I think it happened...cracked fuel injector

[Matt.M]

I have a '22 OB with just under 30K miles (mostly highway). Drain tube installation recall was performed in September '23.

Saturday morning I start the vehicle and it was a rough start and the powertrain light came on and would blink intermittently. Vehicle ran really rough, wouldn't really accelerate much in first gear, but I was able to limp to the dealership. Fortunately, they were open Saturday afternoon and they set me up in a '23 F-150 loaner.

Hundreds of warnings were saving over to my Ford Pass App, and the 3 distinct warning messages were:

1) ECS detected fault w/ one of the fuel injectors and or its associated wiring
2) Misfire detected
3)An intermittent or erratic electrical fault has occurred on cylinder number 1 deactivation circuit

Interestingly, I had my vehicle in 8 days prior to this for oil change/state inspection. I didn't notice any gas/fuel smells before this happened.

Anyway, the three warnings seem to lead to conclusion of bad/cracked injectors. I feel lucky that this happened on a Saturday morning and that I was able to promptly get a nice loaner truck.

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[jkeaton]

Good deal!

 

[Matt.M]

Good deal!

Trying to be as positive as possible . REALLY hoping it's just the injectors, and I can get it back relatively soon. I fear for others who encounter this and possibly they aren't as "lucky" as I was since it occurred on a Saturday morning at home/close to dealership I purchased from. I suppose most dealerships are loaded down w/ F-150's right now so loaners shouldn't be an issue

 

[Alfa 2407]

Keep us posted, best of luck!

 

[Summit]

We have 22' Big Bend - which also has the 1.5 - I wonder if this is going to become a recall.
We are good so far.
Please post what ultimately went wrong and how they fixed it for the rest of us.
Thanks

 

[Meanderthal]

We have 22' Big Bend - which also has the 1.5 - I wonder if this is going to become a recall.
We are good so far.
Please post what ultimately went wrong and how they fixed it for the rest of us.
Thanks

Is there a reason why a report of one broken fuel injector has you looking for a recall?

 

[Summit]

I understood that a fuel line or related, on top of engine, has been brought up certainly more than once. Not sure if this is the same issue or related but I am curious as to anything related to an engine I own.

 

[Meanderthal]

I understood that a fuel line or related, on top of engine, has been brought up certainly more than once. Not sure if this is the same issue or related but I am curious as to anything related to an engine I own.

There so far has not been widespread reports of broken fuel injectors. The recall that was done was purely a safety related fix that would redirect fuel away from any source that could ignite that leaked fuel. That fuel could come from a cracked/broken fuel injector. As has been said before, everything that is made could have a failure but in this case there was not an issue with fuel injectors failing at an elevated level.

As far as we know every vehicle on the road is tested for what could happen when a fuel injector leaks. They have to pass a test for that kind of leak. I don’t know for sure but it is only logical to believe that the 1.5L engine did pass this test at some point but was later found to not be passing this test. Anyone that has ever tried to contain a leak will know that it can be a little chaotic, so maybe there was some variable that did not get taken into account in the first round(s) of testing. The drain tube that was added apparently fixes that issue.

There is no evidence that fuel injectors are failing/leaking on a widespread basis.

 

[Summit]

Thanks

 

[Dude]

I understood that a fuel line or related, on top of engine, has been brought up certainly more than once. Not sure if this is the same issue or related but I am curious as to anything related to an engine I own.

@Summit there is Ford’s Customer Satisfaction Program 22N18 which is not a recall but if a fuel injector does crack (1.5L Bronco Sports), Ford will replace all 3 fuel
Injectors assuming the restrictions listed in 22N18 are met. See Post #74 here for more info:

https://www.broncosportforum.com/forum/threads/so-it-happened😢….9090/page-5

 

[Ford Motor Company]

I have a '22 OB with just under 30K miles (mostly highway). Drain tube installation recall was performed in September '23.

Saturday morning I start the vehicle and it was a rough start and the powertrain light came on and would blink intermittently. Vehicle ran really rough, wouldn't really accelerate much in first gear, but I was able to limp to the dealership. Fortunately, they were open Saturday afternoon and they set me up in a '23 F-150 loaner.

Hundreds of warnings were saving over to my Ford Pass App, and the 3 distinct warning messages were:

1) ECS detected fault w/ one of the fuel injectors and or its associated wiring
2) Misfire detected
3)An intermittent or erratic electrical fault has occurred on cylinder number 1 deactivation circuit

Interestingly, I had my vehicle in 8 days prior to this for oil change/state inspection. I didn't notice any gas/fuel smells before this happened.

Anyway, the three warnings seem to lead to conclusion of bad/cracked injectors. I feel lucky that this happened on a Saturday morning and that I was able to promptly get a nice loaner truck.

Hi there! Will you send us a message with your VIN and your local Ford dealer? I can look into things on my end.

 

[rms34208]

Trying to be as positive as possible . REALLY hoping it's just the injectors, and I can get it back relatively soon. I fear for others who encounter this and possibly they aren't as "lucky" as I was since it occurred on a Saturday morning at home/close to dealership I purchased from. I suppose most dealerships are loaded down w/ F-150's right now so loaners shouldn't be an issue

From the research I,ve done on the 1.5 Dragon 3 cylinder engine it is programmed to go into lymp mode and deactivate any cylinder that is not functioning properly so you may have been running two cylinders to protect the engine.

 

[Mark S.]

From the research I,ve done on the 1.5 Dragon 3 cylinder engine it is programmed to go into lymp mode and deactivate any cylinder that is not functioning properly so you may have been running two cylinders to protect the engine.

You may be mixing up a couple of different systems. I've never heard of cylinder deactivation used at the same time as limp mode. Cylinder deactivation is a feature on a lot of different modern vehicles to save fuel. The fewer cylinders operating, the less fuel the engine uses. That's why four cylinder engines are generally more fuel efficient than six or eight cylinder engines. The PCM will deactivate cylinders under low-power demand so the engine uses less fuel. Limp mode is an operating mode that limits power output to protect the engine from damage. The primary reason the engine enters limp mode if the PCM suspects a fuel leak is to reduce fuel pressure. The less pressure in the fuel lines, the less fuel will go into the engine bay.

 

[o0260o]

Nah when the fuel injector goes bad it feels like a damn tractor. Pretty funny. Cylinder deactivation you can't really tell when it's happening. Limp mode is like Eco mode+++ the ecu limits your throttle inputs heavily.

 

[Matt.M]

Keep us posted, best of luck!

Well...I was told rodent damage to fuel injector harness. $821 plus tax, so I approved the part order. Part should be available 2/12. I still have the loaner, and they said just bring it back if I hit 2K miles then they'll put me in a different one.

Like I said already, I had the vehicle in for service at the dealership 8 days prior (1/12) and nothing was noticed then. I dropped it at dealership on 1/20 (same day the issues started), and they started diagnosing the issue yesterday, 1/24. We did have some really cold weather, and rodent issues aren't unheard of where I live, but I can say that we keep our garage clean and nothing like this has ever happened before to me, and I've parked my cars in the same garage for about 10 years. The vehicle was not used approximately 1/13-1/16 (frigid temps) and stayed in garage. I commuted to work with it 1/17-1/19.

I've done a lot of research and learned about peppermint oil to deter. For grins, I just setup a mouse trap bucket in the garage...

Definitely was distraught to hear that it was rodent damage, as I've never observed any rodent issues in my garage/vehicle, and generally I use the vehicle every day.

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