Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting EGR Issue - Finally ID prob

My tour has never gotten good gas mileage. I.e highest ever was 20mpg. Last winter I had a low of 14.5mpg. I know I drive alot of short trips to work and not alot of highway or distance, but I always thought something was wrong. The car threw a CEL months ago and it was for blocked EGR passageways. So I cleaned them and there was really no difference except no CEL. After trying to find some kind of a problem: inktake leak, crappy alternator, poor spark, muffler replaced(it was bad, carbon blowing out from the metal folds), possiblely failing pulley bearing, basically you name I tried to figure it out.

BUT I may finally have found the problem. In all my q&a's no one every mentioned the DPFE sensor.

Question is, would a bad/failing DPFE sensor:
-cause irregular idle
-sulfer smell noticable at higher rpm (3k+)
-gas mileage of 14.5-20mpg
-EGR passage to clog to begin with

If it is nothing more then this little box I'm gonna be annoyed to all hell, but at the same time happy.

Quote:

---

Question is, would a bad/failing DPFE sensor:
-cause irregular idle
-sulfer smell noticable at higher rpm (3k+)
-gas mileage of 14.5-20mpg
-EGR passage to clog to begin with

---

In order:

Probably not. No. Maybe. No.

The DPFE sensor is well tested by the on-board diagnostics. If there are no error codes point to its function, the DPFE sensor is probably okay.

Possibilities to consider (in order):

Vacuum leak or IAC faulty.

Converters - very common for sulfur smell after "spirited" driving.

Many things possible.... including your driving habits.

Commonly occuring fault in many Ford engines... just have to deal with it by cleaning the ports.

Steve

The post I found talked about how the EGR clogged and a few months later the DPFE sensor failed and his car smelled like sulfer as well.

Link to Post

Link to Another post

Well, my car has been getting crappy mileage as well. Under 20 in just about any kind of driving - even when I baby it. My solution will be to perform the 'mystery mod'. Let's compare notes to see if either of us get a benefit from our approach.

BTW, on the way home from work last night my car actually stalled as I pulled into my driveway. I also intend to perform an intake cleaning, IAC valve cleaning, and EGR system maintenance, but I'll wait to see what kind of result I get from the MM before I do any of that stuff.

TourDeForce one of your posts was the one that made me think it could be the DPFE sensor. Because you said yours had died shortly after the EGR clogged.

What I'm thinking is that the DPFE sensor probably fails and throws no CEL. The EGR valve then goes screwy because of the failing DPFE. The screwy EGR causes mass build up in the passageways then causing the cats to clog because of all the extra gas floating around in the airways.

Could this be a probably effect?



I'm gonna probably "buy" follow by return a code reader from advanced. I wonder if there are codes still floating around that are being lit up on the dash.

Got in my tour and went to start it, and the car stalled as soon as the revs started to fall...

I went to advanced, and got the codes read. I got a p1000 code??? I don't think the girl used the reader right, but I can't find the list of CEL codes. So if someone know where the list is posted help me out.