Hi, I'm new to this forum so I hope I'm not reposting anything.

Let me start with my girlfriend bought a second hand 05 escape. It's the V6 AWD. For the first few months it seemed to be behaving fine, but after a few thousand miles every now and then it would run incredibly rough feeling like it was having a violent misfire, when it did this it would be a constant vibration and felt like it was going to cut off. It would run like that for a good 20 minutes or so regardless of weather the had been running and was already warmed up or from a cold start.

With that being stated fastforward a few weeks and one day while driving at highway speeds it lost almost all power. The car now will no longer get past 2500rpm, it seems to run normally until then but the loss of power almost feels like the throttle is being governed.

The check engine light came on so I hooked up my scanner and read the codes, the only ones it threw were a misfire on 2 separate cylinders and a MAF sensor failure. I went ahead and gave it a tune up, new plugs wires/coil packs, replaced the oil and coolant, cleaned out the TPS and air filter just to make sure it wasn't some sort of blockage.

With that being done I took it for a lap around the neighborhood only to find it was running smootherrands then it had been when we bought it but it still will not go past 2500rpm it accelerates to that point with no issues but when it gets to 2500 it looses power still, it feels similar to when you're going too fast and the car restricts the power to the transmission almost like it a very loose clutch slipping, although time is an automatic transmission. And now even though it isn't running as rough the car is still unable to be driven above neighborhood speeds. Also the check engine light has not come back on. Has anybody else experienced this or something similar? I'd so any insight would be greatly appreciated, I'm mechanically inclined and at this point I'm about to find a dealer to take it to but the minimum 2+hour of diagnostic time at over 100$ an hour is a bit steep.

 

If it helps I can try and record a video of what it's doing when I get out of work to post for reference.

 

If you haven't tried this yet, consider trying it.
Unplug the MAF sensor and see what the vehicle does. You will probably get a check engine lite, but you will know it is because you unplugged the sensor.
Also, consider trying what is called a "forced reset", and that is removing the battery negative cable and holding or connecting the terminal end to the positive cable end for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the capacitors to get rid of any charge and erase any Keep Alive Memory. You will lose any preset radio stations , so expect this and you may want to note them before disconnecting the cable. If you can try the suggestions first and second as listed. Let us know what you find.

 

I tried running it without the MAF, it ran rough but still wouldn't pass 2500rpm, I've been doing a bit of homework though and it looks like the catalytic converters are prone to falling apart and slowing or blocking back pressure, could that be a potential cause?

 

Misfires will take out the converter(s).
You have the option of removing an oxygen sensor to see if that makes a difference in reducing back pressure or you can connect a vacuum gauge to an intake manifold vacuum connection and see if the vacuum goes down when holding 2500+ RPM , If it does , converter problem, or you can drop the pipe before the converter to remove suspected restriction.

 

And of if I replaced what caused the misfire but the cat is still clogged from prior misfires that could explain why it's no longer throwing the codes it was?

 

I guess you have your work cut out for you.

 

Misfires will clog your cats, and clogged cats will cause new misfires. You'll have to fix both at the same time.