2001 Windstar missing on two cylinders...is it safe to drive?

[theoldwizard]

Originally Posted by firstwindstar02

Watch out with misfiring it could dump a lot of unburnt fuel into your catalytic converter. Which heats them up to dangerous temps.

You forget to add "which can cause your car to start on fire".

I have seen this happen !

[canuck623]

In addition the excellent post by Bronco Joe on testing coils this can also be accomplished with a scan tool that is OEM capable. The IDS and WDS can hook up to a coil and run it through a set of internal tests and give you a detailed breakdown of where the coil is weak. All dealers and some independent garages have this capability and the cost would be less than throwing parts at a problem till it went away.

[BroncoJoe19]

Canuck623,
Thanks for adding that additional info, I never heard of that method of testing a coil until you mentioned it in another thread yesterday

[Old Meteor]

We have 99 Windstar 3.8 L and it had idled very rough and it turned out to be a vaccuum leak. A rubber hose on the passanger side rear corner of the intake got soft. When I started the van it would first go fast idle to warm up and return to normal idle and it then idled rough. You could hear the vaccuum leak and since it was on the back side of the intake it was not easily to locate. I replaced the rubber hose and all was fine. A quick note to add, when I would try to start the van sometimes I released the key to quickly and the van would back fire and blow the vaccuum hose off and after that the vaccuum leak could be heard.
Good Luck