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Misfire after cold start

Heggs550

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Any of you guys having these issues, if you're under warranty still, put it back to stock and get it to a dealer asap. Mine started mysteriously misfiring on cold starts about a week ago. Went a day without it happening, then it became every morning and after work as well. Coolant level dropping progressively more, misfiring on cold start, smell of coolant, a little white smoke out of the tail pipes...black and white signs of head gasket issues. Drove perfectly fine all day, it was only symptomatic on cold starts. I saw the writing on the wall and got it into the dealer...currently waiting on them to decide if it needs a new short block or a full long block...

If you don't think it's producing white smoke, set up your phone to record your cold start(s). I didn't think mine smoked either until I watched the video I recorded.

If you're out of warranty...I would personally recommend you stop driving it right now with the hope that it will only be a head gasket job. Not worth the risk if it's on your dime.

@RichBrew has been through this already with the same symptoms as @Cmw458 and I. Don't take this lightly for too long and/or pass it off as carbon build up.
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Cmw458

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I'm still without mine and I'm about to throw in the towel. I got it back on 6/12 after they had it since 5/22. Drove it that day for maybe 20 mins just back to the house. Sat in the garage overnight...started on 6/13 and it was a bit shaky but no codes. Drove for maybe a total of 2 hrs. Parked again overnight....start up next morning........... random misfire and cyl 4 misfire. This after they told me that the dealer and ford engineering thought it was a bad fuel injector....

So...took it back 6/14 in the afternoon and dropped it. Care sat for the better part of almost 2 weeks....finally started bitching to the dealer and also called ford corporate and ford performance (I have the FP tune.... Never again btw).

So today when I called the dealer they informed me that when the tune is on...all the codes are thrown...when the tune is off...supposedly they don't get codes and the car works fine.

So now they're working on whether the tune needs adjusted or if it's something with the car.

At this point on Monday I'm about to just tell them to keep the tune off and give me the car back and with the codes cleared if they think it's good to go and I'll just drive if stock until I can get out of it. I keep searching for a decently priced used GT with the same options I have in my eco.

So yeah...that's where I stand currently.
 

Heggs550

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That's a bummer man, sounds like a nightmare. Have you checked the coolant and oil for cross contamination? Are you losing ANY coolant? Any coolant smell during cold starts?

Definitely worth taking the 15-30 minutes it'll take to check the cylinders for coolant after letting it sit overnight like @RichBrew did.

Their comments about tune on, tune off, sound a little off... It's not something they can just turn on and off. I'm no expert on these ECUs, but I'm fairly confident a "tune" overwrites the existing tune. They'd have to overwrite the FP tune with a stock tune, wouldn't they?

I agree with your plan. Tell them to put it back stock, take it back, and monitor it for a few days and try to duplicate the issue yourself. And do the "q-tip test" if you're not getting any other symptoms but your coolant level is going down.
 

RichBrew

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That's a bummer man, sounds like a nightmare. Have you checked the coolant and oil for cross contamination? Are you losing ANY coolant? Any coolant smell during cold starts?

Definitely worth taking the 15-30 minutes it'll take to check the cylinders for coolant after letting it sit overnight like @RichBrew did.

Their comments about tune on, tune off, sound a little off... It's not something they can just turn on and off. I'm no expert on these ECUs, but I'm fairly confident a "tune" overwrites the existing tune. They'd have to overwrite the FP tune with a stock tune, wouldn't they?

I agree with your plan. Tell them to put it back stock, take it back, and monitor it for a few days and try to duplicate the issue yourself. And do the "q-tip test" if you're not getting any other symptoms but your coolant level is going down.
seconded. You really shouldn’t have to prove it to them yourself, but if you CAN prove to them that there is coolant in the cylinder then they’ll have to stop ignoring it.

