My wife bought her '01 Escape brand new and has loved every mile of the 197,000 miles she has driven her. Last year Greta (wifey named her truck) started revving up on her own. Like when parking and putting her in PARK, the engine would increase idle and scream rpm like she was racing. I replaced the throttle position senor and the Idle Air Control Valve it cleared up for a couple of weeks. When the issue returned, it was a little more concerning as it would also rev up while stopped at a red light. We took her to a mechanic and he advised of a tune up, replacing the spark plugs, one individual ignition coil and a fuel pressure sensor. Otherwise the mechanic could not tell us why she revs so. We took to another mechanic and he is bewildered too. He wants to look at again and we are scheduling that. From his first review he found no obvious reason and only suspects that it may be a problem with the engine control module but wants to dig deeper before saying that. I admire his diligence. He connected her to his machine and drove her, it reported that the rpm's where 70% higher than supposed to be for the speed and transmission gear engaged. He checked the sensors and those were ok. Has anyone ever dealt with such before, any advise would be welcome ....

 

There is a test function called "Freeze Frame". The various parameters that were present at the time the engine begins to rev up can be examined for what is out of line/abnormal and may point to a specific area to investigate further. Certain equipment contains these functions , all that is needed is to know what to check for, that is out of the ordinary .

 

Ford had issues with their "drive by wire" throttle bodys. Not sure if those were in the 01's

They either just died at fwy speed or had unexpected acceleration issues regardless of where the gas pedal was.

If the TB is a drive by wire they are easy to replace. rockauto.com

you mention replacing IAC & TPS so I think that means you have the older "cable" TB so the above would not apply

your issue is not spark plug, plug wires or coil though....

as noted a professional scan tool can see stored faults and freeze frame..

did any codes get thrown?

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I will share them with our mechanic.