check engine light

FIRST Don't blame your lack of knowledge on being "Just a girl" Give yourself more credit than that. By the time this is over, you WILL know. You just have not needed to know this until now and once you learn you won't likely soon forget.

SECOND If you bought the vehicle before having it thorougly checked out, shame on you. Again, this is a lesson most of us learn the hard way. More than once.

THIRD You can clean your own Mass Airflow Sensor and save yourself a ton of money. Often times they are just dirty and do not need replacing at all. If it DOES need replacing, then buy one at a parts house and save half the price over the dealership and install it yourself. It's a very easy repair. As far as cleaning your MAF, it's not hard to do but you do have to be careful when you do it. You have to use proper cleaners and you may need to buy a special screwdriver to get it out. No big deal really. When you are done you'll need reset your computer to clear the error codes. You do this by disconnecting the negative battery cable for several minutes, I think it's something like 10 minutes. You might want to try this anyway just in case the shop didn't do it. . Check with the guys in the Ford groups, the Mustang group will be pretty helpful when it comes to this sort of thing and may even 'pony up' some step by step instructions for your rig if anyone has a service CD. Not saying the Jeep boys aren't helpful but they ARE Jeep boys and Jeeps have a whole diffrent set of problems than Fords. I have one of each in the driveway, trust me I know.

Check: rec.autos.makers.ford.mustang

Here's another thought. When some of these things have to be replaced you may have problems right after it's repaired. Sometimes they will forget to reset the codes and other times when they do it takes a few days for the rig to readjust itself to the new parts and to the reset computer.A vehicle can run badly right after a computer reset.

I think that what you need to do is start back where you began. The people that sold you the O2 sensors. If you're still getting codes and CEL, then you need to drive the Explorer up on their front porch, and explain to them in no uncertain terms that they have screwed up, cost you a ton of time and money and that you want it fixed, and fixed correctly or you will be forced to bring your dad/husband/brother/all of the above back and have them whoop some serious ass. OR the Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB). But first try turning on the charm and see if it helps.

These types of problems are something that shops just LOVE to throw parts at. They don't really KNOW what the problem is, so they spend YOUR money at it until they finally guess right. Kinda like being shot at and missed and shit at and hit.

Best of luck and post your results, ok!

Kate

Don't diss being a girl, at least you ask around when someone starts feeding you a line of BS!!!

Your symptoms and error code are signs of a vacumn or manifold system leak somewhere. Other folks mentioned the Mass Air Flow sensor, this shuold be checked since it's easy to get at but I doubt it is the problem. It is really just to fine tune the engine, not run the basic air mix.

Lean mix codes usually mean change out the O2 sensors, there are 3 of them, 1 on each exhaust bank, one on the output of the catalytic converter. Your error codes are the result of one or the other of the O2 sensors on the exhaust banks saying the engine is too lean, engine computer cannot compensate enough to get it rich again. Since you get both banks, I doubt if it is the O2 sensors.

Assuming you have the standard 4.0 V-6, these engines are prone to warpage and leaking of the intake manifold to the block. Symptoms are the two error codes you are getting , radnom codes of both bank 1 and bank 2 too lean. Other symptoms are hesitation and bucking at low speeds, poor cold idle.

You need to have a ****GOOD**** ****DEALER*** tech do a full diagnostic on the engine. The clerk at the autozone place does not qualify. Show up at the dealer, tell them you have a nagging and recurring problem, do they have a top engine tech that can look at it. If they don't immediately say "well, that means we need to have xx or yy look at it, xx is booked until next week, yy is booked until Friday, can you wait?" go somewhere else. Top techs get booked well in advance.

If it is the manifold gakets, plan on $500. $130 for the diagnosis, $100 for various gaskets and other parts, $300 for labor. It's fairly involved to dig all the way down to the offending gasket.

Cheers.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

To run the basic air mix, the most important thing the computer must do is calculate how much air is being taken in, so it can determine how much fuel it's gonna take to make the engine run. That is what the MAF sensor does. The modifiers would be temp (air & coolant) & baro sensors with O2 sensors for fine tuning.

Uhh... Lean mix codes USUALLY mean the mixture is lean, NOT to throw an O2 sensor at it.