Vehicle: 2012 Ford Mustang, 6 Cylinder, manual transmission, 97k miles
Problem: my Mustang is my baby, so I hope you can steer me in the right direction. I’m not too literate when it comes to vehicle issues, so I apologize if some of what I’m explaining seems rudimentary. A couple years ago, as I pulled out of a parking lot, I heard something “metallic sounding” break under my car. My car wouldn’t shift into gear. My mechanic had me tow it to a transmission shop. When they took the transmission apart, the components had literally deteriorated - desinigrated. They had never seen a transmission that bad before. It took about 6 months to save money to fix it, so the car sat at the shop the entire time.
After getting money to pay for the repair, they swapped out the transmission. I had to put a new battery in the car, and off I went. A few miles down the road, the check engine light came on. Then, periodically, it would start flashing. The car seemed to lose “get-up-and-go” while the light was flashing and the AC would stop blowing cool air (it still blew air - it was just room temperature). The light would then stop flashing, the engine regained full power, and the AC blew cold again.
My mechanic told me it was dirty fuel injectors. He told me to use a detergent in my fuel and run a couple tanks of ethanol-free gas through it and that should fix it. He assured me it wouldn’t hurt to continue driving it. I tried everything he suggested, but nothing changed. He had told me it would be about $800 to fix the issue, and I didn’t have it, so I kept driving it.
Fast forward to this past week. I had some money saved (finally), so I took it to the mechanic. Almost $900 later, they changed out the coils and spark plugs (along with other, requested but non-related, work). When I left the shop, the check engine light was finally gone. Until I got a few miles down the road. The check engine light came back on, started flashing again periodically, and demonstrating the same problems as before.
Before I shell out another $1000 for a solution that won’t work, what could be wrong with my car? My gut tells me that when the new transmission was installed, something didn’t get programmed properly with the vehicle’s computer system, and no one has thought to check that. Could it possibly be that simple?
What's the code?
When the check engine light is flashing, it is not a smart idea to drive the car.
It’s been so long since I had someone scan it until I don’t have the code info. I knew that would prob be an issue before I posted.
Is this a rebuilt tyranny they installed. Now you need to decide if they knew what they were doing and are they willing to fix what is not right in your opinion.
The first thing that needs to be done is a full scan of the transmission module. This will tell you if it’s operational or if there are additional issues.
The blinking check engine is an an across the board misfire. So, are these guys parts changers or did they give you an appropriate diagnosis. Did they determine if you had air, spark, and fuel before they installed these parts?
So the moral of the story is this, the car is not fixed and they have so explaining to do. Either get another mechanic, have the original mechanic fix it, or ask for your money back, it’s that simple. Don’t drive the car with a blinking check engine light.
Best of luck.....
9/10 times the check engine light flashing is a misfire code not sure where the crank position sensor is located but if that needs to be touched while doing the transmission since that’s when it started I would start with looking there or possibly the flywheel possibly chipped or bent a tooth where the crank sensor reads also common after a transmission replacement. There are alit of scenarios in which flywheel or crank sensor issue could cause this problem
