Hi All

Just moved. Live in a nice farming town in Illinois. A nice quiet area. So I had to give up my cherry bomb muffler.

Recently. I noticed my tach was not right when driving. I then noticed a MPG average from 21 to 24. Instead of 12 to 15. Happy. Then my engine light came on. It started shifting hard. The code wass the VSS on the transmission.

So I pulled the battery to reset the code.

Driving it around I noticed something. The engine has never shifted so smooth.
The gas mileage went up. Now I know that the mileage may be off just like the speedo. What isn't off is the smooth shifting and nice driving.

My town does not require an emission test. My truck will drive hard if the engine light comes on. That is what happens when the computer can't read that sensor.

I have a GPS to tell me how fast I'm going. Not worried about mileage being off. The truck is not loud. So all is good there.

So my question. 2001 Ford Ranger XLT 3.0L engine 4X4 automatic transmission. Is there a build around or hack? To make the engine think the sensor is ok. I don't want the check engine light coming on. The fix is easy.I feel I have something to gain with a work around. Like better MPG. Something I can track with my smart phone. Speed on my GPS. So I'm safe on the roads.

Does anyone have any imput on this?

 

Working sensor doesn't make MPG worse, not sure why you would think that???

Broken sensor doesn't make transmission shift smoother or MPG better.

CEL coming on after engine warms up puts computer into "Limp Mode", which causes automatic transmission shifts to be harsher, which is actually SAFER as it prevents damage if there is a transmission malfunction.

I would check the wiring on OSS(output shaft sensor) and maybe look at replacing it, it may have been intermittent for a long time causing lower MPG and shift issues, i.e. if OSS was reporting speed of 30MPH and 35MPH back and forth every few seconds computer would think YOU are speeding up and slowing down, or going up and down small hills, this throws off Odometer as well as shifting

1988 to 2000 Used VSS, Ford renamed it OSS in 2001 when it was moved to transmission Output Shaft again to avoid confusion
VSS and OSS are the same type of Variable Reluctance sensors so I think the renaming is MORE confusing, lol.

 

Ron

Thank you. Thought I discovered something great. I just need to order the part and fix it.

I can see an up down reading causing the computer to do odd things as well.

I guess thinking outside the box is not good when it comes to sensors.

Keep things rolling good.

 

Thinking outside the box is great, never stop doing it

Like Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I've succeeded in finding 10,000 ways that won't work."