BigMatt

Hey everyone!

I just bought my first Ford product on December 28th... a seemingly well-cared for 2001 Town Car with ~72k miles. As my luck would run, I had it about a week before it developed a starting problem. My car had no problems starting until one night in heavy rain. The car didn't seem to have trouble starting, but would IMMEDIATELY die. Holding down the accelerator a little would keep the engine from dying. Driving the car a few minutes (about two miles) and the car wouldn't die... until the next time I tried to start the car.

The next day, no rain, no problem starting.

A few days later the problem resurfaced—it was raining—and lo and behold, the day after the rain stopped, the problem was gone.

About a week ago, it rained for about 3 days straight. Now the problem won't go away, rain or shine. In addition the car seems to hesitate (then BAM! acceleration) when starting from a stop, though I can't tell whether there's any minor shuddering during the hesitation because the car's interior is so quiet.

There's no check engine light. Gas mileage hasn't suffered at all. I can't tell if there's a power loss (other than the hesitation) because I drive like a 80 year old. I did kinda get on it this morning coming home from work but I have no baseline to determine if there's been a loss of power compared to before. The car still seems powerful, but my last car was an 18 year old K-car New Yorker with 141hp, so really, anything feels like a beast to me now.

Also, there's a rhythmic clicking coming from around the fuel rail that I never noticed before... But I haven't owned the car long enough to know if it was there before or not. The only other significant thing that comes to mind is that I changed the air filter a few days after I bought he car, and noticed today that the orange gasket around the filter was visible from outside the filter box. I replaced the new filter with the "old" filter (which was actually new, I now believe) and it seems to fit the same. Should the outside edge of the filter (but none of the filter material) be visible? Could this have led to my problem?

As an aside, the night I test drove/bought the car it was raining heavily, and continued to rain for the first three days I owned the car, and I had no problem starting it. The problem started happening after the filter change, but I cannot remember exactly how long it was after that until the problem started. I can say, however, that it wasn't immediately after the new filter.

Anyway, the car doesn't have a warranty and I'd like to know if it's just something simple before I carry it in to the dealership and get bent over the counter.

Thanks for all the help guys (and gals!)

Matt

BigMatt

A few more things:

I started the car a few minutes ago and it listened closely to the idle... it's very weak and not smooth at all. The engine dies when the revs drop sharply (or, not so sharply) unless you're careful with the accelerator and ease the engine down to idling speed slooooooowly...

Here's a rather poor video with even poorer sound of the clicking noise.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...18-07_1053.flv


Thanks again,

Matt

BigMatt

Thanks for the help, Galaxie!