Yesterday the CEL light came on solid. I'd been driving for about 5 minutes, and was accelerating slightly (but the revs would have been under 3k). I'd put in some petrol (not my usual brand, and 'minimum 97.5 RON' rather than 98) earlier in the day and done about 20 minutes of driving since.

Checked the petrol tank cap, which was definitely not loose, started it up again this morning and the light was still on, so I decided to take it to a mechanic. About 2 minutes into the trip the light went off, so I just came home.

Is this something I should get checked out?

I'm in New Zealand and getting the code read costs $50... but that's obviously a lot less than driving the car while something's wrong would end up costing.

 

A bit more information would be helpful. What year is the car? AT or manual? How many miles? Maintenance record? Does the car feel ok?

If in New Zealand there is no place to read your codes for free (here in the US places like auto zone do it for free) I suggest you buying a scanner. Scangauge II is an option (this is what I have; reads/deletes codes and provides some basic info such as water temp, AFR, etc.).

 

Put on your Sig where you are and if someone local has an obd reader they may help out. There are some good bastards floating around!!

 

Thanks for the replies.

It's a 2006 6AT, about 93,000km (58,000 miles). Previous NZ owner had been having it serviced regularly and had the coils replaced in September after flooding it. No other repairs in the 18 months he'd had it, and I don't have its Japanese service history. I got a compression test before buying which was 'very good'.

I'm a bit disappointed with the performance but not sure if there's actually a problem because I haven't driven any other 6ATs. I go into some detail here: https://www.rx8club.com/new-member-f...ration-249649/

 

So I read your other thread and here is a suggestion. Since compression, plugs, coils, wires are good I suggest looking at your CAT. An easy way to check the CAT is after a hard drive take a look underneath the car. If it glows red your CAT is done (of course you need to be in the dark to do this). It could be the reason of your CEL (the assumption here is that the previous owner flooded the car and CAT was fried).

Anything I say to this point is just a speculation. To solve the issue you really need to get the code read. Driving around with a CEL without knowing what the CEL is, could be very risky.

 

OP, you can get a code reader/cleaner off ebay for about $20.

 

Is there Amazon in NZ? They have scanners close to the ebay price range that ShinkaEvo mentioned.

IMHO for modern electronics-festooned cars having a scanner of some type is almost up there with having a tire pressure gauge.

Ken

 

Where in Auckland are you ?

 

The light came on again yesterday evening so I took it in to get read this morning. They said there were historical readings of a fault with the ignition coils (presumably from before they were replaced in September?) and with the power steering, but after he reset it they didn't come back, so he said it's 'almost definitely fine', which is not particularly satisfying.

Feels to me like there's a bit less power when the revs get high than there used to be, which as tza mentioned could indicate a CAT problem. That's also the one item that was conspicuously missing from the service history, so I'll look into it asap.

sweetfa: Titirangi.

 

So.....what's the code?
Sounds like more than one code to me....

 

I'm in Waitakere - So if you need codes read I'm on the other side of the hill - PM if you need to - Cheers

 

Here's what's happened.

I wasn't at the mechanic when the codes were originally scanned. I'd said 'make sure you get him to tell you the exact codes', but of course that was forgotten, so I don't know what they were.

After the mechanic reset the codes, the CEL came back on the next day, I decided to pick up a code scanner online since they're extremely cheap and I figure I'm going to need it in the future (but thanks a lot, sweetfa).

Before the scanner arrived I had a seemingly unrelated problem, which is that the battery went flat (nothing was left on) and then wouldn't fully charge, and would lose its charge very fast (4 volts in 1 hour); I got that replaced today, and after about 15 minutes of driving the CEL came on again.

I scanned it and got the code P0354 Ignition coil D (the American cars don't have this code but the JDM ones do). Interestingly, the coils were replaced by the same people and at the same time as the faulty battery, back in August this year. It's done 5,000km / 3,000mi since then, which seems pretty damn early to have the coils fail, but I suppose that would be consistent with the power loss I seem to be having (although it's not idling rough and it's definitely a smooth power loss, not stumbling or jerky).

Any thoughts?