FYI, outcome of mine was this: They pressurized the cooking system to 20 PSI, after an hour it had dropped to 12, confirming a leak. There was no external leak, so they pulled the plug, and used a bore scope to confirm that there was a leak in the cylinder. However, when they attempted to order a gasket, there were none to be found. Apparently, they are on pack order, with no ETA. They were also unable to locate one at another dealer. They talked to Ford, who told them to go up to the next level assembly, which is a long block... So the dealer replaced the long block to fix a leaking head gasket. Wow. :crazy:
 

ice445

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seconded. You really shouldn’t have to prove it to them yourself, but if you CAN prove to them that there is coolant in the cylinder then they’ll have to stop ignoring it.

FYI, outcome of mine was this: They pressurized the cooking system to 20 PSI, after an hour it had dropped to 12, confirming a leak. There was no external leak, so they pulled the plug, and used a bore scope to confirm that there was a leak in the cylinder. However, when they attempted to order a gasket, there were none to be found. Apparently, they are on pack order, with no ETA. They were also unable to locate one at another dealer. They talked to Ford, who told them to go up to the next level assembly, which is a long block... So the dealer replaced the long block to fix a leaking head gasket. Wow. :crazy:
I'm not that surprised. Ford using an open deck design for the 2.3 was just stupid as far as im concerned. Too much flex allowed at key mating surfaces..
 

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With mine I haven't noticed any coolant leaking. Coolant level has stayed the same for months. I can confirm I do not get any codes on the stock tune.
I noticed I have the minor idle issue with or without the tune.
 

Heggs550

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Mine was doing the same (occasional idle rpm drop). Brand new plugs didn't fix that issue for me either.
 

BoostedNate

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Mine was doing the same (occasional idle rpm drop). Brand new plugs didn't fix that issue for me either.
Yeah I'm taking it to a mechanic tomorrow evening that worked for Ford for 25+ years and we're going to try to troubleshoot it. I've been told everything from dirty valves, injectors, to coil packs. Without having a specific cylinder misfiring it's very hard to pin down.
 

Heggs550

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Please do report back with results, I'm sure I'm hot the only one here who'd greatly appreciate it :) Seems to be a fairly common issue and I originally thought it was related to the coolant getting into the chamber on mine.
 

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Please do report back with results, I'm sure I'm hot the only one here who'd greatly appreciate it :) Seems to be a fairly common issue and I originally thought it was related to the coolant getting into the chamber on mine.
Today I checked the codes and saw that I finally had a cylinder specific code on cylinder 3 (P0303). I tried swapping the coil packs from 3 to 2 and cleared the codes. Waiting to see what happens.
 

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Cmw458

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So. I just got off the phone with my dealer. They uninstalled the Ford performance ECU flash and apparently rebuilt my stock Ford ECU flash. According to them the file from FP is bad and is what was causing my misfires as now that the stock tune has been loaded there haven't been any problems or codes.

Now.....ford is saying the labor from having to do diagnostics and the ECU flash etc etc isn't covered under my bumper to bumper warranty and according to my service writer FP is saying they're not gonna cover it either. So needless to say I've lost patience and emailed the contact I have at FP. Because not only now am I out $600 it would seem for a procal tune I can't use but now my car is being held hostage at the dealer bc they don't want to honor their warranty that's supposed to come with the procal tune.

Live and ya learn. FP and Ford need to make it crystal clear to customers that these two operate as completely different factions and don't really work well at all with one another. Bc my dealer never wanted to touch the car to begin with bc of the tune being on.

So I'm still without a car and now waiting word back from FP of how this is going to get solved. All of this has just put a really bad taste in my mouth in regards to ford it really has. So TBC I guess...
 

