weird incident

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whatsupadrian

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strange thing happened to me. i was running late for work this morning at 4:00am. i got in my car and peeled out and drove fast while the car was pretty much cold. about 1/2mile down my car beeped once and the temperature light was on, then my car beeped 3 times said reduced power or something. I looked it up and saw that the car will run off 4 cylinders when it gets too hot. Anyways while i was driving i put my car in neutral and turned off the car and turned it back on and the temperature light turned off, put the car back in drive and kept going. Any idea what happened, and also, is it possible to force the car to run on 4 cylinders to save gas?
 
I know the new dodges drop from eight to four at crusing speed but have't heard anything about the LS doing it. I wonder if it hurts the engine to only run on four.
Where did you read about it running on only four?
 
i didn't get an elaborate article on it, but Emergency Engine Power Reduction is a big safety feature in the Lincoln LS
 
Yeah it is called fail safe mode. I would like to know if it cuts off fuel on the injectors of the shutdown cylinders.
 
As far as I know it behaves like a soft rev limiter. It will drop cylinders not quite at random, but the overal effect is to lower the amount of heat being produced. I know it drops the injector, I would assume it drops spark too. I've never had it happen to me yet, but from other people's observations, it runs like a sick pig during this mode.
 
kleetus said:
As far as I know it behaves like a soft rev limiter. It will drop cylinders not quite at random, but the overal effect is to lower the amount of heat being produced. I know it drops the injector, I would assume it drops spark too. I've never had it happen to me yet, but from other people's observations, it runs like a sick pig during this mode.
Click to expand...

Damnit it today during the afternoon i took off for school. I wasn't driving fast or anything taking it pretty easy on the car. I pulled into Molcasalsa to get me a burrito before school and as i was back on the road my car did it again, temperature light came on and then engine power reduced. I turned off my car again and started it up and it said the same thing as soon as i turned it back on. I pulled into a gas station let the car sit for 5 mins then started it up again. After i started it up my check engine light was on but the temperature light wasn't on and the car ran fine, then i drove 20 miles with no problems all except for that check engine light.

Yes when you run the car in reduced power mode it drives horribly. It idles really rough and has crappy acceleration. Also it sounds like a big electric fan turns on when in reduced power and has a bit of a whining sound that increases on acceleration.

I know someone with an OBD-II scanner and i will go use that later on today but i don't know how to or what to look for. So if someone can give me some instructions that it would be greatly appreciated.

If someone can shed some light on this situation that would be great thanks... BTW the car is nearly at 50k miles. 2001 Lincoln LS v8. My dealor warranty expired on the first of January. But i have an aftermarket warranty that has a $50 deductable. So if my problem will cost more then that to fix then i will probably send it to the dealor.
 
the obd II port is just below the steering wheel near where the right knee rest. Go to autozone if you guys cant get the obdII to read for you. autozone will scan your car for free.
 
Just a guess, but have you checked your alternator. When mine was dying all kinds of :q hit the fan. For some reason the alternator doesn't just croak, it slowly drives you nuts in the process. :Bang

It sounds like an electrical or pcm problem and you can check the voltage with a meter at the cig lighter.

Next time it does it, make sure the cig lighter is getting 14volts.
 
There is a large thread about this some where on lvc where we talked about this, so ill make this short. I had the same problem, tried a few things to diagnose it. First i thought i had air bubbles so i degassed the engine, then i replaced the ect, still happened, thermostat, still happened..... turned out being a bad cap on my overflow.... the overflow cap needs to be able to hold 15psi, mine didnt hold.... after replaceing the cap i never had the problem again


so in otherwords..... the car wasnt really over heating, the computer just thought it was because there were air bubbles around the ect in the head.... once the cap was replaced i had proper circulation
 
mikepietras04 said:
There is a large thread about this some where on lvc where we talked about this, so ill make this short. I had the same problem, tried a few things to diagnose it. First i thought i had air bubbles so i degassed the engine, then i replaced the ect, still happened, thermostat, still happened..... turned out being a bad cap on my overflow.... the overflow cap needs to be able to hold 15psi, mine didnt hold.... after replaceing the cap i never had the problem again


so in otherwords..... the car wasnt really over heating, the computer just thought it was because there were air bubbles around the ect in the head.... once the cap was replaced i had proper circulation
Click to expand...

Humm ok that sounds like a good thing because it seems thats easily fixable. I would like to compair codes with your problem. My friends OBD-II scanner read:
P1299
Manufacurer Control. Fuel Air Metering.

