continued from Pierre 5/30/03
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" In my case, I hit a large pudddle of water one day causing the belt to
slip. By the time I eased off the accelerator and turned the ac off,
the belt squeeling had stopped; However, within a very short period of
time the MIL light came on. I brought my car to a local parts store
several days later and they checked the codes and informed me it was a
EGR code. They offered to order me a new EGR valve. I declined the
offer. They also cleared the code. Later that day it came back on.
I checked with my Ford Dealership to see if it was covered under some
extended emissions warranty-it wasn't. The Dealer only noted that it may
be a number of things besides the valve, including carbon buildup.
After doing some research on the Internet, I found your information,
which leads me to believe it is the sensor."
5/31/03
" I spent the morning checking chain stores for the sensor. It would have to be a special order. I finally had to go to Ford for the Part. It was $75. I changed it and went back to the chain store to have my MIL light turned off- for free. That seems to have solved the problem. Guess what? the sensor had a lot of moisture in the HI side tube. In hindsight, I guess I should have tried drying it out to see if it would work. I'll just keep the old one as a spare. As a side note, I was suprised that the local Ford dealer had 70 of these sensors in stock. This may be a much more common problem than Ford wants to make known.
In regards to the way water could get into these things, a seam is located on the bottom and it appears to be a snap together part rather than a sealed part. Water splashing up could be forced into the seam. I'm not sure how tight the electrial to vacuum conntection is with out breaking apart the old one. Another theory is that continued condensation buildup in the tubes may accumulate at the sensor.
In regards to the carbon buildup, I too didn't think that was logical on car with lower mileage unless the design was defective. But then again the sensor construction, or location may already be defective.
The Hanyes Repair Manual give a method for checking the sensor by voltage, noting that at cold idle the voltage (backprobed to the sensor connector) should be about 0.4 to 0.6 Volts and warm, at crusing rpm it should be between 1.5 to 2.5 volts. Because there are three wires, I wasn't sure which two wires to use. I used the middle wire and the driver's side wire and would only get 0.2 volts regardless of the temperature or speed. When using the middle and passenger side wire I got 5 volts all the time. Was I supposed to check the voltage difference between the passenger and driver's side wires? If this could be checked and explained in more detail on your web page it may prove to be another easy test for checking out the sensor.
Thanks Pierre, I'll look into that. (TomS)
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