Well.. this thread is epic
Guess it's time for me to join the forums and join the CEL club. Here goes...
My first experience with the CEL came on Sunday 3/10 and pretty much ruined my birthday. I have read the posts here and would like to offer my data to the pool, because I think it may throw a monkey wrench in a few of the current theories.
Central Texas
Altitude about 450ft
Temp 67f, sunny, bit of a head wind (gusts up to 15)
2013 5.0, manual transmission, 3.73, bone stock, build date 10/12
906.4mi, 2.5 weeks owned
system info all normal, no vehicle health report because I never set that up
Drove up an 80mph toll road at 80-90mph for about 45 min. In 6th for nearly all of it, no cruise control (will not use until after 1000mi, old habit). Perfect day for a drive. Get off the toll road and come to a stop sign and the car chugs down a bit. Maybe 300rpm, then corrects. My 2011 did that from time to time so I don't think anything of it. Started to go from the stop and the car bogs down, lurches, then sputters. I swear I hear a ding/chime and look at the dash. CEL is on. I stopped the car and called Ford for a tow. Now, to be clear, "started to go from the stop" does not mean "launched". I was driving calmly and was low on the throttle until the car started chugging, then pumped the gas to keep it from dying in the intersection. CEL was solid even after restart.
Ford offers to tow the car to the nearest dealer (not one I would go to normally) not the one I bought it from. I text my salesman on his day off and he contacts me back and let's me rant a bit. Car has to stay the night at the tow yard because no one is open on Sunday.
Service department gets the car on Monday and calls me to get the story. As if having my car die on my birthday wasn't ironic enough, I have to quickly rattle off what I know to the tech because, surprise, our baby that was due on 3/29 was coming early. Long and unrelated story short, it's a girl and she is perfectly healthy...guess she just didn't want to wait. Tech calls me a few hours later and tells me the car is ready, just needed reprogrammed. I was unaware of this thread as of yet. For obvious reasons, the car stayed at the dealer until this morning (Tuesday 3/12).
First service report states the following:
120111A TSB
etc, etc
reprogrammed pcm and reset miss fire profile per tsb 12-01-11 745
Drove out of the parking lot. Chug, blinking CEL and I literally have not even passed the dealer's lot. Not even 1/10th of a mile. Second CEL problem. This time it's about 45-50f and the car is cold. Maybe 2k rpm in second gear, not even half throttle. There was no traffic coming down the access road so I didn't need to push it. Oddly, similar headwind at about 10mph.
This part of Texas has one way access roads, so I have to go through a turn around to get back to the dealer, but the light goes out and the car behaves at the stop sign. So I drove as gentle as I could down to the dealer I bought it from, looked up and read this thread while I waited for my salesman, told him what I found, talked to the service manager and the tech and left my car there.
Told the tech about the temporary code while pulling out of the other dealership. Told him about "holding at 3000-4000 rpm" suggestions to try and reproduce it. I really feel like he has a pretty good grasp on the issue and that the TSB may not be a fix. I will try and get back with an update as soon as they finish repair #2 and as soon as I get mama and the baby settled in at home.
Sorry to be so long winded, just trying to be thorough.
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Bryan "kwg"