Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. So, today in the studio, we have a 1st Generation
Ford Escape. We wanted to go over some of the top problems
that we've come to find, so let's get started. All right. Now, for our first problem, we're gonna get
under the hood and we're gonna talk about ignition coils. Now your ignition coils play a very important
part in your ignition system. Without them, your car's not gonna start. Essentially what's supposed to happen is your
computer is gonna send power to the ignition coil, in turn, it's gonna send the power down
to that spark plug, make a nice spark, and then boom, you get your ignition.
This engine's a four-cylinder engine, which
means you're gonna have four ignition coils. Some of the symptoms you might have if you're
having an issue with one of your ignition coils or multiple ignition coils might be
potentially your car doesn't wanna start. It might also be maybe it just runs a little
funny, like it has a misfire, or it seems as though it's kind of just [vocalization]
and it doesn't seem like it has the power that it wants to have. You might also notice that you have a check
engine light on the dash.
And it's probably gonna tell you that you
have a misfire in either one or multiple cylinders. Some reasons why you might get some of these
symptoms might potentially be, of course, your coils are located along the top of your
engine, and if moisture or debris makes its way inside of one of your connectors, you
might potentially see that there's an issue causing resistance. You might look inside here and see some funny
colors. That's called corrosion and that's due to
moisture. Of course, if you were to go ahead and lift
up on this and look inside, you're gonna see that you have another connection point. This area right here is exactly where your
spark plugs supposed to go into. If you were to look inside there and you see
that the spring is worn or damaged in any way or even rusted for some reason, well,
of course, you're gonna have resistance and it's not gonna function properly. This boot right here is also very important
because if it's worn or damaged in any way, you could potentially making moisture get
down inside here, and then, of course, you're gonna have that same issue where it made its
way up inside there.
Other than that, some issues that you might
happen to find would be, of course, it's up on top of the engine. It's exposed to a lot of different things. There's gonna be water that makes its way
through the radiator, even up and underneath, and then splashes up here. It could also be because there's a lot of
heat coming from your engine, especially in the summertime.
Water or heat could potentially cause damage
to any electrical component. So, now fixes for this. Let's assume that you had a check engine light
and it told you that you had an issue on cylinder one. Well, what you would wanna do is, of course,
go ahead and remove that coil and inspect it. You wanna see if there's any corrosion or
damage to any of the boots or, of course, connecting points. Of course, if it looked like it was good,
you can get down inside here, spray a little bit of air to make sure there's no debris
in there, and then remove the spark plug. Take a look at that spark plug. If it looks like it's worn, it probably needs
to be replaced. Overall, if you find that there's an issue
with the coil, what I would probably try to do would be to take this coil and then swap
it maybe with one of these down at the other end.
After that, I'm gonna get inside the car and
I'm going to start it up and I'm gonna run it for a little while. I'm gonna clear that check engine light and
I'm gonna see if it comes back on. If the check engine light comes back on, then
what you're gonna wanna do is see where the actual problem is now. Does it continue to say that it's still an
issue with cylinder one or does it say that now the issue is over here instead of over
on this side? If the issue moved when you move the coil,
well, then you know that you have an issue with the coil itself. If the issue stayed in the same cylinder that
it was before, then that more than likely means that you have an issue with something
different than the coil itself.
If for some reason you happen to find that
it is an issue with one of your coils, it really only makes sense to replace them all
because if one's worn or damaged in any way more than likely the other ones aren't far
behind. Now, for our second problem, we're gonna talk
about your DPFE sensor. DPFE stands for differential pressure feedback
EGR sensor. Now, this escape right here has the four-cylinder
engine. That's not necessarily gonna have one of these
DPFE sensors, but if you've got the six-cylinder 3.0, well, then we've got something to talk
about. Now, the job of the DPFE sensor is to monitor
the job of the EGR valve by measuring the pressure changes inside the exhaust gas pressure
system. Now the purpose of the EGR system is to make
it so unburned air-fuel mixture that didn't get burnt up in your combustion chamber gets
to recirculate back into your air intake system so it can get re-burnt up inside that combustion
chamber.
