help! quick! flashing cel. to drive or not to drive?

[poison]

Just bought this car, 3rd day in it, 40 miles. Been driving great, but I left work right now, no problems, driving slow, then all off a sudden it seemed to stumble a bit, the the cel. Ok after that, but I am pulled over on the side of the road. What do I do?

 

[poison]

Ok, I just turned it back on for a second, and it's idling really rough. Dammit. ****!

 

[i12drivemyMP5]

IIRC, flashing Cel was cat problem? Lemme search on flashing cel. Oh, wait, think it also had something to do with overdrive problem on regular auto trans but that wouldn't cause idle problem. Thinking your cat is clogged or fubarred somehow.

 

[poison]

Its got a new cat and was just smogged. Odd.

 

[poison]

Could it be the egr valve?

 

[i12drivemyMP5]

I found this in another thread....................

A flashing CEL means that something is happening that will cause immediate and irreparable damage to your catalytic converter. In most cases it's a misfire and unburned gas gets dumped into your exhaust and ruins your converter. In this case, you should stop driving the car immediately. If not, I won't be surprised if you get a P0421 code in a couple of weeks telling you your cat is shot.


Misfire sounds like coil/wire/plug issue...........suppose if egr totally clogged it could do that?

 

[poison]

apparently its ignition wires, and my mechanic says its dealer only. true?

 

[ghettoracingkid]

hard to findbut can easily be found if you look.

 

[poison]

i just woke up from a night shift, and i'm not thinking straight. ignition wires should have nothing to do with making the car run rough. am i right?

 

[ghettoracingkid]

if the wires are bad liek realyl really bad they do.

it might actualyl be the ignition coil.

what kidan total milage are we talking on the car? the coils are cheap like $10 to $20

 

[poison]

67k miles

 

[ghettoracingkid]

might want to look into changing them. could be the source of your problem

If you do a search on here youll see a whole bunch of threads about it.

 

[thermovox]

similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago... tore the car apart, cleaned the egr, etc... turned out to be the coil packs (about $35 each at autozone - car has two). no problems since!

 

[kcbhiw]

I offer another vote for a faulty coil pack. Advance auto sells OE replacements for less than the dealer. A bad coil pack isn't uncommon on these cars.

 

[poison]

Well, i called about 25 different auto parts stores, only one had the wires. Bought em, took them over to my mechanic. He threw em on, and so far so good!

I also picked up the long reach plugs, and an air filter, it just had an oil change, I have shifter bushing sitting here, and a bottle of Auto RX to run next oil change. I was considering cleaning my egr valve, just to be sure. Anything else I should do?