2004 Freestar Rough Idol | Veteran Mechanics Are Stumped...
 

I took my 2004 Freestar (4.2L) w/ 166,000 miles on it to Sears for an oil and coolant change. During the coolant change, the van ran out of gas. When I left the shop, the check engine light was on and it was idling rough and stalled a couple of times. I brought it back the next day and they worked on it all day. The codes found were:P2006+P1000+P2196+P2198...they basically said it was running 'too rich'. So they replaced 2 primary O2 sensors and 1 secondary sensor....no luck. They replaced the EGR valve..no luck. Their last-ditch effort was to replace the fuelhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif filter...again, no luck. Since they couldn't fix it...they didn't charge me one cent...which is awesome, but my car is in worse condition than when I brought it to them.

They were pretty sure the problem came about when the car ran out of gas...but, what's wrong? I'm supposed to drive from Boston to Florida in a couple of days, that's why I had it serviced to begin with.

Any suggestions?

Have the fuel pressure checked. If it ran out of gas, the pump could be starting to fail and not pumping enough fuel.

I would also suspect a failing fuel pump since the fuel pump uses the fuel to cool and lubricate itself. You also might want to have the Fuel Pressure Sensor checked. Ford used a pressure sensor instead of a pressure regulator on Freestars and other Ford products from 2004-2005 and they are prone to failure.