I took a trip through the mountains over the past weekend and the Tour was REALLY down on power. Not only that, I've noticed that it's been quite a dog this summer, but I just thought it was because of the A/C being on constantly. Anyway, it's an MTX, and usually it has no problem keeping up with or passing other vehicles, even in the uphill passing lanes, but this time she was so weak that even in third gear with it floored it would not gain speed, in fact it would even start to slow down!
I could also hear the engine ping sometimes around 4,000 RPM, but I was able to turn off the A/C or back off the gas a little bit and get it to stop.
Well, we got it home ok, and haven't driven it since the trip, but today I figured I should probably test it out and see how it's doing. It started up normally, idled normally, but when I tried to rev the engine it would hardly wind up at all. Took it around the block and I could floor it in first and NOT REDLINE!! It simply would not wind up that high.
I took it back home, parked it in my driveway, took it out of gear, floored it, and it would really slowly rev up to about 4500 -5000 RPM, but it would not rev higher! It's weird because it otherwise feels pretty normal except it just won't rev up, it has no upper end!
A little background is the car has 146,000 miles on it and has had a CEL for a while now, maybe a few months now, P0420 "Catalyst below efficiency threshold". Spark plugs, fuel filter, and air filter were all changed recently, and the MAF sensor was cleaned just a week ago.
I'm wondering if the cat has plugged up and isn't allowing the engine to breathe? It kind of feels like it could be an exhaust restriction. Like I said, it otherwise feels pretty normal until you try to rev it up, then it feels as if the crankshaft were trying to spin up if it were submerged in molasses or something.
I'm going to have a mechanic look at it on Friday because I do not have time for this right now, but I thought if you guys had any ideas that maybe I could zero in on the problem before I hand it over.
If it ends up being the cat, can I just gut it and use an MIL eliminator? Is gutting the Zetec cat hard to do? I noticed that the cat is built into the exhaust manifold.... that looks crazy expensive if I have to replace it!
Thanks for any advice
