For the third time since I’ve had it (about two years,) my car’s check engine light has come on and decided it’s a real problem. Both previous times it was mis-firing cylinders (I can’t recall which ones.) The first time it happened was the the summer of '05, and the garage replaced my spark plugs and wire. No problems until December of '06, when the check engine light not only came on and stayed on, but blinked every now and then. This time, they replaced the fuel injectors, so they tell me. Once again, the light went on and started blinking. The guys at the auto parts store hooked up their computer and the error codes are P0301 and P0325, cylinder 1 misfire and knock sensor 1 circuit malfunction. I can also feel the car just not performing right. It struggles and feels like it’s jerking as it drives.
From here and here I got the jist of what this means (and the symptoms described reflect what my car is doing,) but they don’t seem to give any info on the severity of this problem. I want to know if I can drive it for a couple days till I can get it to the garage (or even drive it the 30+ miles to the garage I normally go to,) or to not touch the damn thing and should even go so far as to have it towed to a garage.
I don’t know much except what Pat Goss says. If it’s a yellow light, you can drive it to a mechanic as soon as possible; of course how soon it has to be depends on the problem and I can’t help with that. If it’s a red light, though, you’re supposed to pull over immediately and stop the car as you could be causing major damage.
You say it “struggles and feels like it’s jerking” when it drives…I know next to nothing about cars, but I do know that I once had a car that did exactly that, and I decided it was ok to keep driving it for a couple of days. I went on a short drive (5 min) to pick up a friend and as I was driving on the freeway, one of the wheels fell off! I was able to pull it to the side of the road in the nick of time, but something truly bad could have happened. I don’t recommend tempting fate, personally. (Incidentally, the car was so damaged that I had to sell it for scrap.)
Try higher octane gasoline if you decide to keep driving it. Without a properly working knock sensor your car’s computer will not know when to retard timing and you might have knock or misfires. However, there’s a good chance that even if the knock sensor shorted once for one second causing a single misfire and is now functioning perfectly the light would still on until cleared by a reader with both of those codes listed. I’d have the knock sensor checked sooner rather than later, but if it was my car I’d keep driving it and listen for unhealthy sounds.
I got myself a reader for $25 on eBay and so far out of seven times it came on it was a catalytic converter pressure imbalance caused by not tightening the gas cap. Except it comes on and stays on for four months if not cleared. I don’t know how people go through life without having a reader.
“Check Engine” lights are yellow/amber. On some cars the equivalent light says “Service Engine Soon”, or is a pictograph of an engine.
If the “Check Engine” light is on, but no other symptoms are observed, there’s usually no urgency and no reason to avoid driving. It does make sense to have it checked. There are hundreds of possible causes for the light to be on, and while most could be safely ignored for a good while, some could lead to further problems if let go too long.
If the “Check Engine” light is on and there are engine performance symptoms, it should be checked fairly soon, with driving minimized within reason. The odds are high that letting it go could lead to further problems, and while it’s not necessarily urgent, the sooner it’s dealt with the better.
If the “Check Engine” light is flashing, it indicates a situation where further damage is expected, and the official instruction is stop driving unless it’s truly necessary. The main worry is damage to the catalytic converter, which can be quite expensive to replace.
Since your light is flashing, I would say the wise course would be to not drive it, and have it towed. If you want to gamble, you might luck out, and save the cost/inconvenience of alternate transportation and a tow. Or you might not luck out, and face the expense of replacing the converter (hundreds of dollars, on some cars even over a grand).
That would have been and evaporative emission control system (e.g., gasoline fumes) pressure imbalance. It has nothing to do with the catalytic converter.
In addition to other things mentioned above, I’d add a bottle of injector cleaner according to the directions on the bottle. At least with my car ('96 Monte Carlo) the Service Engine light comes on when an injector is clogged. I found this out accidentally and when this happens occasionally, I just add the cleaner and in usually the next day, the light will go out. I wouldn’t take the car out on the highway or anything, but hopefully you’d be ok around town.
In my experiance a flashing engine light has always been caused by the engine misfiring. I understand it indicates other things as well, but missfiring is the only time I’ve seen it on 4 or five different cars.
If the car is missfiring driving it will eventualy do damage. The hotter the engine/exhaust gets the higher the odds of damage occouring from the fuel exploding in the exhaust system. The repairs can get very costly.
In my experience a flashing CEL is severe misfire, and damage to the cat is expected if it continues.
The report of a sluggish engine response tends to bear this out.
If you keep driving it, you will only make the repair bills larger.
Well fuck, fuck, and then fuck again. The repair place had better not charge me for this…I mean, it’s the exact same thing they told me they fixed back in December! I’d like to think I could get at least two months out of a repair job, :rolleyes:.
So if they replaced all my spark plugs and wires the first time, and then the fuel injectors the second time, what else could the underlying problem be?
Distributor cap (if applicable). Coil. Ignition module. Ignition pickup (if applicable). Crankshaft sensor or camshaft sensor. Fouled spark plug, from engine mechanical problem or faulty injector. Faulty spark plug. Faulty injector.
So it might be something that’s not covered by warranty on previous repairs. Or it might be something that is - but it’s unlikely that corollary damage (e.g. to the converter) would be covered.
