Engine Light Blinking
 

Hey guys,

So I was clearing out the ol' carbon last night (aka pushing the car to the limits for newbs) and my check engine light came on and started to blink.

I promptly dropped the car back down to regular rpm's and continued driving. It continued blinking for about 20-30 seconds, then shut off.

I have never had this happen before. Should I be worried?

Thanks everybody.

Misfire?

Are you using Premium/sparkplugs past their prime/burned out coil?

S

I believe the sparks were replaced last time it went in for service, not sure about the coils. Bottom line is that the lease is up in 3 months and I will probably end up leasing/buying a new 8. Should I really worry in the meantime or am I alright?

Thanks for the speedy response.

UPDATE:

I had no problems all last week. Then, today...I revved up again to around 8000rpm and my engine light started to blink. But now it's solid on. I turned off the car and on again and it stays on solid. Any thoughts?

I called my dealership and the girl freaked out on me and told me to bring it in ASAP if it was quote "blinking then stayed on cuz you will do more damage if you continue driving it".

Should I really be that concerned. I can't bring it in till Friday.

bring it in as soon as possible, it was misfiring i think. if it is lease, bring it in today... u don't want them to charge u.

Had the same problem. First: don't panic! The girl you spoke to doesn't know what she's talking about :uhh:

You probably had a misfire at high RPMs under load. That's why the CEL blinked for a few seconds (10s, 20s) and then stopped. It might be bad gas, bad coils, bad spark plugs... bunch of stuff can cause this.

Then after it happened a few times, the ECU decided it was happening a bit too often for it's taste and set the CEL to "on" to have you go to the dealer. It's a normal feature... the ECU ignores the problem if it's not serious, but after a few times it should get checked. In my case I got the blinking CEL 3 times before it stayed on, always around 8000rpm WOT.

You should only panic if the CEL blinks continuously, all the time. This means you shouldn't drive the car. At that point the car will most probably go into limp mode and will slow to a crawl no matter how hard you stomp on the gas.

Let us know how your trip to the dealer goes, but I'd bet 5$ you'll end up changing your spark plugs. I even had a brand new spark plug (not a year old, not even 10k miles on it) die on me so even if they changed them recently it could be that.