Questions and Answers

Ford Mustang Pinging Q. Vince, My car is a 2001 Ford Mustang GT with the 4.6 liter engine. It has an automatic transmission and about 22,000 miles on it. It is fuel injected with ABS, power steering, power brakes and I am the original owner. My situation is: When traveling at a high rate of speed (75 to 80 mph) and rapidly accelerating to a higher speed, the engine makes a metallic rattling noise (which I assume is a ping).

This occurs only when opening the throttle all the way and stops when the transmission downshifts from third to second gear. It has always done this. Using high octane gas does not help (the manual recommends 87 octane).

The engine otherwise seems to run fine. Any ideas on how to get rid of the ping? Also, it is potentially damaging to the engine to experience this? Thanks very much for your opinion and answer. I have not talked to anyone at the dealership about this yet.

Jim

A. I guess the first thing to check would be the Knock Sensor (KS). The KS detects the engine ping and the computer then retards the timing until the pinging stops. So there might be a problem in the KS, KS circuit or PCM.

But since you are still well within warranty, Ford should take care of it.