Today we received a full-blown gully washing, frog strangling rain storm and I got some water in the trunk and soaked the doors. I cleaned up the water and started the car and let it run for a while (at idle) with the AC on MAX to pull some of the moisture out of the inside.

I came back and went to turn the car off (after about 10-15 minutes) and noticed the check engine light was flashing. Turned it off, started it and went around the block and the light came back on but the car ran fine.

Autozone was nice enough to scan it and revealed a cylinder misfire (#6 cylinder) and cleared it for me. Went to dinner and back with no code.

I know I'm nuking this alot, but why would it throw a code just idling? At 5100 well cared for miles, my gut tells me this is nothing more than a spurrious fault and not to worry, but it did get me scratching my head.

Thoughts?

Allen

 

you actually used the term gully washing?

as for your error, I would just wait and see.. get some more miles on your car.. I have a 2002 I bought new and it now has 70K miles.. The SES light comes on every now and then but its related to the cats. I have had no issue with it at all really..

 

I feature myself as quite the cunning linguist My guys are never surprised at what I'll say next, they accuse me of having Tourette syndrome sometimes. Don't do it on purpose, I just grew up hearing all sorts of "colorful" expressions and they seemed to stick in my conversation. It got worse (and more "colorful") after I joined the Navy....

As I said, I figured it is just a spurrious code thrown since it was idling so long. I'm not sweating it, just wondered if it is a common code.

Thanks,
Allen

 

I don't know if it's a common thing or not but I've let my car sit and run for long periods and never had an SES light. My experience is that they don't throw a code unless there's a problem. A #6 misfire might be a bad coil, bad wire, bad plug, or bad injector. Could even be a plug that has come loose.

If you've got an 02 with only 5100 miles, obviously it has been sitting most of its life instead of getting driven. Gasoline that sits goes bad if you don't put a stabilizer in it. Condensation can accumulate in the fuel tank and cause problems. Bad gas can gum up an injector. I'd start by putting a good fuel additive in the tank and topping it off with tier one gas like shell or bp, and using a fuel stabilizer. Drive the thing. When you do drive it you need to make sure you drive it long enough to get it up to temp and get the accumulated moisture out of the oil. Keep it simple.