Another Victory for Ford Engineers

February 26th, 2009

New Way to Cause Misfires

Here’s interesting information about the 2003 Ford Thunderbird. When the ground cable on the battery gets loose, the car misfires as if it needed to have a COP replaced.

Unbelievable.

I thought I was having problems due to ghetto gas with water in it. My car gave me the flashy engine light on I-95, and I took it home and put water remover in it. Then it quit acting up. Then it acted up again. I figured it was time to drag it to Ford for another repair. The COPs on this car–what an idiotic invention–are so bad, Ford extended the warranty to 10/100,000 solely with regard to them.

I have read that COPs are better than old-style ignition coils. They are supposed to last longer. Apparently, that’s not true unless the engineer who designs the engine knows where to put them. In Thunderbirds, they fail right and left. And I’ve never seen or heard of a car with the old kind of ignition, breaking down because it quit working. And here’s a question. If you replace one cheap, easy to replace part with eight parts that are a pain to replace, and each one costs $65, have you really saved anyone any money? The COPs would have to be eight times as reliable to avoid repairs, and each repair would have to cost one-eighth of the cost of repairing the old type of engine, just to break even. Is that true in practice? It’s not for Thunderbirds. Not by a longshot. I wonder if it’s true for cars in which the COPs last longer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these infernal things have some connection to air quality or fuel economy. Some insane standard liberals forced on the car industry. I can’t figure out why else they would exist. Seriously, how often does a car’s ignition fail? Was there really a great need to invent these things?

Okay, here is the happy part. The Thunderbird is a plastic car. That means you can’t ground anything to it. The ground cable from the battery goes through plastic. Evidently, that makes it likely to loosen over time. And when that happens, it’s like having a COP go bad. Or worse. And it will come and go. Sometimes the car will generate OBD codes, and sometimes it won’t.

I found this out by pure chance while I Googled “Thunderbird” and “P0352,” which is a code this condition can give you. I went out to the car, checked the cable, and sure enough, it was not tight. And the charge indicator was red. No wonder this battery crapped on on me three years ago. It wasn’t connected to the car!

I assume you can have this problem with any car that needs a good battery connection in order to supply a quality spark. I don’t know. But it’s probably a much bigger problem with cars that are hard to ground things to.

9 Responses to “Another Victory for Ford Engineers”

  1. JeffW Says:

    “I have a sneaking suspicion that these infernal things have some connection to air quality or fuel economy.”
    .
    Exactly right. To run “Super Lean” (for Fuel Economy and Hydrocarbon Emissions) requires hotter and sometimes multiple sparks. The weak point with Distributor based systems is that you can’t run the spark too hot, or it will start arcing inside the distributor cap, and you can only apply multiple sparks for a very short and limited period of time.
    ,
    With “Coil on Plug” you can apply a hotter spark since it goes no where else except to the plug, and for multiple sparks, you are only limited by the coil’s inductance (i.e. “Recharge” time). The idea is sound…the implementation in this case, not so much.
    .
    By the way, Ford does not make electronic modules (they only integrate them)…it was their Tier-1 supplier, Visteon, who is responsible for the design of this monstrosity. I hope they’ve learned how to fix it :-/

  2. lateniteguy Says:

    I have found that it isn’t a bad idea to check a list of connections every year and to use battery sealer on those connections. Just make it part of the monthly or quarterly checklist if it seems to be a problem, I guess. Yes, I have lived with airplanes, why do you ask?

  3. og Says:

    Spot on, the coil overs have everything to do with stupid EPA standards. I’m kind of surprised there isn’t an aftermarket coil-pack replacement.

    The ground thing is a huge issue, and can cause no end of troubles. best to have a ground cable that goes to the frame AND directly to the engine, I’ve replaced mine on about every car I own, bad ground is a pain in the butt to troubleshoot.

  4. Mumblix Grumph Says:

    Car engineers must hate mechanics and owners.

    My Ford Exploder has a slightly leaky oil pan. Just replace it, right? WRONG! The front trans axle blocks it. You have to remove the engine to replace the oil pan!

    Ha ha…silly American slide rule slingers! Lets see how the paragons of engineering do it…take it away, Sweden!

    I had an old Saab 900 that developed a leaky water pump. Two drops of water escaped and fell onto the drive shaft. No big deal, right? WRONG!

    Right below the water pump is the ignition sensor. When this component come in contact with water, it shorts out and the car stops running. Just replace it, no big deal, right? WRONG!

    For some damn reason, Sven and Bjorn put the engine in ass-backwards. All the belts and pulleys…including the one with the ignition sensor are located right up against the firewall. This makes it very difficult (impossible) to slip a wrench in there to replace the sensor. You have to nearly remove the engine to do it. Saab…born from jets!

    I look back wistfully at my old 1980 Bronco with the 351 Cleavland engine. Very little electronics and plenty of room to swing a wrench. I didn’t even need to jack it up to crawl under and saw off the catalytic converter.

    Ah the old days.

  5. JeffW Says:

    “I look back wistfully at my old 1980 Bronco with the 351 Cleavland engine. Very little electronics and plenty of room to swing a wrench. I didn’t even need to jack it up to crawl under and saw off the catalytic converter.”
    .
    A friend of mine had a 1982 S-10 Blazer 4×4. To change the plugs, all he had to do was lift an inner fender flap and put a socket wrench on the plugs. Oil changes were similar. I never saw him use a jack on that vehicle.
    .
    I, on the other hand, had a 76 Corvette that had the back two plugs less than 1″ from the drive tunnel. It took jacks, jack stands, sockets, flare wrenches, and a universal joint socket to change my plugs. Again, oil changes were similar. I couldn’t even take it to Jiffy-Lube…the mufflers would hang up on the “lip” of the oil change pit 🙁
    .
    Now I have a Pickup which I only need to jack up when I’m rotating tires…hey…progress!

  6. TC Says:

    Every time I read about your T-bird it makes me happier that I own a Honda.

  7. Rick C Says:

    “bad ground is a pain in the butt to troubleshoot.”

    Not when it kills the car completely, as happened to me once. Ford Escort. The ground wire off the harness led to a lug that bolted to the frame. The lug was actually two pieces of l-shaped metal that bolted face-to-face, and the faces corroded. Engine wouldn’t start, no lights, etc.

    I wound up sanding the heck out of both faces and then coating them with some electric-conducting goop. Never had another problem with the electrical subsystem. 🙂

  8. km Says:

    If we did a better job with our educational system (and kept moonbat liberals out of our government), then many of our car engineers would be from the “motorhead” contingent from school and cars would be designed with much better vision as to both quality of performance and ease of repair/maintenance.

  9. Sigivald Says:

    That reminds me of the time I discovered* that the ground cable on my ancient diesel Mercedes had, due to rust caused by previous-owner abuse in the form of a leaky battery, come completely detached from the frame of the car.

    How that thing managed to generate the 30 amp draw for the glow plugs and start the car, repeatedly and reliably, without a proper circuit being made is beyond my understanding.

    Fun times.

    (* More or less accidentally while working on a now-forgotten electrical issue unrelated to starting – I think it was related to the dying alternator.)