A good friend of mine has an '02 max SE auto. He has about 45K on it.

He had been complaining that sometimes in the morning the car made a lot of noise when cold - I never heard it, but dismissed it as normal cold engine cam chain noise.

Now his car barely runs. It starts and idles on the front cylinders only, but when you give it a little gas the back 3 kick in. it has very poor acceleration.

Reading the codes gave multiple misfires detected from multiple cylinders, bank 1 and 2 cam position sensor faults, etc.

My friend who owns the car thinks the cam chain jumped. I don't think that is very likely unless a guide broke, or the tensioner totally failed.

I am going to go look at it this afternoon and check the codes myself. Has anyone seen anything like this?

He said the whole back bank comes and goes as a group. He has replaced the plugs, and checked all the obvious stuff to no avail.

He took it to the dealer who said they can't diagnose the problem - they think it is internal. They said any oil lubed part is covered under warranty still, but if they pull it apart and it turns out to not be internal, or they can't find it - he is responsible for the labor. I am also worried that if he doesn't have a reciept for every oil change (which he wouldn't becuase he does it himself with Mobil1) they will not honor the engine warranty anyway even if they do find an internal defect.

Any ideas you guys can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

Tell him his car is fcuked and he should just sell it

 

Thanks, I think he wants to keep it a while longer.

The codes we pulled are:

P0011 IVT Control Bank 1
P0021 IVT Control Bank 2
P0300 Multiple Misfires

The dealer is recommending that he get the ECU program updated and replace the Intake Cam Timing actuators on both banks.

We find it hard to believe that both actuators would fail at the same time, as well as his ECU code suddenly not being valid.

 

We replaced the Cam position sensors, and still get the P011, and p021 and p0300. We disconnected the MAF to put it in limp home mode and see if it ran better, it didn't. We also tightened the ground connections next to the oil fill cap.

Any other ideas?

 

The p0300 code is just a generic result of the p011 and p021, what is required to replace and or fix to clear these two codes? Don't worry about the p0300 I'm sure that will go away once the other two are resolved, sorry not a lot of help, good luck and post back with your solution

 

Jjust throwing this out there....but have you tried testing the coil packs? It would be odd that all back three would fail, but you never know. The ignition coil packs have been problematic with these cars.

 

Sounds like it could be the intake valve control solenoid. Do you have the factory service manual? There's a pretty good diagnostic section in there. I can email you that part if you need it.