BoostedNate

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Sure enough, my issue appears to be with the Cobb canned tune. I finally took my car to the Ford senior master mechanic and ran just about every diagnostic we could. This was his write up:
"Did relative compression. Relative injector flow. Power balance. Ignition cop misfire test. Checked mode 6 data. Monitored pid data for fuel trims, map, baro,upstream o2, and vct's. All pass.
Checked spark plugs and re-gapped them (cylinder 3 had slightly wider gap). Performed misfire neutral profile correction. We determined the fault is likely in the tune. Recommend returning car to stock or pro tune."
The relative compression test would tell us if it was the valves or the ring-land/coolant leak issue. The Cobb unit is showing misfires when the Ford factory scan IDS tool is not. The rough idle is caused by a combination of tune and compressor working overtime to keep up with the leaking evap core. The tune he says is not opening or closing the evap purge valve correctly at idle, which is why I notice the idle is slightly rougher intermittently with the tune.

My next step now is to figure out what pro-tuner to go with. I learned quite a bit from this gentleman and it was a great experience working with him.
 
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RichBrew

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Sure enough, my issue appears to be with the Cobb canned tune. I finally took my car to the Ford senior master mechanic and ran just about every diagnostic we could. This was his write up:
"Did relative compression. Relative injector flow. Power balance. Ignition cop misfire test. Checked mode 6 data. Monitored pid data for fuel trims, map, baro,upstream o2, and vct's. All pass.
Checked spark plugs and re-gapped them (cylinder 3 had slightly wider gap). Performed misfire neutral profile correction. We determined the fault is likely in the tune. Recommend returning car to stock or pro tune."
The relative compression test would tell us if it was the valves or the ring-land/coolant leak issue. The Cobb unit is showing misfires when the Ford factory scan IDS tool is not. The rough idle is caused by a combination of tune and compressor working overtime to keep up with the leaking evap core. The tune he says is not opening or closing the evap purge valve correctly at idle, which is why I notice the idle is slightly rougher intermittently with the tune.

My next step now is to figure out what pro-tuner to go with. I learned quite a bit from this gentleman and it was a great experience working with him.
A great example of why pro tune is so much better than canned tunes. Most go with Tune+ or PD Tuning for pro tunes.
 

BoostedNate

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A great example of why pro tune is so much better than canned tunes. Most go with Tune+ or PD Tuning for pro tunes.
Probably going with PD Tuning. Ryan has been very responsive and has tried to assist with these issues.
 

Heggs550

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Sure enough, my issue appears to be with the Cobb canned tune. I finally took my car to the Ford senior master mechanic and ran just about every diagnostic we could. This was his write up:
"Did relative compression. Relative injector flow. Power balance. Ignition cop misfire test. Checked mode 6 data. Monitored pid data for fuel trims, map, baro,upstream o2, and vct's. All pass.
Checked spark plugs and re-gapped them (cylinder 3 had slightly wider gap). Performed misfire neutral profile correction. We determined the fault is likely in the tune. Recommend returning car to stock or pro tune."
The relative compression test would tell us if it was the valves or the ring-land/coolant leak issue. The Cobb unit is showing misfires when the Ford factory scan IDS tool is not. The rough idle is caused by a combination of tune and compressor working overtime to keep up with the leaking evap core. The tune he says is not opening or closing the evap purge valve correctly at idle, which is why I notice the idle is slightly rougher intermittently with the tune.

My next step now is to figure out what pro-tuner to go with. I learned quite a bit from this gentleman and it was a great experience working with him.
These sentences have me confused...I'm assuming you're referring to the a/c compressor working overtime to compensate for the leaking a/c evap core? So basically he's saying the compressor is kicking on/off frequently, which creates a rough idle? And you have a leaking a/c evap core?

Two notes from my personal experience regarding these things: 1) the ONLY time my idle has been absolutely rock steady and damn near perfect was when I had the a/c running. I was actually surprised at how steady it purred when the a/c was on, I've never had a car idle that smooth with or without a/c on. When it wasn't running, I'd get intermittent rpm drops down to ~500rpm and it would seem like it was going to die before it jumped back up. 2) I also had a leaking a/c evap core when I bought the car and just had it replaced. The idle issue was present before and after that repair.

Bummer on the FP and Cobb OTS tunes....those are two I was considering when the time came lol. Haven't seen one bad thing about them, now it's 2 in 1 thread...
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