But when i ran that code into the computer it said that code means High cylinder head temperature. My friend said that i probably need to replace the temperature sensor but then again hes never worked on an LS before.
 
Before you start changing out sensors at 30 or 40 bucks a whack, check the obvious stuff first. The cap is a good one, what about the fluid level in your fan drive? If that's low, it won't be able to pull enough air through it to cool the fluid. That could also account for the whine you're hearing. Ever hear a Ford with a half dead power steering pump? When the car thinks it's hot it somehow manages to tell that pump to flow more fluid so the fan goes faster.

I'm tending to think it's not a sensor problem, at least failure. Electrical stuff usually goes bad, and doesn't recover from it. A bad connection, possible, good freaking luck finding the right connector that's screwed up. My 2000 has a bunch of brittle crap under the hood now. When I replaced my valve cover gasket, I took the leads off the injectors on that side to make more room and less dirt. Well, when I did, evey damn one of them had the locking tabs brake off.

What's your ambient temp been down there? Your last episode makes me lean again to the fan problem... you were driving and all was well. You stopped, the airflow through the grill stopped, then the car got hot, right?
 
kleetus said:
Before you start changing out sensors at 30 or 40 bucks a whack, check the obvious stuff first. The cap is a good one, what about the fluid level in your fan drive? If that's low, it won't be able to pull enough air through it to cool the fluid. That could also account for the whine you're hearing. Ever hear a Ford with a half dead power steering pump? When the car thinks it's hot it somehow manages to tell that pump to flow more fluid so the fan goes faster.

I'm tending to think it's not a sensor problem, at least failure. Electrical stuff usually goes bad, and doesn't recover from it. A bad connection, possible, good freaking luck finding the right connector that's screwed up. My 2000 has a bunch of brittle crap under the hood now. When I replaced my valve cover gasket, I took the leads off the injectors on that side to make more room and less dirt. Well, when I did, evey damn one of them had the locking tabs brake off.

What's your ambient temp been down there? Your last episode makes me lean again to the fan problem... you were driving and all was well. You stopped, the airflow through the grill stopped, then the car got hot, right?
Click to expand...

Well its been about 75º I don't understand. I was running the car for about 5 mins when another 5 at the drive through when temo light came on, then i ran it about 60 mins till i got to school and left it running idle for another 10 mins to see if the temp light would come back on...
 
Taken from my ford service disk


Fail-Safe Cooling Strategy
Only vehicles that have a cylinder head temperature (CHT) sensor will have the fail-safe cooling strategy. This strategy is activated by the PCM only in the event that an overheating condition has been identified. This strategy provides engine temperature control when the cylinder head temperature exceeds certain limits. The cylinder head temperature is measured by the CHT sensor. For additional information, refer to PCM Inputs for a description of the CHT sensor.

A cooling system failure such as low coolant or coolant loss could cause an overheating condition. As a result, damage to major engine components could occur. Along with a CHT sensor, a special cooling strategy is used to prevent damage by allowing air cooling of the engine. The vehicle can be safely driven for a short time with some loss of performance.

Engine temperature is controlled by varying and alternating the number of disabled fuel injectors. This allows all cylinders to cool. When the fuel injectors are disabled, their respective cylinders work as air pumps, and this air is used to cool the cylinders. The more fuel injectors that are disabled, the cooler the engine runs, but the engine has less power.

Note: A wide open throttle (WOT) delay is incorporated if the CHT temperature is exceeded during WOT operation. At WOT, the injectors will function for a limited amount of time allowing the customer to complete a passing maneuver.

Before injectors are disabled, the fail-safe cooling strategy alerts the customer to a cooling system problem by moving the instrument cluster temperature gauge to the hot zone. Depending on the vehicle, other indicators, such as an audible chime or warning lamp, can be used to alert the customer of fail-safe cooling. If overheating continues, the strategy begins to disable the fuel injectors, a DTC is stored in the PCM memory, and a malfunction indicator light (MIL) (either CHECK ENGINE or SERVICE ENGINE SOON), comes on. If the overheating condition continues and a critical temperature is reached, all fuel injectors are turned off and the engine is disabled.
.............................................................


Also, the sensor is actually cheaper than the cap.... so cost isnt the issue.... its the fact that you have to remove the intake manifold to replace the sensor
 
i clreared my check engine code on thursday and i have not had any problems so far while driving, must have been something stupid then.
 
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