[himarxSE]

Hi, great Forum with lots of good reading here. Hope someone can give me advise.
I've read dozens of "vibration and shuddering" problems so here is mine.

While my wife was driving about 200 miles from home, the Focus starting sputtering. It cleared a few times when see pulled over and shut it off. It finally wouldn't clear up and she limped to her destination and called AAA. They towed it to the Ford dealership. The dealership replaced the coil pack, plugs, wires and cleaned the throttle body. $815 whoppin dollars later she drives it home. No more sputttering. But a god awful vibration when it's first started. It's still there when its warmed up, but not as bad.

From what I read, if the car was acclimated to the bad coil pack, or bad wires or plugs, the ECU could think the car is rich/lean when a new coil pack was put on it. Does this make sense? I'll do it ECU reset in the morning, but can anyone think of something else it could be? No CEL codes (I plugged in anyway and ckd), no bad gas mileage. Could the dealership have screwed something up? Or did the wife damage something while the problem was happening? Any thoughts would be appreciated! I'll check the motor mounts also, but it doesn't feel like the problem from the symptoms I've read about in here...
100K on the 2001 Wagon now, and I figure I'll be here often now!

 

[thisdude_05]

Dude stay away from the dealership...

Maybe a bad motor mount, or mounts is causing the vibration.

 

[viney266]

Make sure to check the Vin with Ford and see if you had a fuel pump recall on that car, Some of the early cars had it, and its a freebie.

Also, if that is fine, make sure the fuel filter has been done in the last 30K. And a ECU reset is never a bad idea, just let it idle for 5 minutes and doin't touch the throttle while it is learning.

 

[himarxSE]

Yeah, dealerships in general blow but she was away from home and didn't know what else to do. What can I say? I'll ck the VIN for fuel pump, fuel filter was done 10K ago. But if this vibration doesn't quit, this car is history. It's WAY annoying..

 

[viney266]

ANY car can have issues, just fix it.

 

[himarxSE]

Found front motor mount trash, R/R and that fixed the vibration. ECU reset and drove in 20 miles cleared the strange idle problems. Good to go except for the annoying rattle at idle and during left hand turns. More reading to do again LOL! Thx for the advise here on the motor mount.
BTW: car covered under fuel pump recall, going to the stealership Monday WooHoo!

 

[himarxSE]

It just keeps getting better: Rattle at idle turned out to be the front mount AGAIN! The first one fell apart after only a few miles, defect from the factory. New one in now and rattle fixed. Took it into dealer and had Fuel pump replaced under recall, thanks to this forum for bringing it up! Saved me $327! But...they did their "multipoint" inspection and said I have a head gasket leak. I don't see it, they say it's pretty obvious. The car doesn't leak a drop of anything, no water in oil or coolant, runs good and gets 26 mpg city driving. I'm taking it to a local shop I use to put their gas sniffer in the coolant and see if it really is leaking exhaust gasses, I need a second set of eyes on this.
and nope, I ain't doing the job. I turn wrenches on jets everyday and it's football season. I'll work some OT and let someone else fix it if it really has a head leak LOL! Man, hit 100k and it has started costing me some $$ though...

 

[emsvitil]

Front mount?

I thought there was a rear mount, left(passenger side) & right (driver side) mounts.

 

[himarxSE]

Actually, in searching I see them called Pax side mount, Transmission mount, and rear mount. The pax side would be the right mount (not left) since the Chilton's I have orientate from sitting inside of the car looking forward..no? So in my case it was the pax side mount that went bad.

 

[emsvitil]

I was calling left/right when you look at the engine from the front.......

Anyway, I'm getting a roughness when cold that goes away, but don't see anything wrong with the passenger side mount (is it really obvious looking at it? )

Wonder if it's obvious, because I haven't felt like taking things apart to see about the drivers side........

 

[himarxSE]

All I saw on mine Ed that made me suspicious was when I revved the engine, the whole motor seemed to "torque" forward about 1 1/2 inches. My vibration went away after the car warmed up also (mostly), I'd suspect it for sure but someone better than me will have to tell you how to check the actual mount to see if it's bad without pulling it out and looking at it, or hearing a rattle or a knock when going around a corner, which is what I had.

 

[emsvitil]

Doohhhh..... Didn't even think of revving engine....

[?|]

thanks

 

[emsvitil]

Well, didn't see anything revving the engine.

Engine moved about the same as my parent's focus which doesn't have the cold roughness.

 

[himarxSE]

Just a update on my mount. The 2nd one last 2 days before it broke too. I had the shop I was using buy a Ford mount, cost was $80 more. We'll see if that fixes the mount problem for good.