My 2004 (15K miles, smaller V8) Mustang GT recently experienced a problem. I bought the car several months ago and it has worked great. However, on a trip to Colorado last week the car experienced a problem. After traveling about 20 miles to an elevation of 10,000ft, mostly in 3d gear, the car lost power. I depressed the clutch and pulled into a very handy parking spot. The engine died just as soon as I pulled in. Just prior to the problem, it felt like I was loosing a little bit of power, and I thought I detected a backfire, then a bit of sputtering, then great loss of power. The car smelled hot, but all gauges were normal, and no "check engine" light came on. My dealer said there would probably be no messages on the computer download, and suggested vapor lock. I was running a gas that had about 10%? ethanol, as an octane booster. Does this sound like vapor lock. I thought it was pretty uncommon with fuel injection. Do ethanol blends cause this more often? Two mechanics said "don't worry about this unless it happens again" I have a hard time not worrying. Any ideas????

 

thin air leads to thin power. If the elevation changes too suddenly it's hard for the ECU to keep up. Sounds like it was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. If it happens at any more reasonable altitude then it's a matter for repair but I'd say you're probably OK since it was above 10K feet. Most cars never see that altitude.

 

Thats all it was ^

 

X3. Everytime my dad came back from a trip to West Virginia, his trucks (99 F150 and 02 F150) always came back w/ the check engine light on, even though nothing was wrong. The altitude change alone sparked codes for the O2 sensors I believe.