Ok so I get in my car after going to the movies...as soon as I turn it on my check engine light comes on..(the only think I did different was turn my heater on full blast because it is freakin cold here!!) ok so I'm driving & all seems good...as soon as I come to a stop & idle...its really rough & the car feels like its' gonna die...now if I put it in Neutral the rpm jumped up like it always does to 8-900 rpm...normally I idle about 650-750 rpm...this didn't change with my rough idle at all mind you....at certain points I was really kinda sluggish with take off but not too bad..until I came to another stop...then all of a sudden as I pulled into my apt. complex my light went off & it was driving/idleing back to normal.I drove for another 10-15 mins to drop some people off & it was fine. I never had any funny smells or noises come fromthe car.. wtf?? bad o2 sensor? what else makes the check engine light come on & idle bad then go off & run fine? So I'm really confused right now...I'm going to continue driving it & see if it comes on again..I have to I have no other transportation Thanxs for all the input guys as always

Ok update...I drove the car this morning & everything is fine..light never came on...was this some kind of freak incident that it just came on??

 

Well, my check light engine came on recently. The culprit was my o2 sensor. At first just the light came on, but after a while when the car would be idiling in park the rpms would become erratic and the exhaust had a funny smell and weird color(whiteish). The o2 should be the problem because the factory manual says that the check engine light equals a emissions problem. So, that should be the only electronic component in the exhaust system. By the way, does anyone know how to reset the freakin' light?!

 

Yep 02 sensor was my first thought....and my light went off after about 10mins..and I dont' know how to reset the light...have you unplugged your battery (doesn't this reset the ecu?) just a thought.

 

Check the air filter and the total air intake assembly there may be a crack somewhere or something might have come loose. I had my light come on once and checked everything under the hood and my plug to the air intake sensor came off.
PS: One Sweet ride you got.
So nice clean and dent free.

 

Thanxs I'll check out my intake system...and thanxs again on the car compliments

 

hey sarah, my check engine light comes on every once and a while like that too, but i cant find anything wrong. we took it to the dealer and of course the idiots didnt have a clue. they ran the computer test on it and couldnt find anything. they blamed faulty wiring. but i know my 02 sensor has got to be bad, so i think that is the problem.

 

You can have a dealer read the code to determine why the light is on. Also, if you pull out the computer (it's in the console by the accelerator pedal) you can pull it out and read the lights to get the code yourself.

It's a bit of a pain to pull - not real hard just stuffed in a tight spot.

The light can come on for many, many reasons. I'd find out the culprit rather than just start changing parts. Prior reasons mine has come on includes both injector failures and O2 HOS problems.

Hope that helps some...

 

Injectors.....that's a bad word....

 

Sarah, if it is an injector you will also almost certainly feel the engine running very rough. If it's still smooth then it's likely something else.

And, yes - the injectors are a PITA - although expensive, it's at least a clear, well understood problem and fix. If it is an injector, I'd still recommend replacing all of them. I have now all replaced all of them but the cost was much higher doing it that way.

 

ok well my light came on again today for about 3mins then went off & in an instant that it went off the engine was running smooth...this sucks I hope its not an injector because my engine is running really rough like it wants to die..fudge....and I just got my injectors flushed about 600 miles ago....my mechanic said ...do not call me within the first 500 miles if anything weird happens...I'm hoping getting the flush didn't cause them to fail