Unknown warning light/engine not idle-ing properly
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From: Ennis, Co Clare Ireland
Unknown warning light/engine not idle-ing properly
As i was driving to football training taking a few bad roads through Cork city i felt my car kind of chugging as i accelerated and not ticking over properly. An orange warning light flashes on every couple of seconds, I don't know how to describe the light, it is like a rectangular box with random shapes, guessing it could represent the engine.
I made it back to my house which was about 10 miles away not going over 2000rpm as it didnt feel safe.
Can anyone help point me in the right direction as to what it could be?
On a side note it really was not my night as after i parked up to play soccer on my chugging S2k i went on to badly sprain my ankle while playing football and ended up in accident and emergency for 6 hours today. Not my night!
I made it back to my house which was about 10 miles away not going over 2000rpm as it didnt feel safe.
Can anyone help point me in the right direction as to what it could be?
On a side note it really was not my night as after i parked up to play soccer on my chugging S2k i went on to badly sprain my ankle while playing football and ended up in accident and emergency for 6 hours today. Not my night!
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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 33,838
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From: Sunshine Coast - England UK
It's likely you have a bad misfire.
The light you can see is a CEL (check engine light)
You need to get the car checked ASAP and the fault codes pulled from the ECU.
Not sure how hands on you are but i'd be looking at the spark plugs first, but it could be a coil pack which is shot, are a multitude of other things (cat collapsed, map sensor gone, injector fooked etc)
The light you can see is a CEL (check engine light)
You need to get the car checked ASAP and the fault codes pulled from the ECU.
Not sure how hands on you are but i'd be looking at the spark plugs first, but it could be a coil pack which is shot, are a multitude of other things (cat collapsed, map sensor gone, injector fooked etc)
Joined: Jan 2006
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From: location, location
EDIT, Marks beat me to it 
IIWU dont drive the car and buy one of these tonight http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Diagnostic-Scanner-F...=item43a040a449, hopefully you'll get it on a saturday, read the code, look up the fault code e.g p0302 etc
and you'll have a better diagnosis. If you go to a dealer it will cost £40-50 and that means driving the car which is a no-no IMHO.
IIWU dont drive the car and buy one of these tonight http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Diagnostic-Scanner-F...=item43a040a449, hopefully you'll get it on a saturday, read the code, look up the fault code e.g p0302 etc
and you'll have a better diagnosis. If you go to a dealer it will cost £40-50 and that means driving the car which is a no-no IMHO.
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Joined: Oct 2005
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From: Banbury, Oxfordshire
The code will probably be "misfire".
If it's consistently misfiring at idle you can try unplugging each coil in turn for a second. The one that doesn't cause the engine to run worse is the cylinder that is misfiring.
If you swap that coil with another cylinder and try again, then if the fault moves then it's the coil that's at fault. This is exactly what I did recently. New coil from a breaker, no more problems (for a few months anyway
).
That's a pretty easy thing to do DIY, and all you need is an allen key and 10mm socket.
If it's not that, do the same thing with the spark plugs.
If it's consistently misfiring at idle you can try unplugging each coil in turn for a second. The one that doesn't cause the engine to run worse is the cylinder that is misfiring.
If you swap that coil with another cylinder and try again, then if the fault moves then it's the coil that's at fault. This is exactly what I did recently. New coil from a breaker, no more problems (for a few months anyway
).That's a pretty easy thing to do DIY, and all you need is an allen key and 10mm socket.
If it's not that, do the same thing with the spark plugs.
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