Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a strange situation that has me stumped and Google hasn’t been much help. Hopefully, someone here can chime in.
Twice now, once this morning and once yesterday, I was about a mile down the road from home when my 2016 Expedition Max seemed to lose power. The gas pedal wouldn’t respond at all, but the engine was still running. I got a “Check owner’s manual” message on the left screen cluster. The odd thing is, both times, I pulled over, turned it off, restarted it, and it drove perfectly fine afterward.
Between these two events, I made a couple of trips with no issues at all. No other problems so far, and the car’s got around 120k miles. We bought it in 2020 and it’s been a solid car until now.
Anyone have any ideas what’s going on here?
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Sounds like it might be something with the throttle body. Cleaning it out can help.
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Maybe the throttle position sensor (TPS) has gone bad. Had one go out on my F-150 a while back. Same issue with unresponsive pedal, and restarting would “reset” it.
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You should have the fuel pump or fuel filter checked. When those start going, you’ll get intermittent power issues like that. Might not throw a specific code, but it sounds like you’re losing fuel pressure.
I read somewhere that low voltage can cause weird electronic issues so I’d have a look at the battery and the alternator if I were you.
You might want to pull the codes with an OBD-II scanner, even if the check engine light isn’t on. Sometimes there’s a pending code that hasn’t fully tripped yet, but it can point you in the right direction.
Thanks, y’all. I hadn’t thought about the throttle body or TPS. I’ll start there since it seems to fit what I’m seeing. Would be nice if it’s that simple.