Top 5 Problems Ford Explorer SUV 3rd Generation 2002-05

Hey, friends. It's Len here from 1A Auto. Today in the studio, we have a 3rd Generation Ford Explorer. I wanted to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find, so let's get started. Now, for our first problem, we're gonna talk about ignition coil issues. Your ignition coil on this truck is gonna be located right along the front right here. Now, the job of the ignition coil pack is to take power that comes from this lead right here, go ahead and build it up inside this area, and then it's gonna transport it through these wires to the spark plug. At that point, the spark plug's gonna spark up and ignite the combustible materials inside of your engine, which, of course, is gonna make the engine turnover and run. Now, if you are having an issue with your ignition coil, so what you might happen to find is lack of power. You might also happen to notice that you have a misfire condition. If you have a misfire condition, you might tend to feel that under acceleration or even idling sitting still. Other than that, you might happen to notice that you have a check engine light that comes on the dash.

Now, if you were to pull that check engine code, you might happen to find that you have codes that come up saying something along the lines of P0301 or even P0306. Essentially, anywhere in between is gonna tell you which is having an issue. Other than that, you might just happen to notice lack of power, but that's more than likely gonna be due to the misfire condition. Now, ignition coils come in all different shapes and sizes. This one, in particular, comes as a coil pack which essentially means it has one coil pack that controls all the spark plugs through their wires. Some common causes why maybe your coil pack might go bad essentially could be because, of course, there's a lot of heat coming from your engine. The heat, of course, is gonna break down the plastics that come along here. If it breaks down and cracks in any way, moisture can make its way inside. Other than that, of course, where the wires go on, if you were to remove that and look down inside here, you're gonna see an area where, of course, moisture could potentially make its way in. There's gonna be a contact point that needs to make its way to here. That's how the current's gonna go through. If moisture makes its way in there or even the electrical connector on the backside here, of course, you're gonna have a runnability issue.

Now, as far as fixes for this, it's gonna be a little bit different than diagnosing regular coils, something such as this, because, of course, if you had one of these and it was directly over a spark plug, all you would have to do is essentially go ahead and transfer it from one spark plug to another and, of course, if that misfire happened to move to the new cylinder that you move the coil too, you'd be able to tell that your coil is bad. For this, in particular, type of coil, it's a little bit different though. Essentially, with this one, you have one coil that's controlling all the different spark plugs. If you happen to find that you're having a misfire on one in particular cylinder, you could, of course, go ahead and try to remove the wire, inspect it, inspect inside this area, and then, of course, you'd wanna go down to the spark plug, inspect the spark plug as well. And, of course, if you found that you were having an issue with multiple cylinders, then more than likely, that's gonna come down to having an issue with the coil pack.

So if you find that you're having an issue with the coil, of course, you'd wanna go ahead and replace that. Typically at the same time as replacing the coil, it really couldn't hurt to replace the wires if they haven't been done in a while and, of course, inspect those spark plugs and typically you're gonna replace those as well. Now, for our second problem, we're gonna talk about timing chain issues, more specifically on this, the timing chain tensioner and guides. Now, for this problem, it's gonna be a little bit more difficult for me to show you something because it's actually located inside the front of the engine. The responsibility of the timing chain, of course, is to keep everything in time. You're gonna have valves that are inside your engine that need to be able to open and close as they should. If for some reason something's out of time, the valves aren't gonna be able to function properly and your engine's not gonna run right.

Now, if your truck's having this issue, some of the things that you might happen to find is that you hear a little bit of a ticking noise coming from your engine. That's how it's generally gonna start. You might also happen to hear a whining noise coming from the front of your engine. Any of these things could potentially mean that you're having an issue with your timing chain and/or the timing chain tensioner, and, of course, guides. You might also happen to notice that you have runnability issues. Maybe it just doesn't seem like your engine has as much power as it should. Of course, if this issue got worse and you didn't necessarily take care of it in time, you might actually have internal engine damage. Now, as far as fixes for this, it's not necessarily gonna be the easiest thing to go ahead and fix. You're gonna have to pull apart the entire front-end of your engine here so you can access the timing chain and, of course, the timing chain tensioner. Something like this is something that you're gonna wanna replace all at the same time. So when you're in there, go ahead and replace the timing chain, the tensioner, and any guides that you happen to find that look as though they're worn. And, of course, keep in mind, if you happen to mess up the timing of the engine when you're doing the replacement of this, your engine's probably not gonna run right.

Now, for problem number three, we're gonna talk about blend door issues. For this, we're gonna be inside the passenger compartment. You're gonna be able to find your temperature control switches. This one right here in the center, obviously, it's the one that you can make it so you can go hot or even cool, depending on your particular situation. There's gonna be a blend door that's located behind your dash that's gonna be able to take care of that. Other than that, you also have this one right here. This is the diverter one. So, of course, if you wanted the air coming out of your vents, you can do that or go ahead and switch it to defrost to go ahead and defrost that windshield.

Well, in some cases, what could potentially happen is the blend doors that are supposed to be able to switch these things around inside of your dash end up binding up inside. It's very common for them to either crack or break in some way and, of course, bind. Other than that, a reason why they might bind it could potentially be something fell inside of one of the vents. Maybe somebody put a pencil or a piece of debris made its way inside. If it's binding up the blend door, you might have an issue where you can't go from cold to hot or hot to cold or even you try to go from defrost to something else. Another symptom that you might happen to find could potentially be if you were to try to switch this from either hot to cold or cold to hot, you might end up hearing like a clunking noise coming from behind your dash. Now, if you were to go ahead and pull down on your glove box, you're gonna be able to see behind here where your heater box is. There's gonna be blend doors that are located inside that. If, of course, you had an issue with one of the blend doors, you're gonna have to get inside of this area and try to diagnose it. Typically, what it's gonna come down to is you're gonna have to go ahead and replace the entire HVAC box if you're having an issue with one of your blend doors.

