04 Expedition Accelerator Stuck Engine Rev

My 2 month old '04 EB Expedition was running fine when I started to notice it accelerating. After checking the obvious, foot on acc. pedal, floor mat not on pedal, etc. I started to slow down. It kept trying to accelerate. I stopped on the side of the road where the engine continued to rev up to 3K, 4K 5K rpm before I slammed it into park and turned off the engine. About a minute later, I restarted the car and the engine immediately rev'ed up to approx 4K rpm. Again, turned it off, waited another minute and the exact same thing happened. This time, I called my Ford dealer service dept. for advice. They recommended that I bring it in via tow service. By this time, about 5-8 minutes had passed and I started it again and the problem hasn't occured again. Dealer service dept inspected the car, even contact national Ford technical support hotline for advice but no solution was given for the 3 occurences. It hasn't happened again in the last 2 weeks. Has anyone had a similar problem? I can't find any similar problem on the web anywhere. Advice? Thanks in advance.

The 04 Has an electric throtle on it ( no cable from pedal to the throtle, done by computer). This is a problem with the 04. we should be seeing a recall shortly on this issue. Will nore than likely be a chip mod that they do at the dealer. Haven't had the prob with ours but have had friends with the same problem.

I am having the same problem with my '97 Expedition. Seems to be consistently getting stuck in cold weather.......getting VERY dangerous to drive not to mention the damage being done to the brakes and transmission. Mine has a cable from the pedal to the throttle body though and I have had a mechanic look at it twice now and he can't find anything wrong.

As for the 1997, I would reccomend disconecting the throttle cable and letting it sit on a cold night and see if the throttle body or cable is what's sticking, I've seen some of the throttle bodies stick on those before. As for the 04, the drive by wire is a tricky system to work with. There's three inputs for both the pedal and the throttle plate. Ford's getting the training out there, but there's still a lot of people who just look at the ticket and call the hotline. Sounds like a processor error, though, because it only happened in one short time span. Ford may be coming out with a revised programming (we don't replace chips, we just hook our computer up and it just updates the programming). If it doesn't continue, it may be like the stalling Escapes where it does it once and doesn't do it again. I'd keep an eye on it. Working at the dealer, we hate to tell customers that we just can't do anything, especially when it is a safety concern. My best advice is to keep in touch with your dealer, maybe call once a week or so and I am sure Ford will figure it out as soon as they can. Also, if it doesn't appear to be a common failure, a field engineer can be dispatched to look at the vehicle. One more piece of advice...shut the engine off in gear before putting it into park, it'll save some tranny trouble down the road. Good luck and keep us posted as to what it ends up being (I'm curious now!).

I think I have it traced down to the throttle body. I have the dealer looking into now and I will let you know what they find out, but they seem to think it is carbon build up in the throttle body.....does that sound correct?

Anyway, I have 111K in miles on this Expy, but I didn't see anything in the maintenance about cleaning or servicing the throttle body!

Hi guys,

I had this same problem on my Expedition, in cold weather only. I thought at first the accelerator cable was stuck. Turns out it was moisture from the engine building up ice in the air intake, just back from the air filter. The water slowly pools just after the airfilter, and forms a chuck of ice. Then when you are giving it gas, and the truck is sucking harder, the piece of ice lets go and flys into the Throttle, (butterfly value?) holding it open. Then as it slowly melts, the throttle starts to rev down again. I've had this happen several times, and its freaky. Best to shift into neutral, and shut off the engine, until the engine heat melts it.

take off your air box and filter (and ill bet you'll find either water pooled up in there or ice chunks.

Best fix i can think off is to put a piece of cardboard against your rad, try and keep the cold air from cooling it off to quick to form ice and keeping your engine warmer.

Hope that helps.

I have a 99 Expedition and had the same problem but was able to find out that there is a TSB on mine. It is being caused by ice building up from the moisture in PCV. The TSB is TSB 01-21-12 . The PN"s are PCV YC2Z-6K773-AA, HOSE YL3Z-8A505-BA. Part is over priced but it allows you to have a heated PCV valve. There is a line welded on th PCV you remove the (ECT) coolant supply hose and run it to one side of line and the add another hose (YL3-8A505-BA) to the other end of the PCV added line and run it back to where it was removed.

Hope this Helps