Am I stuck in Utah? Orange wrench light on road trip

[Merchant Marine S550]

There is a Ford in Logan. It's on Main Street.

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[Decosse]

Update

Finally home after one of the weirdest drives I ever had. So to pick up...

I didn't get the codes because they were closing and I figured if there weren't any, I'd be awake all night deciding what to do. By then I knew I'd be going to Ford in the morning anyway

So I was at the dealership- the one on Main St that [MENTION=26201]Merchant Marine S550[/MENTION] had referred to- at 6am. Very nice, opened the waiting room early for me and put the 'Stang right in front of the garage, first in.

Techs couldn't find any codes, they had cleared. I mentioned all your ideas to my service writer, and he said wasn't surprised about the throttle body. As a matter of fact, he said if he had one in stock he'd probably put it on. It would take a day or two to get one delivered, and of course installing etc. So after much discussion, I decided to drive back. It would be daylight all the way, and service depts. would be open all the way. He checked, I have towing, rental, the works Well...

The first 300 or so miles were mostly uneventful, put it in cruise at 80 and hauled. I swear I grew extra nerves in my backside, and my hearing seemed to be sharper It seemed every so often I'd get a quick stumble and slight surge, but you know everything got my attention.

So I knew there were Ford shops Cedar City and St George, and decided I'd gas up in St George. I was heading for the Chevron on Bluff and a half mile from it, she lurched and the wrench light came on. Thank God I was in the right lane getting ready to exit. I had semis around me, traffic was heavy. I remembered to hit the hazards, my speed dropped fast. The semi behind me put his on, too and stayed behind me until I got off. When the exit went uphill, I was down to 5 mph. When I tried to get into a parking lot, that was it.

Nice people in St George. Nobody was horn blowing, and fellow and his wife got out of their truck and pushed me in. They stayed a few minutes, and when I tried restarting, it fired up . They gave me directions to the Ford place, and followed me right to the service door. Really was grateful, but they said they'd been in a spot like that, and just pay it forward.

So I remembered not to shut the car off and the service writer ran out and put the tester on it. [MENTION=16987]boosted4life[/MENTION], bingo. P2111, throttle body actuator. She told me quite frankly that they wouldn't be able to fix it for days, The part -if available- wouldn't be there until the end of the week. I opted to get going to Vegas, stay in the right lane and if it shut down, pull over and restart it. I only had 100 more miles, so I went for it. I was assured it was electronic, not mechanical, and the computers would reset when I restarted.

So I gassed up and off I went again holding my breath. I called my Ford place here, and got put right through to a tech. Told him what was up, he concurred. I was running well, but it seemed a little off. When I finally got there (no further wrench lights) I gave them the tech sheets from the other 2 places. I have a rental, and yeah, the other two places were right. Throttle bodies are backordered, it's going to be awhile.

Be assured, though, it was my decision ultimately to keep going. They all made sure I knew what to do, and gave me options. And funny thing. Both times the car went into limp mode it was no more than a mile from a Ford garage...

Thanks again for all the responses, and sorry about the length of the post!

 

[16RRGT]

Well, as outcomes go, that wasn't a bad one.

 

[Beef]

Glad to hear you made it home safe!

 

[ScottsGT]

Glad you got back ok!
I got a call last night at 11:30 from my son. His '95 GT appeared to have an issue with the thermostat hanging up. He was stuck in the emergency lane of a very busy bridge in Charleston, over a hundred miles away. Told him to let it cool down and the crank it up and get off the bridge. Cops came up and ordered him to turn on his emergency flashers which of course killed his battery. He had to call his room mate at 1:30 am to jump start him.
He topped off the radiator this morning and everything was perfectly fine.
I did get a Motorcraft thermostat on order though.

 

[Decosse]

And in conclusion... ;)

I've had the car back over a week, and so far, so good. It was actually at the dealers' only from Monday (29th) evening until noon Wednesday (31st).

The part(s) really are backordered, but they had ordered a throttle body for stock, I guess, a while ago. (it is a big dealership) The part was apparently in transit, and showed up in a big shipment the day after my car arrived .

Reading the tech report was interesting, some of course I don't understand but here is abridged version...

"wrench light came on driving to shop, test eec, no codes... using other dealers report of code.... checked throttle body sticks and squeaks when manually operated. Replaced (throttle body -air intake-motor asy) 11 mile test drive loop, eec quick and pinpoint tests before and after.."

Overall, though I'm disappointed that there was a problem, I feel quite satisfied that Ford and the two places besides my guys did all right. Ford took care of everything, rental etc, no questions asked, and would have flat bedded it as far as necessary had it come to that.

I'm quite lucky in some ways- the two times the wrench light came on for me it was less than two miles from a Ford shop, third time was at the shop. If you are familiar with that road between Ogden and Las Vegas, that's pretty darn good for a 450 mile drive. It's well traveled, but its not like there is much out there. A 100 mile tow would not be unheard of. And to have a back-ordered part show up within hours of my car needing it is pretty good, too.

Thanks for all the responses, they helped a lot- I was kind of rattled there for awhile.

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