Can someone tell me why my 'failsafe engine mode' displayed while I was driving? It has just over 5700 miles and this is the first time it came on. Oil looks good, all fluid levels are good including coolant. I turned off the engine and parked it for a couple of hours and drove it home without the display coming on. Should I take it in to the dealers? Any help will be much appreciated.

 

Definately take it to the dealers because the only thing that set my Check engine Light on was me adding a cold air intake, which changes the amount of air going into your engine. If you didn't add anything to your engine, I would suspect some type of leak or something that causes your air/fuel mixture to change dramatically enough to throw a CEL. Have Ford take a look.

 

If you have a tuner you can look up the code and use this to lookup to problem

DTC Trouble Codes.xls

Check your Gas Cap, Make sure it's Tite, This happend to my wife once.

 

I'm having a similar problem with my v6 convertible.

I've taken to the dealer twice in 2 weeks. Each time, nothing was logged even thought the "Fail Safe" message was displayed and the car run like it was pulling an anchor. The problem cleared both times by simply restarting the car...nothing else. The dealers reply is "since we can't reproduce it and nothing is logged, we can't do anything", and they haven't.

Has anyone had this problem and actually found a solution for it ?

 

The "fail safe" mode is caused by the computer reading to much torque. I know that I can only speak for mine, which happened all the timed after I had put new programing on the car for cold air intake and such. The dealer cant fix it, you have to have the people that did the programing for the chip fix the program, I had to drive 3.5 hours to have STEEDA fix mine after mailing back twice, hopefully you wont have the same problem.

 

There are any number of reasons for the car to go into fail-safe mode. The torque issue mentioned is only one of them. My car went into fail-safe mode before I put any mods on my car because of a faulty throttle position sensor (TPS). In this case, the car went into fail-safe mode because it wasn't getting as much information as it needed. Since it was only receiving information from one of the two throttle positions sensors, it didn't think it had a reliable signal and went into fail-safe mode to protect the engine. When in fail-safe mode, the engine will run extra rich, have extreme throttle lag and (I think?) run on only 4 cylinders. It runs like a dog, but it's for the safety of the engine. Bring the car in with the light on and the dealer will be able to read the code(s). If it is the TPS, it's a quick fix.

-TRB

 

If it doesnt happen often, be grateful that ford put it in. Its hard to blow the motor when you are only running half power. I have had it once, and for no apparent reason- wasnt getting on it or anything, just cruising in 5th gear. Yes, restarting it corrected the problem, and it hasnt came back in 2000 miles. If the engine doesnt thrw a code to the computer, I woulndt worry about it. Better safe than sorry mentality, I guess

 

The same thing happened to me a few months back, same fix. AND it happened AGAIN yesterday, they ran some "deeper diagnosis" and are ordering a new torque ?housing?

I'm a mechanical know almost nothing. Does this sound like something that will have an impact on other parts of the system such that when my warrenty is finished, I'll be dishing out my cash rather than spending Ford's???

I love my car but with this happening twice and having to have a front suspension problem fixed, (front end klunk post) all since May..... I'm starting to wonder If I should have saved more $ and waited for the new Challenger (oh - some folks aren't going to like that)

 

You have 4:10s? What are your RPMs at Highway speeds (60-80)? Did it seem to make much difference in your acceleration? Any other positive/negative? i.e. gas mileage..etc

 

There is a problem with your "drive by wire" throttle. Could be an easy fix but could be more complex.