well its certantly a possiblility. I would try taking off the egr and doing a visual inspection on it. With all luck it could be a piece jammed inside you could remove or gently pound out....Wait a sec it would have to go through the dpfe sensor first so if thats the problem just pull the dpfe and check the tubes...even that small wouldn't be able to get into there

I don't think 06+ has a DPFE on the 2.3L, the EGR is REALLY weird

I guess. Just pull the egr and check it out. Its not that hard and its preety quick

chalk up another guy who thinks its a bent valve and is in disbelief that you STARTED YOUR TRUCK AFTER DROPPING A FOREIGN OBJECT INTO THE CYLINDER

anyone who would get new plugs on a Ranger with under 20,000 miles is just stupid.
motorcraft plugs are just fine. it's not like your going to get more HP with NGK plugs

Easy there bud, everyone makes mistakes. Thats how you learn, no need to be a complete dick about it. Now I am all for calling out people mistakes and letting them know when something stupid has been done, but he has already realized this. Now your just saying it to be a dick.

^^^ As if you think it's the first time he's done this.

Try clearing the code. See what happens after a drive cycle.

Still doesnt make it right, I will call him out on it every time I catch it.

Clearing the code might work, the piece could have caught in the EGR, thrown a code, then the EGR ratified itself.

Oh I never said it was right. I've had a few fights with Mr. Terrance.... Not my battle right here though.

I still say clear the code and cycle. See if it throws again. Then you'll know if it's still there, if it is an obstruction.

true, true.. i keep forgetting that i, too, was once young. but even then, i would never remove perfectly good plugs on a vehicle that was less than 2 years old. but, like you stated, live and learn!

Huge sigh of relief... Today I was finally able to afford to rent out a compression tester (Autozone wanted $45!!!), tested all 4 cylinders and got 150psi exactly on all 4 cylinders. Also it's obvious it's running rich... Sounds more and more like EGR / vacuum, which is good, because it's a cheaper fix.

For those of you wondering why I changed the plugs in the first place: I realize the vehicle only had about 18,000 miles on it, well under the service life of any spark plug, but after seeing how nasty the oil was, and how nasty the air cleaner was, it was obvious that the previous owners neglected basic matenence, so I wanted to have a fresh start and replace all the basic items so that I knew exactly what had and hadn't been done and when. Nessicary? No. Logical? I think so...

Since its an 07 and under 36k miles, couldn't you just take it to the dealership and tell them that its throwing a code and see if they will fix it under warranty?

^not if it has no maintenance records to prove it was serviced, and it sounds like scheduled maintenance wasnt priority to the last owner. still wouldnt hurt to try

I dissagree with that, you shouldent have to take it in everytime the owners manual or maintence guide says to, just to keep the warrenty valid. As long as nothing serious has been modified, and has clean fluids, I think you warrenty should be valid. In this guys case, I wouldent think so since that really isn't they're fault. I just wanted to point that out about warrentys in general though, if thats what you were getting at. I could be wrong I guess, but I woulden't think that is really the case. There are so many people that get things covered under warrenty, and im sure not every person goes in for maintence everytime, or even at all for the people who do theyre own maintence.

Sure they can reject your warranty for not doing regular maintenance. What if he hasn't changed the oil in the 5 year warranty, then his motor seizes due to lack of oil?

You have to keep receipts to show that you are doing regular maintenance. It doesn't have to be done at the stealership, but you need proof.

I didn't say you didn't have to do the maintence, but having a clean engine and full of clean oil would be enough I would think to show you keep your oil changed. I have even dated my oil filters and wrote mileage on them before. I guess if this is the case, I better save my oil recepts, but then again how do they know that oil went to MY truck?

Your right, you should be keeping your receipts. Alot of times bigger companies, like Ford, pay very little to do warranty work. Where I work, Yamaha pays only 9 hrs of work to disassemble, fix the problem, and reassemble an entire motor. It will normally take a tech 12-14 hrs. Who pays for this lost time? Not Yamaha, that's for damn sure. It falls down to us. We loose the money.

What I am getting at here is that alot of dealerships will find any excuse to get out of warranty work just because it costs them money.

Oh yeah I understand, hopefully I won't have to worry about it though lol. I work at a local outdoor power equipment dealer, and we do what we can to get things covered to, and sometimes we eat it.