Also known as: cologne, cologne v6, 4.0 cologne, 2.9 cologne
Ford's German-built V6 — in the Ranger, Explorer, Mustang and the Mercury equivalents, and in European Fords for decades before that.
The 4.0 is the one most people meet, and it came in two quite different forms: the older pushrod version and the later SOHC, which share a displacement and a name and very little else.
⚑ The SOHC 4.0's timing chains are its defining fault, and the arrangement is unusual: there are three chains, and two of them are at the BACK of the engine, driven off the rear of the crankshaft. The symptom is a rattle on a cold start that comes from behind the engine rather than in front of it — and the repair means removing the engine or the transmission, which is why a chain rattle on one of these is quoted so high.
Catching it as a noise genuinely matters here, because a guide that has broken feeds debris into the oil.
The pushrod version has none of this and is a simple, long-lived engine whose faults are gaskets and sensors. The model year decides which is in front of you, and nothing on the car says so.
Cars fitted with this engine
10 generations, across 2 makes. From the authored catalogue — an absent car means the catalogue has not reached it, not that the engine was never fitted.
Ford
- Ranger First generation 1982–1992
- Aerostar First generation 1985–1997
- Explorer First generation 1990–1994
- Ranger Second generation 1992–1997
- Explorer Second generation 1994–2003
- Ranger Third generation 1997–2012
- Explorer Sport Trac First generation 2000–2005
- Explorer Third generation 2002–2005
- Explorer Sport Trac Second generation 2006–2010
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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