This is, of course, gonna help with pollution
and global warming. Now, if you're having an issue with your DPFE
sensor, what you're probably gonna notice is a check-in the light that comes on your
dash. That's gonna be one of the most common things. Other than that, you might notice runnability
issues. Maybe your engine seems like it stumbles a
little bit or even just doesn't have that acceleration that you were hoping you were
gonna have. Now, why would this sensor tend to go bad? Well, of course, inside of the EGR system,
there's gonna be a lot of heat and there's gonna be a lot of carbon buildup that gets
built up inside.
Of course, the gasses need to be able to flow
through the sensor. And, of course, if they're filled with carbon
or anything the like, it's gonna clog it up and then it's not going to be able to get
a proper reading of the amount of pressure in the EGR system. And, of course, if you've got the system clogged
up, it's probably gonna build up some heat in which case you're probably gonna have damage
in that way. It might come down to melted hoses or even
connection points. Now to fix this issue, obviously, what you
wanna do is pull that check engine light, assuming you have one. Make sure that we're gonna be fixing the right
part here.
Assuming that it says that you're having an
issue with the EGR valve or even the DPFE sensor, you wanna go ahead and remove both
of those. Once they're off, inspect them. See if you see any issues with the connectors
or even the hoses leading to them. If you see any issues with those, you're gonna
need to take care of it. Other than that, once you remove both of those,
go ahead and inspect them internally. Try to take a little peek, see if you see
any black crunchies that look like they're inside there. Give it a little scrap if you need to. And if any black crunchies come out of there,
it's probably carbon buildup. If you've got carbon buildup inside either
one of these, the best thing you can do is try to clean it out of there.
When you try to clean out the DPFE sensor,
don't go using a brake cleaner or anything like that because you could potentially damage
the sensor. Be very careful on what you use, but try to
clean it out. Now, after you put everything back together,
go ahead and clear that check engine light, and then take it for a road test. We're gonna go with the hope that the check
engine light stays off. If it does, and the car runs fine, then you're
probably good to go. If the light comes back on, you're gonna have
to start replacing those parts. I would start with the DPFE sensor, and more
than likely the EGR valve at the same time. Now, for problem number three, we're gonna
talk about blower motor resistors. No, this isn't the one for this particular
car, but it is something that can I have in my hand so I can talk to you about it.
The blower motor resistor itself is gonna
serve a very important job inside your passenger compartment climate control system. So, if you were to take your switch and go
from the lowest setting, all the way to the high, it's gonna decrease the amount of resistance
of the voltage from your switch going to the blower motor. The reason why this one here has all these
different springs or coils on it essentially is to increase or decrease the amount of resistance
for the voltage going to your blower motor. They make these in all different shapes and
sizes. Some of them don't even have any types of
coils on them that you can physically see, they just have like a little microchip and
stuff inside, or even other types of little circuitry that goes on inside that you can't
really even see. This one's just kind of one that's a little
bit out there and I wanted to show you. Blower motor and resistor are gonna be located
underneath your passenger side dash right next to where your glove box is.
Now, for symptoms of having a bad blower motor
resistor, what you're probably gonna notice is you come over here to your switch, on level
one, you'll have no power to no power, three, no power, but on level four, all of a sudden
that blower motor seems to kick in on high and you've got air coming out of the vents
where you're asking it to.
Aside from that, you're really not gonna find
too many other symptoms in exception of the fact if you were having an issue with the
blower motor itself and it overheated any of the wiring. If that's the case, you might happen to smell
a little bit of burning plastic smell. A couple of common reasons why your resistor
might tend to go bad could potentially be moisture inside your HVAC system. Maybe there's a lot of humidity in the air
or something like that, it makes its way inside and maybe it sits on one of those coils or
even on the circuitry. Other than that, if you're having an issue
with your blower motor, where maybe it's bound up in some way or having a hard time turning,
the resistor is gonna be sending a lot of juice to the actual blower motor, but the
blower motor is gonna be kind of sending it back or holding it back.
So, that's gonna cause a lot of voltage buildup
inside of the actual resistor itself and, of course, it's gonna cause heat, which in
turn is gonna damage the resistor. Now for fixes for this, what you're gonna
wanna do is locate that resistor. Like I said, it's going to be underneath the
passenger side dash and it's gonna be very close to that firewall. Once you find that, go ahead and unplug it,
remove it from the actual box itself, and then thoroughly inspect it. If you happen to see that it looks like it's
damaged in any way, maybe it overheated, or like I said, it got a little wet and maybe
the circuitry looks a little bad, you're gonna have to go ahead and replace it. But don't just stop there. You wanna make sure that you're removing inspect
your blower motor as well. Thoroughly inspect that, make sure it's not
binding in any way.
