BunnyGirl

This morning when I went to leave and do my errands my car acquired an issue. It has been running completely fine all along, including Saturday night when I last drove it home from work. This morning I started it up to leave and it ran for about a minute warming up (had started up completely normally). At about that time the check engine light came on and started blinking for about 10 seconds. Then all the lights in the instrument panel dimmed and blinked a few times. Then the car sputtered and stalled (all the dash lights, radio, nav., et cetera were still on). I tried to restart it and couldn't. I ended up having to call roadside assistance to have it towed in. Right now they are looking it over. So far the only thing established is that it is/was NOT flooded, even with the attempts at starting by me when it first stalled (and then including the procedure in case it had flooded and then the tow truck driver trying to start it so that he wouldn't have to push it out of the driveway to get it up onto the flatbed as the truck couldn't load it because of the slope at the first half of the driveway). They are still checking it over to find out what happened (or at least it's in the shop right now waiting for further attention). Any ideas what might have happened? It was suggested that possibly I had some sludge that got sucked up into the fuel lines?

I have newish plugs installed in June, a new battery installed in October. It was cold outside last night (20ish), but have had that commonly with no issues.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

ECU/ security module had a bird due to a voltage fluctuation..and screwed up the security data??

ninnikuramen

This just happened to me tonight - was letting the car warm up, when I felt the car start to shudder, the engine started to sound strange, and then the check engine light began flashing. The RPMs swung up, then down and then stalled. I was able to start it up again, and by keeping the RPMs revved at 1-2k, kept it from stalling again.

My plugs were swapped out in October, after the car wouldn't start. The dealer told me I needed to warm my car up until the temp gauge reaches midway, which Ive been doing ever since: https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-trouble-shooting-95/spark-plugs-dying-cold-starts-159086/ . This is an '04 with 42k miles.

Guessing this could be cold related? Bunny, can you post your dealer's conclusion when you have one on here?

BunnyGirl

^Sounds almost exactly like what happened to me.

It turns out that there was some sort of sludge or something (not specifically determined what though) that ended up blocking off the fuel line and cut off the fuel either mostly or entirely, which caused the engine to start sputtering and then stall, which is apparently what caused the check engine light to come on, i.e. the lack of fuel being supplied. That was the explanation given for why it wouldn't restart, i.e. it was blocked. They had initially inspected it and said it wasn't flooded. However, after they flushed the fuel system and got it cleared, they ended up flooding it on me trying to get it started. LOL! I ended up getting new plugs and my fuel system flushed and it seems fine now, although smells a little gassy at the moment. It's expected that everything will be fine now as they didn't find any other problems at this time. I sure hope so!

ninnikuramen

Well, I'm dropping mine off at the dealers tomorrow so I guess we'll see if the same thing is prescribed - I really hope it's not another $400 dealer spark plug change...

Razz1

Make sure you have a good battery. Check connections too.

I bet it can't hold a load.