I just returned from a five day vacation where the car sat while I was away. Low and behold I threw a cel while driving my car yesterday after about 2 hours of driving. This happened to me once before; when I returned from my honeymoon a year ago. That was after about 10 days though. When I took it in then I needed a new intake manifold at $1300 and 54,00 miles. I was pissed but I got the money back after Mazda extended the warranty. I didn't think five days would affect it though. Anyone else experience this sort of problem with a car allowed to sit for days withouth driving. 5 days is too short to be getting this issue.

 

That shouldn't be. I only drive my 8 weekends, so the car usually sits undriven for a week at a time—sometimes two weeks. It always starts up and runs perfectly.

 

How do I access what cel code was tripped?

 

you need something that is obdII compliant to read the code. did you get gas just before you went on vacation or just after you got back?

 

You need a code reader. Autozone will read it for free. Other places might, as well.

 

its probably your gas cap, I had the same thing happen to me just yesterday, went to the dealer, they replaced the gas cap under recall

 

No I didn't. I had over a half a tank of gas before I went away.


I bought some fuel injector cleaner yesterday and put it in. The caps on tightly.
The car runs fine. No noticeable drop in power. That CEL just gets at me. If it was the cat would there be any noticleble driveability issues?

 

Did your gas tank happen to be low? I was getting CELs when I'd get down to around 1/4 tank sometimes. Then I saw in the manual where you could get a CEL if the gas tank got "too low".

 

Did they go away on their own? I distinctly remember getting a cel before that went away after a day or so. Not sure though.

 

If the problem does not last, CELs go away by themselves. But the only way to know what caused it is to read the code, then work with that and the symptoms.

No getting around needing a code reader. I miss the days when you could read codes by counting blinking LED patterns.

FWIW, if the CEL is from the gas cap, the light will come on as soon as you start the car.

Ken