Shuddering when accelerating, general lack of power, no CEL.

This just started.

Drive into town went fine, pulling out of my parking spot at my second stop there was an odd vibration. Drove around town doing my other stops trying to figure out if I was imagining it for half an hour and then headed home.

Noticeable lack of power on the highway. Not super dramatic, but maybe 15% less power than I expected and vibration when accelerating. I had a bunch of metal roofing on the ladder rack so I wasn't going fast anyway and it was making a lot of wind noise so made it kinda hard to pin down.

Made it home and now in the driveway messing with it, it will shudder and hesitate when tromping on the gas in park or neutral before revving up.

Runs smooth at revs, and at idle but doesn't like to rev up it seems.

My first thought is spark plugs, as I've never down them in the 40k I've had the truck, and I'm not sure when they were done before.

Does that make sense though as something that just started between one store and another?

I have a code reader that will show live data, but I don't know what to look for.

 

Light throttle makes it sound kinda like a steam train.....chugachugachuga.....

 

Sounds like a similar problem with a 2001 F-150 I had. Turned out to be a torn boot on the ignition coil. Changed the spark plugs and ignition coils and problem went away.

 

Well, damn, this is embarrassing....

My wife asked, 'could the CEL just be burned out'? And I was like....of course not....

But then I checked and sure enough....no CEL with the key turned to on. Then I ran my code readers......fuuuq......this is an all time record for me.

 

okayyyy....

I take a look at #8.....and the coil has some writing on it under the dust.....just that coil....

"Made in China"

Spark test, nothing, swap with #7, nothing on 7, spark on 8....

So at least this problem is solved. I will have to dive into the rest. I reset everything, and we will see what comes back. Who knows how old the other codes are?

Put in a order at the local napa for pickup tomorrow. They had both Denso coils and plugs in stock.

 

Rock Auto sells Denso coils for half of what Napa does

 

As soon as I read your initial post I thought "ignition coil". I remember PHM describing similar issues and it was a bad coil.

Now would be a great time to order new ones from Rock Auto. And use a 5% off coupon code.

 

@Aerindel : 0
@Aerindel wife: 1
She must have been secretly reading posts and using the search bar in this forum!

 

Between this and the ball joints, your truck is telling you it needs more preventative maintenance.

 

Or that I need a new truck....I must admit, I've been eyeing 2nd gens on facebook.

But actually both problems have the same origin.

A previous to me replacement with cheap parts.


Does anyone actually preventively replace all their coils? That is like a $800 job.

 

Damn, you are right. Oh well. This way I don't have to wait for it. Truck will be working again by tonight.

But I will keep that noted.

 

I did but only because I was going on a cross country road trip and didn't want to get stranded. It was ~$450 from Rock Auto for 8 new Denso coil packs. They had lasted over 20 years at that point. Didn't want to push my luck.

 

Yeah, as far I can tell, all but one of the OEM packs have lasted 25 years.

I am actually thinking about ordering one spare and keeping it in the truck just in case one blows on a long trip.

 

Ironically, I did notice the other day that my 4WD indictor light was burnt out, and ordered a new bulb, but was irritated I could only get them in an 8 pack from Amazon.....guess I should have checked if any other bulbs had failed at the time....

Still amazed my CEL went out, because I'm not one of those people who just leave it going all the time.