pat056

Mine came on yesterday. Took it to my indy and had it read. He said it's the intake air blower (the fan that comes on when the car's 1st starts and runs for a couple of minutes). The fan runs, but he said it could be the valve is bad. The only way to prove it was for me to leave overnight and run the reader on a cold motor, which I couldn't do. He stated it would not allow preheated air into the exhaust for the 1st couple of minutes, which wouldn't hurt anything.
Does this sound correct? Has anyone else had this fault? Is it something this shade tree (at best) mechanic could verify and fix?
He reset it and said it may not come on again, but I won't be driving the car until Monday.

Gordak

It probably said the "secondary air injection system is restricted, P0941" or something like that. The main thing is when you have someone scan your car, write down the code EXACTLY. Especially if you paid for the scan.

I know very little about 996s, but since no one else posted I'll give you my 2 cents. As far as I know it's a common fault, and it means that there is an issue somewhere with the secondary air injection system, this could be a simple vacuum leak or even more simple, a bad (aged) air filter for the pump. The pump is pretty easy to get at. (left side of your engine, a component you can actually see when you open the hood.)

Was it raining when it came on? that might indicate the filter.

Otherwise you have 3 valves/selonoids on that system that might go, or even worse the pump itself.

But most likely, it was a fluke, and it wont trip the light again for a long long time.
Good luck!

C4CRNA

You really need to know the code in order for someone here to help.
Did he charge you to read the code?

Code readers are less than $100 you can read the code yourself no trip to the stealer/indy,tell us,and we can then help you.
These cars throw codes all the time and the dealer will charge$$ to read it and usually just erasing it does it and they don't come on again.
I wouldn't think about changing any parts unless the code became persistant.

redridge

If its a 2ndary air blower.... it can get complicated as the system downstream can be part or the problem... when I say downstream, I mean from the blower all the way to the cats. Crazy emissions! Go on Rentech and do a search... its a common issue.

pat056

Yes, I think the fault code was secondary air blower. I had it reset then drove it yesterday, this morning, then when I started it at lunch and drove it long enough for the fan to go off, the CE light came back on. The car has 104,000 miles on it, so the 1st thing I think of is 02 sensor.
I didn't realize this could be read on a regular scanner. I thought I needed the durometric.
I'll get it reread to confirm. Next stop is Renntech.