2003 3.0 V6 Ford Escape 160,000 miles.

I bought the Escape about a year ago and the previous owner said it had barely been driven for a few months. I got it with a few codes that were pretty much all fixed after changing a few vacuum hoses. The only code it has now is P0401 which is EGR flow insufficient. When I'm sitting at idle the car occasionally hesitates and feels like it has a misfire. It runs really bad when I'm in overdrive going up a hill. That's when it bucks and hesitates and feels like it has a really bad misfire. Also when it is really running bad I can feel it occasionally misfiring under acceleration because it will bog down and then randomly pick back up intermittently. The weird thing is that when temps drop below 50 lets say, it runs great even in OD going up hills. Idle is also perfect. It seems like most people point to the DPFE or clogged passages so I did some testing. With key on engine off it has roughly 0.9 volts to the DPFE. When I start the car and apply vacuum to the EGR valve manually the idle immediately drops and wants to stall. Also the DPFE voltage rises to about 4 volts. From what I've seen this indicates EGR passages are clear and the the EGR valve and DPFE sensor are working correctly. I pulled the 4,5 and 6 plugs and they seem to be fine and gapped correctly. Although I have no idea when they were changed last.

At this point I'm at a loss and really dont wanna start throwing parts at a car I only paid $1500 for. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

The DPFE may be plugged internally and that is what the PCM is picking up.

 

Didn't think of that. Could I blow it out with compressed air if that's the case?

 

You could try that, but it's pretty difficult to remove hard carbon with just compressed air. The orifices are pretty small not always easy to do.