I have owned a 2010 Taurus SHO for about two years. I bought it with only 29K miles on it and was super excited...but then a problem was exposed that I suspect is the reason why the last owner got rid of this sweet ride. Within the first month of driving it the car started feeling like it was downshifting for no reason when I was driving at highway speeds which felt like a rough buck. This usually happened when I was going up a hill or the car needed to accelerate, but not only then. More problematic was an issue that happened when accelerating from stop. From a stop if I pressed on the gas hard and increased the RPMs rapidly the car would hesitate like it lost power. This has always made me very nervous; to lose power when pulling out in front of people. I took it to my mechanic, and he found no codes were kicked and retained so nothing major was going on in his estimation. They reflashed my computer. They changed out spark plugs. But the intermittent problem never went away. It would sometimes be a month between occurances, but the problem was always in the back of my mind. Sometimes in the front of my mind if it happened more frequently, and it seemed to happen more frequently in the spring of the year when it rained. I recently read about intercooler condensation problems in the F150 ecoboost engines. Those intercoolers were easy to get to, but all of the symptoms of that problem seemed to match my issues, and it would make sense that I would have more condensation in my intercooler during humid weather. So I set out to drill a 5/64" weep hole in the base of my 2010 Taurus SHO intercooler. I thought that would be easy...but it is not exposed like the Truck intercoolers. The purpose of the small weep hole is to let moisture and oil that get into the intercooler drain out before they can get sucked into the engine and cause a misfire. I had to remove the plastic guard from the bottom of my vehicle, and then look for about 2 hours before I was sure that the only way to drill a hole in the bottom of the intercooler was to go through the base that is also holding the radiator and other cooling system heat exchangers. I drilled though the plastic bracket on the passenger side about an inch and a half back from the front of the car (I eyeballed it to line up with the intercooler) in the second groove from the center (if you get into this project you will see what I'm talking about). I am happy to report that I CANNOT get the hesitation problem from a stop to reproduce! I think I have fixed the problem. When I drilled the hole and let it drain overnight I found about 2-4 oz of oil had drained from the intercooler. So if you are having this problem you might consider adding a weep hole. I'll try to check back and update this with how my car is doing over time and answer any questions that someone else might have. Basically the fix is free, except for your time, and the hole is so small that it does not significantly change the pressure from the turbo system.
2010 Taurus SHO engine shudder
- Thread starter dkoehn3
- Start date
Sounds like a cleaning and sucking out the intercooler would achieve the same thing for you...also I hope you aren’t masking a leaking turbo problem ...as it stands now your turbos may be blowing out oil through the compressor seals and you will never know because your intercooler will remain empty.
Also you are going to have a permanent oily mess near where you drilled that hole and I’ve heard those drilled holes whistle at times
I bet at high rpms you see more boost taper and these turbos suffer from that anyway so you don’t really want to compound that
But I think you have something else going on that is the root of your problem ...oil in the intercooler is a symptom and not a problem ....too many sho’s here that don’t have the problem you have had
Also you are going to have a permanent oily mess near where you drilled that hole and I’ve heard those drilled holes whistle at times
I bet at high rpms you see more boost taper and these turbos suffer from that anyway so you don’t really want to compound that
But I think you have something else going on that is the root of your problem ...oil in the intercooler is a symptom and not a problem ....too many sho’s here that don’t have the problem you have had
I thought drilling a hole in your IC was a good thing? I periodically drill one just to make sure the car is happy...
Welcome aboard! FWIW Last I checked this Mod wasn't endorsed on this Forum as kindly mentioned by SHOdded ^^^
I would say sometimes trying to compensate for whatever underlying issue's the car has,while that is great for a temporary solution,so called band-aid,masking to promote further ignoring of a mechanical problem that could potentially cause more harm than good to the vehicle in the long run! Z
I would say sometimes trying to compensate for whatever underlying issue's the car has,while that is great for a temporary solution,so called band-aid,masking to promote further ignoring of a mechanical problem that could potentially cause more harm than good to the vehicle in the long run! Z
I haven't come back here in a while. My car is still running better, but I do think that the turbo is slowly seeping oil past the seals and will need to be rebuilt or replaced eventually. I figure if I don't want the hole after I replace the turbo that I will plug it with a tiny sheet metal screw. I agree that this is masking a bigger problem, but beyond the small oil mess I haven't had trouble yet. People probably should know that a big risk with what I've done instead of replacing the turbo is that I am losing oil at an unmonitored rate. If the oil starts leaking faster I might not notice before damage to the engine is done, so that wouldn't be good. Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I appreciate it.
David
David
