CEL after vigorous drive
 

Drove the P hard tonight...using manual Tiptronic....got a flashing CEL....then a permanent CEL.

Anyone experienced this?

Can you read out the engine error code associated with the CEL? If so, post it here and someone will help you decode it.

Flashing CEL, according to your owner's manual, means there's potential for a catastrophic engine failure if you don't pull over and shut down the engine ASAP, but you say it went solid, so obviously it didn't stay that way. It could be that the engine was vibrating in such a way that the computer thought there was a lot of knock or imbalance occuring. What was happening when the light started to flash? Were you in the middle of running through high RPMs? Decelerating? Idling? Was the car running any differently? Rough/Stumbling? Any strange noises or behavior from the car since? We need some more specifics of the situation when it happened and we need the codes so people on here can help you out.

To answer your question, yes, it has happened to people on here before and in some cases it didn't end well.

Either way, get the codes read ASAP and to be on the safe side don't run or drive the car until you know what they are. And if you have an owners manual, read through it.

What was happening when the light started to flash?

I was shifting from 3rd to 4th


Were you in the middle of running through high RPMs?

Dont remember the exact RPMs but did not redline....came close though


Decelerating? Idling? Was the car running any differently?

Car did not run any differently

Rough/Stumbling? Any strange noises or behavior from the car since?

Light went solid....no strange noises.....no stumbling.

The next morning I disconnected the battery to check the plugs....they looked fine.
The CEL went away after connecting battery again.

Went to have the code read (I think it should be stored even though the light was out at this point?).....NO CODES!

Since then the car has been running fine....no CEL reappearance.

this happened because:

This is why we said have the codes read before you do anything else. Disconnecting the battery for longer than 30 seconds will clear your computer, so whatever the CEL was trying to tell you is now gone.

Your computer is going to be trying to learn its settings again now that it's been reset, so be sure to do a little bit of normal and a little bit of intense driving in the next 100 miles to give the car plenty to learn.

Thanks Overdrive. So I basically reset the ECU and now the car will re-learn my habits. (as you said)

Normal Driving - I understand.

Please define - intense driving.

I do not want to make the same mistake twice.

Thank you again for the help and advice. I sincerely appreciate it.

Buy yourself an OBD II code reader. They are not expensive and work on all cars manufactured 1996 and later. CEL lights can be as simple as a loose gas cap or a misfire. Or, they can be a bigger problem. Keep us posted.

A CEL code is a bit of info your car wants to tell you. You told it that you did not want to hear it. Now you are asking us what your car wanted to say. We have no idea because we were not there.

Your car should be able to endure intense driving without throwing codes. That is what it was engineered to do. You should not have to adapt your driving habits to avoid codes. You should fix the problem that is causing the code and then drive as you wish.

By intense driving I meant driving in the manner that you were when this happened. If you baby the car (commuter style) then it will tune itself to run in this manner. If you run the car ragged (after it warms up) constantly, it will tune itself based on that. So maybe the better term to use would be spirited driving, unless that's your normal.;)

The point being that you want to give the car a broad range of learning so that it can putt around when you want it to, and also perform when you want to hit that kickdown switch (if you don't know what I'm talking about there, do a search).

Also, at this point since you cleared the code, you may want to try and re-create the problem, so driving like you were will make the code resurface if there is indeed still a problem. Again, if you see flashing, don't wait. The computer may have cleared itself, but it doesn't mean whatever might have triggered your light sorted itself out either. As was said, the range is wide, and could be as silly as a loose gas cap to as major as the car sensing cam timing issues.

Make sure you buy a code reader or borrow one from a friend so when/if a CEL comes on you can get right to diagnosing it. Don't try to look up the general code definitions either. Porsche has their own list of what these codes mean, so you'll want to refer to that.

I am asking nothing of you landrovered. I am sure I may duplicate the type of driving that I was doing and have a code reader to read the codes that may be encountered.

Thank for your input.

John

John,

Don't take offense please but I put it in another context to make a point.

I have long been a student of EFI and its workings. I prefer EFI to carburetors for the simple fact that it gives me information. EFI codes can sometimes tell you exactly where the problem is like "misfire cylinder 6" but not all of the information is going to point directly to the problem at hand. It is just more data to consider while troubleshooting.

I had a V8 that kept throwing O2 sensor codes, I replaced the O2 sensor but the codes kept coming back. I was able to use other things that the engine was doing in order to finally conclude that the head gasket was leaking but not blown. The steam that was in the exhaust gases was causing the O2 sensor to react outside the parameters of set by the computer and thus it threw a code.

Many folks view the check engine light as something akin to the scarlet letter. They just want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This is a mistake. This is what I was referring to in my analogy that seems to have gotten your goat.

In some cases a code can indicate that your car is running in a "safe mode" and actually function better with the CEL present than if you clear the code. MAF errors are one such situation. They can also indicate that the DME is running on different fuel curves as with secondary cat errors.

The point is, you are more likely to solve you problem more quickly and cheaper with as much info as possible than to ask for a bunch of guys who want to diagnose the most obscure exotic problem just to prove they are the top dog on the board.

So buy $129 code reader and you will get better info out of us than asking us to speculate as to what might have caused the code in the first place.