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The plot thickens. Today, when I got in the car to come home from work, started her up and...flashing CEL. BUT---only lasted maybe 5 seconds tops. Never came back on as I drove home, and we went out to eat (maybe 8 miles round-trip) without it recurring.
Ordinarily, with the flashing CEL I wouldn't have driven it at all. But I recently experienced the short-lived flashing CEL (a few hundred miles ago). Talked with one guy (at an indy shop whose opinions I tend to respect) who told me to go ahead and drive her. I later took the car up to a place called Steinel's Autowerks (a place in NE Ohio that Jake and 'Phil' could tell you a lot about). The code was for a misfire, cylinder 1, and the guy said (based on it having persisted for only a few secs that time as well) that it could have been due to a number of innocuous reasons. He reset it, told me to let him know if it came back, and suggested I run her hard on the trip back, blow things out a bit. I took his advice, and the car has been running well since---no CEL--, until the mild symptoms (running slightly rough, basically) that prompted me to start this thread. And, the brief CEL that occurred today.
I'll try the Techron, etc, but for now I had the following questions:
1) Would any of the possible causes discussed so far be likely to trigger a (brief) flashing CEL?
2) If so, would the fairly straight-forward DIYs recommended here (using Techron, cleaning the throttle body, MAF, etc.) be likely to remedy the situation? I'm just trying to figure out if I should start tinkering or if, on the contrary, the problem is involved enough I should just throw in the towel and take her in somewhere to be checked out professionally.
3) Is driving the car that briefly flashed a CEL a really bad idea? (I've gotten the clear impression from folks I've talked with around here that, with it having lasted only a few secs, it's not likely at all to be a problem.)
Whadaya think??
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