Bad Taurus week-now problem on my 2006

When it rains it pours!! This one is kinda weird. My wife has been babysitting our grandson and drove the 2006 Taurus to their house Wednesday afternoon. She spent the night there and it sat outside all the time. It's usually garage kept. As you know it's been bitter cold here in Michigan the last few days and don't know if this had anything to do with the problem. When she went out yesterday afternoon to come home she started it up and immediately got a "check engine" light. She thought she would give it some gas to see if the light would go away and when she tapped the accelerator pedal it was like it wasn't hooked to anything--pretty much no resistance! She shut the car off and turned it back on and the light was gone and everything worked OK so she brought it home. She went out around noon today as we were going to do some shopping and started it up and it did the same exact thing. She shut it off and turned back on and everything OK again. We took it shopping but I stayed in the car and didn't shut it off as I was concerned about the problem coming back--and maybe not going away. She didn't try putting into gear as she said if there was no accelerator pedal she probably wouldn't go anywhere! Good point. I must say it was VERY cold again last night. Don't know if the cold is a factor, but never saw this until the last few days when it turned bitter. Haven't had any codes read yet, wasn't sure if they would be there if the "check engine" light went out when it was restarted. Any ideas??

If the Check Engine Light came on, there should be codes set, even though the light did extinguish. Probably your next course of action should be to get the codes read and post them here.

-Rod

Haven't had a chance to get the Taurus anywhere to get codes read. Serious snow here Saturday and just didn't want to go anywhere yesterday--even cancelled our church services!

I started her up Friday night and a couple more times this weekend. She had been sitting in the garage but out in the cold with no problems. Started up again this morning as my wife is off today and tomorrow babysitting our grandson, again no problems. It has warmed up somewhat here starting Saturday--not sure again if the severe cold had anything to do with it. I'll give her a couple more days and see what happens.

Brian

Problem hasn't happened again, but many times when I start it, especially when cold it will stall immediately. I restart and usually it jumps in RPM and stays running, but a few times had to restart again. My wife said the other day she had to restart 4-5 times to stay running.

Took to a local shop to check a few things. He wanted to see how the throttle cable attached and worked. As we were looking at it a noise started coming from the air cleaner area kind of like something was loose and thumping. We took the air cleaner cover loose and the sound was coming down through the large rubber hose that goes to the mass airflow sensor and up from there. Shut the car off and restarted--no noise for a minute and then started again.

He hooked up his code reader and got P0300 and P0316. Probably from when my wife had her problems a week ago. He said the codes say there is a misfire but said he couldn't hear anything noticeable.

I got home and took the air cleaner cover off, looked at the MAS and took the hose off to look at the butterfly valve the throttle runs. Didn't see anything that stood out as a problem.

Taurus has 50,000 miles--should I do a plug and wire set change??

Brian

Did this issue begin to occur shortly after filling the car up with gas? Did you notice if the fuel truck had recently filled up the stations tanks?

Some of the possible causes for the P0316 are potentially related to bad fuel.

These codes and stalling could also be caused by a bad Camshaft Position Sensor, along with the noise. This was a common issue in some of the older Taurii. I'm not sure if it was redesigned for the 2006.

-Rod

Can't remember if it started around fill up time. I do remember my 97 Dodge Dakota a few months ago started running rough and stalling. Assume it was bad gas as it gradually fixed itself and hasn't happened since after numerous fill-ups.

Pulled all the plug wires off and reset, pulled the coil wires off and reset, pulled a plug out to observe and the gap was around .046, started and seemed to run OK yesterday. Filled up so we'll see what happens. Haven't had the CEL except for those two times with my wife in the SUPER cold weather.

Do have a follow up question--the codes were cleared by the shop. Do codes reappear, at least the P0300 and P0316 with out CEL coming on again?? IAW if the light doesn't flash again on starting the vehicle, will any codes show up when scanned??

Brian

If the codes are pending codes (recognized, but not present long enough to become fault codes) they can be read out as pending codes by most scan tools.

-Rod

If the codes are pending codes (recognized, but not present long enough to become fault codes) they can be read out as pending codes by most scan tools.

-Rod

Thanks! I'll keep an eye on the situation. If I don't have any problems for a few weeks I'll probably have the codes read again to see if any show up either as pending or present!

Brian