This afternoon I washed all the salt grime of the car and then pulled it inside - got a bit of a belt squeal(same as last time I washed it). Nothing else, checked the oil it was getting a little on the low side to I topped of putting it in the middle of the electronic measure.

So this evening my wife took the car out to a meeting and on her way back CEL came on and then a few minutes later "DRIVE TO WORKSHOP". I took it out in the neighborhood and there is a clear misfire although somewhat intermittent.

Clutching at straws but could the wash have gotten water in somewhere to cause trouble?

Have to go to the Indy(3 miles away) tomorrow morning or the local dealer - although that is 19 miles away. What is the consensus for the whether it would be safe to drive to the dealer? Indy is good but not much capacity.

 

Buy an obdII reader and pull the codes. Don't drive it until, at a minimum, you know what code(s) are being thrown. Without knowing what the car is trying to tell you, it's impossible to guess if it can be driven safely.

 

5CHN3LL - thanks for the advice but this is my only car and have no idea how long it will take to get a OBDII reader.

Is it normal to sometimes have a single drop below the blue coolant cap. Couldn't tell the color but felt slippery/oily

 

OBDII scanners are available anywhere you can buy car parts. The water could dry out overnight so fire it up in the morning and if the misfire is gone, you are good to go to the shop. There is a good chance it will be gone.

 

Thanks Imo000 for the encouragement. I did at one point aim the hose a little too acutely at the rear fins, so that was my first thought. My local Advance Auto Parts has an actron scanner available to I will stop in tomorrow. Thankfully my day is somewhat open and my wife reminded me that my in-laws are out of town so I have a car.

 

Turned the engine over this morning and fired right up with out a misfire - has not returned since. Local Indy scanned and nothing specific came up.

Maybe the wash

 

It's the wash for aure but it was not supposed to cause any issues. You have something going on that probably will surface again, probably in a good rain storm.

 

Wouldn't there still be a fault code registered if the CEL was flashing?

 

That's classic behavior of misfires caused by moisture/dampness from water getting on the coils from either a car wash or sitting out in the rain or even (in my experience) sitting out overnight in heavy fog.

I note you live in PA and if you drive the car year round the odds are the coils are just getting near the end of their service life due to exposure to the elements.

 

Often when the CEL flashes if the engine is shut off then restarted some time later the transitory problem that caused the flashing CEL is gone and the codes associated with the problem or cause are gone.

At least they are no long active codes. The codes may have been moved to the permanent error code memory.

In this memory the error codes can only be removed by the DME after so many engine warm up cycles with the cause of the error code absent. However, their presence in the permanent error code memory should not cause the CEL to come on let alone flash.

 

CEL was never flashing - it just came on steady.

I do live in Pittsburgh but the car has spent most of it's life in FL and a few years in Charleston SC. I've only had it for 2.5 months.

 

Don't be surprised if the symptoms come back after driving in the rain depending on how heavy the rain is. Classic symptom of worn out/cracked coils.

 

+996

Same symptoms......see the root cause.....

 

One way to fix that is to cover the entire head of the coil with RTV/Silicone, let it dry over night and reinstal.