since March😅 so she doesn’t sit around. But with everyone’s hypothesis about the gas thing, I do notice that right after I get gas and start the car, it idles really weird and almost sounds like it wants to stall. But after driving it goes away🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ Idk

 

[Engineer]

I've actually wondered a little bit about the general quality of the gas nowadays. I have no idea what kind of testing is involved regarding the quality of gas sold at the pump (although I've heard there might be very little or even none in most/all states). But my thinking is that especially in a time when a lot of people are driving MUCH less than normal, the demand for gas isn't so great, so the stations are probably holding gas in their underground tanks longer. Octane ratings drop with time, and I'm sort of wondering if the gas gets a little stale.

Now, to some extent you can combat that by buying higher octane, since our cars are able to run fine on 87 (well, unless you have a tune requiring higher octane). But here's the thing: higher octane gas is a lot less popular than 87. So they probably sell a lot less. So in a time when hardly anyone is driving much, you're selling even less of a grade you didn't sell a lot of to begin with. So I'm thinking that 93 (or whatever the highest grade in your particular area is) might be sitting in the underground tanks a very long time, degrading in quality.

I don't claim to know anything about any of this really, and I don't think there's any way to really know without testing it. But it's just something I've thought about a lot lately.

 

[ZenFFS]

2017 = every time i fill up (always topped off with 93) the idle will stumble when i get to light. Everytime.
I like to think it knows a significant fuel change happened and it's an OAR thing happening?
Then, today,,, i noticed my battery has a 2016 build date...
(Sorry to thread jack), but wanted to contribute my idling experiences

 

[Engineer]

@ZenFFS :

So for those symptoms, especially right after filling and topping off, I'm inclined to think evap purge canister problems. Don't top off and see if it still happens. If I'm right, it won't.

You could always data log, if it's OAR stuff you should see it but I really don't think so. Nothing in that makes me think octane. I just think your canister is getting flooded.