Bought this car used. Had been a really great car except for one glaring fault - you can't replace the rear three spark plugs without taking the top of the engine off!!! The normal V6 you can reach around back and get them supposedly. The 24V DOHC? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No chance! EVERY single resource on the subject I can find tells you to take off the intake stuff, which means you need two or three gaskets and such, as well as the spark plugs. To do a tune up!

We hit a very rough patch financially and were unable to afford a mechanic to do this, and are not allowed to at our apartment complex. :( The car now sits, lifeless, in our driveway, unable to so much as start. Before it quit outright, it ran VERY rough, stalling frequently. Tried some injector cleaner and such, plus switching gas stations to make sure the "simple" things weren't a problem. What I truly expect is the problem is there are no tips left on the spark plugs that have been there since about 30K mile service. We've put on 60K since then, so those plugs owe nobody a dang thing, but the idiots who made no room to get to them without a major PITA deserve this car parked up their behind!

OK, I am sorry my last complaint wasn't even on topic, have to find out how to delete that one. Here we go.

Since I have had this car in Jan 2014, this car has been a problem. The first, check engine light on, it was for the EGR valve and misfire on Cylinder 1. I changed the coil pack, wires and spark plugs..... NO SOLUTION. Light came on after that was done, EGR valve code again, p0401. So I ignored it for a little bit as I did research, finally it got so bad that the car wouldn't start without pumping the gas peddle. Now everytime it starts the engine light is on and it sputters and seems like it tries to die, but doesn't. When I am at a light it idles very roughly. I cannot accelerate fast in it or it will just sputter even worse. Once I get going there isn't as much problem but it will jerk you as you go.

So I changed out the EGR valve, this fixed it.........for a week. I had the codes cleared and no trouble whatsoever. One week later my wife tells me the light comes back on. So I take it back in, sure enough code p0401 is on again. Now I am in the researching phase to see if this might only cost another few dollars, if it cost more than $100 I can't do it. I bought the car for $2600 and have almost put $2000 into it by now, and it hasn't even been a full year of owning it. This is the worst car I have ever had, the Volcan engine is terrible, the entire flex fuel system in these cars are terrible.

One key note, usually if I fill it up and I add fuel additive to it then it seems to run OK for about half of that tank of gas before this all begins again.

PLEASE, IF YOU KNOW OF SOMETHING THAT CAN HELP THIS PROBLEM, PLEASE RESPOND.

I wish I had found this site YEARS ago! I am definitely going to use this site many, many, many, times before I purchase another car.

Anyway I have had nothing but one issue after another since this car was purchased (used) in 2003 (it was only 3 years old with 50,000 miles). We've had this car for over 10 years, it has been steadily maintained and well cared for. Oil changed regularly, fluids maintained, tune ups, etc. Anytime the engine light comes on we had it checked out (which seems to be every week and we finally gave up on that)

Now on to the current issue at hand. VERY suddeny about 2 weeks ago the car started acting up. She was sputtering and trying to stall when accelerating, then it was happening all the time, took it in and was told only thing showing up was "cylinder 3 misfire" Okay? It's said that for YEARS! Since before we replaced the gaskets the 1st time! We never could figure out why it kept saying cylinder 3 misfire, we replaced just about everything to do with that! Mechanics just shrugged and would say (Hey, It's a Ford, put tape over the engine light, that's what I did) That should've been my red flag sigh So for the 2ND time i have 2 blown head gaskets, Car currently has 198,XXX miles on it and though I do realize it is very high mileage BUT we had the gaskets replaced at around 100,XXX already! What's the deal? I have received no recall any information and am unsure if there even is any!

I have finally decided to just let go of the car. I can no longer stand sinking $ into this car. It's pitiful. Other complaints I'll be adding will be exhaust issues, transmission issues (including transmission replacement! at only 60,000 miles!!) shocks on this vehicle are basically useless (cheaply made parts?), Coil pack has to be replaced every couple years, yadda yadda yadda. I don't think I've ever seen the engine light NOT on in this car!! I've spent so much TIME working on this vehicle it's pathetic. I now have a 6 month old little girl and refuse to put her in this car anymore. I no longer have the time to constantly be outside working on this car and can't afford to keep taking it in and having it fixed to keep it in a safe and well maintained state. I HATE THIS CAR!

Well, this is my story. I have the 24v dohc engine. Never had any major issues with it until this month. I was at a stop light and the car began to shake and the check engine light came on. Then the shudder stopped and all went away upon acceleration. I was concerned about it and had it checked as I drive out of town and do not want to get stranded.

Dealer said the car needed a new ignition coil on one of the cylinders. I had it replaced and went on my way. The problem came back later that day. Took the car back right away and 2 days later they called and said the cylinder itself had problems. To fix the problem (replace the cylinder head) would be $3,750 with parts and labor. WOW!!!! The car is only worth a bit more than that retail.

I was surprised that my well maintained car had a failure of this magnitude with the mileage I have on it. I have been very good about replacing all fluids on time, replacing all filters on time, driving reasonably, and the car has been owned by family so I know how everything was cared for and how the car was driven. Other than this problem, my car is in perfect condition. Transmission is smooth, no rust, everything works as it should, and so on.