Hi there! I have 2011 Ford Escape Limited 4WD non Hybrid, 6 Speed Automatic vehicle. It has around 120000 miles on it. And it has this very weird problem that I haven't been able to diagnose yet.
When accelerating from a stop, it will struggle to accelerate, but once it hits 2000-2500 RPM, it opens up, gains all the power and accelerates hard. This shows up mostly on the hills, when going up the hill, vehicle doesn't gain any speed when I use more throttle if it's under 2500 RPM. Instead after a lot of throttle, gear drops below, which rises RPMs and then car can accelerate. On a very steep hill, when gear already might be first, it will stall. A little test I do is that, if I put it into D, get on brakes and hit throttle hard, car will stall. Also if for example you turn on AC, which steals more power from engine, it has trouble even with modest acceleration from the stop sign.
I did some self diagnosing, I changed MAP sensor, MAF sensor, new spark plugs, and throttle body (with TPS sensor). Doesn't seem to have helped.
With more diagnosing what I found out is that O2 sensor does work fine, and in that limbo of low RPM, ECU was adding a lot of fuel, as well as advancing valve timing way too much (it got up to 47°), I double checked it, stalled the car couple times, took out the spark plug and it had signs of a very rich mixture. After 2500-3000 RPM, valve timing drops to 30° which is as it should be, fuel gets to normal levels, and everything reads great, and car runs great too.
Car doesn't have any starting issues, passed the emissions, fuel usage is higher than it should be. No check light or fault codes.
My next opinion is that it might be EGR valve, but since the problem is on very narrow band of RPM, I didn't wanna just throw new parts on it. EGR problems tend to be very pronounced.
One odditie that I have noticed, that may be nothing is that, when I get on brake and throttle (when on stop) and push RPMs to 1600-2500 range, exhaust rattles quite a bit. It seems to be getting resonance, and rattling. Just a strange observation that I don't think of anything yet, it needs better mounting I think, but can't help but to notice it happening in the same RPM range as when the car doesn't run good.
As for the idle, idle is fine, no stalls, starts great, idles fine, except tachometer needle does play a little, by 20-50 RPM probably.
Thanks for the help!
Im having the same problem, when my car get into the normal temperature, this problem happens. Works fine at 2000rpm
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You might have a bad coil. I would start there. Test each one at idle and at 2500 rpm using a simple coil tester. You can even use a spark plug instead of a coil tester. Another possibility it jumped timing, that would be worse case scenario.
I'll do test out the coil, but I don't think either of them could be a problem.
To add to first message. Did you use oem parts. If not that could be the issue. Maf and map are very finicky and OEM has to be used if not it will cause issues. I've seen it happen so many times. As for the coils it is possible for them to act up at certain rpm .
Yes, I did replace with the OEM parts, and readings on the live data do align with what I'd expect.
Im having the same problem, when my car get into the normal temperature, this problem happens. Works fine at 2000rpm