If the blower motor has an issue, it's gonna
cause an issue with the resistor as well. Now, our fourth problem, we're gonna talk
about transfer case problems. Now it's super common on these Ford Escapes
to have all-wheel drive or four-wheel-drive, whatever you wanna call it, but I'll call
it all-wheel-drive. To have that ability, you need to have a transfer
case and that's gonna, of course, transfer the power from the front also to the rear
as well.
Without that transfer case, you're only pretty
much gonna have a front-wheel-drive car, which is what we have here. But anyways, if you had the all-wheel-drive
car, like I said, you're gonna have that transfer case. It's gonna be also very common for these transfer
cases to go back internally. There's gonna be shafts inside, of course,
that are gonna have gears located on them. Unfortunately, for some reason, those gears
shear right off of the shaft itself. And then while you're driving, you're gonna
end up hearing metal tinging sounds sounding like they're coming from your drivetrain. This can be very scary. It can also sometimes sound like you're driving
on mud tires on hard pavement.
You know that [vocalization] that you might
get? Well, that's from the gears on the inside
of your transfer case slipping and not gripping like they're supposed to be. Other symptoms that you might happen to get
besides just that growling noise or even metal-sounding noise coming from your drivetrain might be
the lack of power coming from the actual car itself. You go ahead and try to accelerate, some of
the power is getting transferred to that broken shaft and some of it's going to the front. So, you're not gonna be getting all the power
that you need. And in some cases, you might not even be able
to drive at all. And if this happened to happen in inclement
conditions, such as maybe snow or even muddy conditions, what you might happen to notice
is only your front wheels are turning, but for some reason, those rear wheels aren't.
Now, as for fixes for this, there isn't really
much you can do for it aside from just go ahead and replace the transfer case. There are, of course, some seals and stuff
that are available for the transfer case. But if you're having an issue where you had
a metal part come apart from another metal part inside your transfer case, unfortunately,
you can't really buy those parts. So, to go ahead and fix this, you're gonna
have to replace your transfer case. Now, for our fifth problem, we're gonna talk
about tailgate glass. And for this particular issue, it seems as
though it breaks on its own. Now the symptoms for this are a little bit
complicated to explain, but essentially what happens is you can either be driving in the
car or even just have it parked and you're inside your house relaxing and all of a sudden
you're a big [vocalization].
What was that noise? Maybe you look in the rearview mirror, you
come right out of your house. You look, and there's no back glass in your
escape. Obviously, this one's still fine, but this
can be very scary especially if you're driving in the car maybe with a little kid inside
the back seat, they're gonna be very close to this, and, of course, that's gonna be overwhelmingly
scary. Now, as for a reason why the glass might tend
to break, it doesn't necessarily come down to maybe somebody had a little marble in a
slingshot and they flung it out your window or even a rock come flying up.
What could potentially happen was is maybe
the mounting points for the glass where anything's mounted onto it, if it was torqued improperly,
it's putting a lot of strain on the glass itself. Any little vibration or even rapid temperature
changes could potentially cause something to happen with the glass where, well, it just
breaks. That's gonna be very scary and unsafe overall. Now we're gonna talk about fixes for this,
unfortunately, I don't have a preventative maintenance fix for this. I don't really have anything that's gonna
be able to say, "Well, you can go ahead and do this and it's gonna make sure that the
glass just doesn't break on you." Unfortunately, I can't give you that. But if the glass did happen to break on you,
pretty much your only fixed of course is gonna be to clean up the mess, and then you're gonna
replace the glass right here. When you do that, you wanna make sure that
you replace it with a specific glass that's tempered. Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what
I've got for you for top problems on a 1st Generation Ford Escape.
Like we always say, every car has problems. Maybe you have a car of your own with problems
of its own. Or maybe you just have a story to talk about. Either way, leave it in the comment section
below because I always love to hear from you. Of course, if you liked the video or you learned
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