First time poster long time lurker.

I have a 2008 Ford Ranger 4x4 Sport 4.0l V6 with a standard shift. The truck has 73,000 kms and up to now has been flawless - until this morning.

The truck started no problem. About 1/2 km up the road I noticed the windows starting to fog up a little so I turned the heater fan up to 2. A couple of minutes later the radio shut off as did the heater. Then seconds later the ABS light came on in the dash but went off again with a few seconds. A few seconds after that all the gauges in the instrument cluster stopped working. I turned the truck around and brought it back to my house about 3 minutes away and parked it. I didn't want to get stranded on the way to work.

When I used the direction lights I could hear the flasher working but the indicator light in the dash didn't work either. There was no loss of power or misfire/bad idle.

Does anyone out there have any idea of what could be the problem. I'd like to have an idea of what I am up against before I make the dreaded call to the dealership. The truck still has the powertrain warrenty but I'm just a little over on the kms for the bumper to bumper.

 

sounds like the PCM is taking a $H!T

 

PCM - Power Control Module? Is this a common problem with these trucks and do you know if something like this is covered under the powertrain warrenty with Ford? Thanks for your prompt response.

 

hoe many miles. is your Power train warranty. it is a covered part

 

Powertrain is good to 100,000 kms so I'm good there as I only have 73,000 kms.

 

then go to dealer

 

It's booked to go in now tomorrow I'd just like to have an idea of what the problem is so that I'm armed with some information and have an idea whether or not this is a warrenty fix. If it's not a warrenty fix then it won't be staying at the dealership for repair. The truck has been serviced at the dealer at its regular service intervals since new but general repairs like the replacement of front brakes wasn't done at the dealership for obvious reasons.

 

im the same way. i do my work at the dealer cuz its where i work. But i tackle alot of the stuff in the driveway

 

there is a wiring harness that routes under the battery tray

the tape and wiring insulation has been ground off , 1 or 2 power wires are being grounded out

same problem happened to my ranger over a year ago

they had to re-route the the harness to allow slack in the harness when you accelerate

 

I had a similar happen to about two weeks ago on my 2008 Ranger FX4 at 42000 miles. Alternator had failed.

 

PCM = Powertrain Control Module. It has nothing to do with directionals, heater blower, radio, etc.

 

Well it's at the dealer now. I removed the negative battery terminal last night to make sure the terminals were all clean - no problems there - but I did notice when I was putting the negative terminal back on that i was getting a small spark. In my past experiences with VW electrical issues that usually meant there was an electrical short or bad connection somewhere on the vehicle. I'm wondering if the samething has happened here as you have described Cheese_man. Did the dealer do your repair and was it covered under the powertrain warrenty?

Thanks for the responses all.

 

it was dealer covered yes!

ford made a small change to the starter / alternator wiring harness
( they shortened it for some reason )
every time you revved the engine , the harness would pull tight and small pieces of wire insulation would be ground off
eventually the positve feed wires grounded out to the metal inner fender , some where under the battery tray i was told.

the 1st sign was headlights and dash lights were flickering , then the abs light came on then the parking brake light , then the speedo / tach gauges went dead.
then the dash lights began slowly dimming out ,

then the engine just shut down , tried to restart , just solenoid clicking ( the clicking of death )

 

i was lucky , that the alternator did not suffer any damage after being shorted out

 

Just got the call from the dealership and it's a corroded wiring harness causing the electrical drain to the system. $214.82 for the part plus 3 hours labor for a total of $618.25! They also offered to just "repair" the harness and that would still take 2.5 - 3 hours labor at a cost of $336!

 

i would pay for the new harness and install it yourself

 

I'm thinking the same thing. Anyone have any ideas if this would be just a plug and play type fix where I just need to unplug the section that's corroded and plug in the new section. I hate electrical fixes but could handle it if it was to do something like this.

A part of me doesn't trust that's a simple corrosion issue considering the truck has been rust checked every year since new and I've made sure I've blocked eveything when coating the truck.

 

when i have krown spray my vehicle

they specifically spray electrical connections ( to prevent corrosion )

the harness should just be plug and play

just disconnect the old 1 and connect the new 1

 

I'm gearing up for a fight with my Ford dealership. The truck was repaired and I got it back on Monday. The trouble was corroded and broken wires from the battery to the alternator which run under the battery tray just inside the drivers side wheel well. Not covered under warrenty and they repaired the wires rather than replace the section of harness - my decision.

When I got the truck home Monday night I washed it and pulled it into the garage. I jacked up the truck and pulled the front drivers side wheel. I noticed something looked odd and I could see the wires that had been repaired with a fresh wrapping of black electrical tape but something looked strange. I went over to the other side of the truck and looked inside the wheel well and noticed that I couldn't see much except the inner fender liner and the top of the upper control arm - no shock mount top or side of the engine like I could see on the drivers side.

This got me to thinking. The inner fender liner is supposed to be in two sections. An upper and a lower section and the lower section was missing from the drivers side of my truck which would have been covering the wiring harness to keep the farking thing from getting covered in road dirt and corrosion and possible damage!!!

I remembered that back in late Dec of 2009 I had to bring the truck into Ford because it wasn't firing on all cylinders as it had a terrible misfire. They replaced the spark plug and wire on cylinder #2!

So now my fight will lie back with Ford to determine whether or not 1. the lower inner fender liner was not installed on my truck from the factory or 2. the inner fender liner was removed back in the Dec 09 for the cylinder misfire repair and not put back on or 3. it wasn't put back on after the repair on Monday. My money is lying on #2.

I also noticed while putting a fresh charge in the battery Monday night that the plastic cover for the power wires going to the computer was left off and just laid on top of the brake booster. Lucky for me it didn't fall off on the drive home and proof to me that the mechanics at the dealership are quite capable of leaving parts off after completing a repair.

Here goes the blood pressure and here comes the fighting gloves.

 

I have a 08 also and my sales guy told me when I got my ranger that the splash shield on the drivers side was deleted from production

 

Wow, Good to know. Anyone else with an 08 and no lower splash shield on the drivers side? The holes are there in the upper shield. What other years came with the lower shield so I can go check my local pick and pulls - if all else fails I'll make one.

A word of the wise if you don't have a lower splash shield and live in a climate with snow, sand and salt get one!

 

Ford first shortened the driver side splash shield around 2002/2003 and then eliminated it completely in the mid 2000's.

The earlier trucks had shields on both sides so I ordered and installed a passenger side shield on the driver side to keep the mud and spray out of the engine compartment of my 2003. For mine, the PS shield is exactly the same part as the earlier DS shield except the push pins are installed the other way - simply push them out and reverse direction.

1998~2006 PS part number: F87Z-16102-AA (fits either side)
Last time I checked, this part was about US$20.



The part number has apparently changed for 2007~2011 model Rangers. I haven't looked at the newer shield yet so I couldn't tell you if the same procedure would work for yours or not. Time to do some research before deciding to order anything:

• Check to be sure that Ford hasn't deleted any mounting holes in the DS inner fender over the years.
• Check to see if the driver side hole pattern looks like a mirror image of the PS.
• See if the PS shield looks flexible enough to mount on either inner fender.
• Look at how the shield is mounted to see if would be easy to reverse.

Cylinder #2 is on the passenger side, not the driver side.