Now, for our fourth problem, we're gonna talk about fuel pumps. The fuel pump on this truck is gonna be located on the passenger side inside your fuel tank which is located under the truck. Now, I have a fuel pump in my hand right here. It's not necessarily the one for this truck, but it's one that you can physically see because the other one's inside the fuel tank and I'm, of course, not gonna drop it out of there just to show you it. What can potentially go bad on the fuel pumps themselves is, of course, you're gonna have this selector right here which is essentially gonna tell your fuel gauge where the fuel level's at. This could potentially go bad. Other than that, inside, you're gonna have a fuel pump itself. The fuel pump, of course, is gonna have the job of sending the fuel up to the engine so it can be burned up inside that combustion chamber.

The pump itself, of course, could potentially wear out. It's just an electronic pump and, of course, the more it runs, especially if your fuel level is typically low, maybe like to be under quarter tank for some reason most of the time, you're gonna burn out your fuel pump. Some common symptoms that you might happen to have if you're having an issue with your fuel pump might be a loud humming noise coming from underneath your truck around the fuel tank. Some of the symptoms that you might happen to have if you're having an issue with your fuel pump might be getting out of your truck and you happen to hear a loud humming noise coming from underneath the truck around the fuel tank. A light humming noise is very common because, of course, the pump is gonna make a little bit of noise, especially inside that fuel tank.

If you hear a loud humming, more than likely the fuel pump's on its way out. Another symptom that you might happen to have if you're having an issue with your fuel pump might potentially be a runnability issue. The reason for that is because if the fuel pump isn't up to par, it probably doesn't have enough fuel pressure going up to the engine to be burned up in that combustion chamber. If that's the case, you're probably gonna find that you have a runnability issue, you might find lack of power, or even the truck just doesn't even wanna start. Now, as far as fixes for this, what we're gonna wanna do is, of course, check fuel pressure first. You wanna make sure that you're up to spec. If for some reason your fuel pressure is a little bit low, of course, you're gonna wanna check that fuel filter.

If the fuel filter looks as though it's rusted and old in any way or maybe you just haven't replaced it since you even owned the truck, go ahead and replace that because more than likely it's probably pretty plugged up. After you replace the fuel filter, go ahead and retest that. Make sure that your fuel pressure is up. If for some reason still isn't up, more than likely it comes down to the fuel pump. If for some reason you're replacing the fuel pump, it really only makes sense to replace the fuel filter at the same time.

Okay, friends. Let's make our way to the back of the truck because I wanna talk about our fifth problem. For this one, it's gonna come down to this wiper arm right here. There's gonna be a couple of different things that I wanna go over with it. What you might happen to notice is when you go ahead and put on your wiper blade, for some reason, the wiper blade itself just doesn't necessarily touch up against the entire back window here. Maybe it touches a little bit and then it just doesn't even clean the rest of it. A common reason for that could potentially be the wiper blade itself, but generally, it comes down to this joint right along here. It's supposed to be a hinge and it's supposed to flow freely. So, essentially, if I was to lift this arm away and let it go, well, it's supposed to go back up against the window. It's supposed to hold pressure against the window so it can clean it properly so you can see out the back window. The hinge right along here is very susceptible to moisture and, of course, it's gonna build up corrosion. If the hinge builds up corrosion or is stuck in any way, of course, it's not gonna be able to put the proper amount of pressure up against the window to be able to clean it.

To fix this, of course, what you could try to do is carefully try to spray it with some penetrant. Of course, you don't wanna get it all over the window or any of your paint, and then try to work it in just by going back and forth like this. Typically that's gonna make its way inside there and it's gonna loosen it up so you have pressure up against the window again. Other than that, if you found that after you tried doing it, it just really didn't wanna work very well still, you just go ahead and replace this wiper arm. It's very simple. Take this off right here and, of course, remove the wiper blade. And since we're talking about the rear wiper arm, let's go with the possibility that maybe you go ahead and switch it on but for some reason, it just doesn't even function at all. If that's the case, it's gonna come down to the wiper motor itself so if you were to lift up on your tailgate and get underneath this right along here, you're gonna be able to find where your wiper motor is. I'm just gonna go ahead and pull this way so we can take a peek. Now with this pulled away, we have a clear view of the wiper motor itself.

You can see where the shaft is supposed to go through the window and then to the wiper arm. One of the first things I like to check is this electrical connector that goes into it. Go ahead and take it off. Take a peek. If you see any funny colors, it's corrosion and it needs to be dealt with. After that, what I wanna do is test for power and ground. We wanna make sure that we have power going to it when it's supposed to. If it has power and ground coming right along here but this still doesn't work, you need to go ahead and replace your wiper motor. Whoa. Since we're back here, this is another thing that I wanna talk about. A crack that looks a lot like this is very common on these boards. Typically, what it comes down to when this tends to happen is you're gonna have to replace this panel right along here.

Okay, friends. So that's pretty much what I've got for you for top problems on a 3rd Generation Ford Explorer. Maybe you got one of these trucks or a car of your own with a story of your own. If you do, leave it in the comments section below because I always love to hear from you. If you liked the video or you learned a little something, go ahead and smash on the like button for me. It would mean the world. While you're at it, subscribe, ring the bell, and, of course, share it with all your friends that way there everybody can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.