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New Ride: 2001 Ford Escape A few q's.

DieselSlug

DieselSlug

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Hello all,
Last night my Mom bought a 2012 Hyundai Genesis Coupe. So her old SUV (2001 Ford Escape XLT) is now going to become Lauras. It has a few quirks with it. My mom has owned it since new, has been serviced at the dealer regularly. Has 177,000 miles on the clock and all the major mechanicals are original. The most pressing issue is that it is very sluggish on hills. (I have not been in it when its done this), so im going off what others have experienced. It will only keep about 40 MPH on hills, bogs right down and doesnt run good. But the thing that baffles me the most is there is no CEL! So i cant even start to diagnose. I was looking for a Ford forum, but they all didnt look very traffic filled. Let me know of areas of thought at starting a diagnosis. Its not a Jeep, but its excellent in the winter! Among other things the door light stays on, something is wrong with one of the switches or door handles. (My Mom was a nanny, so the car toted around little kids that like to break stuff)... The rear gate is sticky, prolly just a crusty line. And its got a real loud howl, i think a bearing is bad somewhere.
 
Sounds like a plugged catalytic converter to me. It may not throw a code.

As far as the door light, are you sure some little kid didn't turn on one of the "reading" lights? Don't know how they work in that vehicle so not sure how it's setup. My kids are notorious for turning them on in our Impala and they are the same light housing in the back seats as the door open light.

Howling, either bearing like you think or possibly differential or transfer case.
 
I figured it was leaning towards the cats (of course there are 3 on this thing! and they are built into the manifolds!) Mainly because it only does it on hills upper in the r's while stress is being put against it. And only while its hot. Thanks!
 
If you have a Rubber Mallet, Bang on the Cats to Hear if you can Hear the Innards Rattling. That'll let you know if they are Bad as well.
 
Thanks for the suggestions! On the way home the other night she said it starting smelling funny, didnt want to idle at all and made a very large whooshing sound from ounder the hood. When i got on the scene i opened the hood and noticed that there was a hole blown in the side of the EGR valve! I looked online and it seems common for the EGR valve to blow out when the catalytic converters are plugged, resulting in most of the flow trying to escape through the EGR.. Will post a pic in a second.
 
The EGR looks to be cast aluminum. So for now the car is sitting at Laura's parents house waiting for us to get the funds to replace the converters. Going to be about 700 bucks from block to muffler.
 

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Its a crappy time/situation for this to happen. Basically we came on to the car for free. And my G/F drives a 1995 Subaru Legacy (FWD model), its starting to go down hill very fast. And the escape is a perfect vehicle for her needs. Her dad wanted to punch the converters out, but it will be difficult to punch the front two out (the ones located in the manifolds), the third one would be easy. But i dont think the vehicle would run right without them... SInce the upstream O2's are behind the first converters, and the downstream is behind the third converter. I wanted to think that possibly i could replace the third converter and hope its bad, but if the two fronts are bad i dont want to ruin the new third converter. Im sure if one is bad they all are.
 
Besides the converters (and part of why they go bad) everyone forgets to run injector cleaner through these things about every oil change (at least). Today's fuel is so crappy that the injectors get dirty and pass the problem downstream. I'd suggest some really good cleaner in the tank and run it hard for a while to get the injectors working well again while you're at it Mike.
 
btfarm said:
Besides the converters (and part of why they go bad) everyone forgets to run injector cleaner through these things about every oil change (at least). Today's fuel is so crappy that the injectors get dirty and pass the problem downstream. I'd suggest some really good cleaner in the tank and run it hard for a while to get the injectors working well again while you're at it Mike.
Click to expand...

Will do! I actually have some injector cleaner left over from putting it in my Mustang.
 
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