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Ford Territory vibrating when stopped

Asked by Jim

My 2005 Ford Territory Ghia vibrates in drive when the vehicle is at a stop at traffic lights or at stop in traffic. Do you have the most logical cause for that? There’s no vibration on start up or accelerating, or while in motion. There are no dashboard lights indicating a fault.

Answered by CarsGuide

22 Nov 2022 David Morley

It sounds as though the engine’s idle-speed is set a little too low, and that’s making the engine feel lumpy (because it’s almost stalling). Having the transmission in Drive is adding a little load to the equation, slowing the engine even further. There are many things that can cause this, including a stepper-motor that is faulty and not controlling the idle properly.

The best advice is to have the car scanned for a hardware or sensor fault and proceed from there. But first, try this: With the engine idling and in Drive (and the vibration present) turn off the air-conditioning. If the vibration goes away, it could be that the electronics that detect the extra drag of the air-conditioner and automatically bump up the idle, aren’t working properly.

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