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SES light question


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Posted

....My cutty has had the SES light come on before and it was nothing major. This morning the light came on and then started blinking.....I haven't made it to Autozone to get it scanned yet, but does it mean anything different when the light blinks?

 

FWIW: the car appears to be running as normal.

 

thanks in advance.

Posted

Did you just put gas in the car?? Check your fuel cap for tightness, and also check the little flap, to see if it is tuck open a bit, or anything like that. These cars throw an ses light if it senses fuel evaporating from the tank faster than it should. IIRC, the ses light will flash when it detects this.

Posted

Now.. don't quote me on this, but I seem to remember that if the SES light is blinking, that it means your engine had a misfire somewhere. I definitely remember that from my Neon owner's manual. My Lumina manual says nothing about that, but I'm looking on various car sites to back this up...

 

One more strange thing' date=' if the SES light is blinking instead of steady then the computer is detecting a misfire and you may actually be causing damage to the engine. Have you ever tried to get any of this information out of the owner's manual? It is oddly missing. [/quote']

 

http://www.motorhomemagazine.com/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/679322/gotomsg/687224.cfm

 

The following is a PDF, but it's OBDII specific, and clarifies this enough for me. The relevant info is on page 11:

 

http://www.autocenter.weber.edu/OBD-CH/presentations/Bohren-HumanFactors.pdf

Posted

I filled up the gas tank last week and it still at 3/4 ....FWIW: the light blinks like the blinker does....then goes solid for a while, then blinks like a blinker again....

 

I have never seen a SES light blink when the car is being driven...

Posted

hmm....thanks for the link, I will have to take her to autozone once/if it stops raining....

Posted
I filled up the gas tank last week and it still at 3/4 ....FWIW: the light blinks like the blinker does....then goes solid for a while, then blinks like a blinker again....

 

I have never seen a SES light blink when the car is being driven...

 

:? Yeah.. that doesn't sound good, man. Get her to the closest AutoZone, and drive slowly. From the sound of it, you could damage emissions control parts.

 

EDIT: The following is from http://www.michaelsservicestation.com/Emissions.htm

 

 

What should I do if my vehicle's "Check Engine" light is flashing?

A blinking or flashing "Check Engine" light means that your vehicle's engine is seriously misfiring. Bring your vehicle in for service as soon as possible. When an engine misfires, combustion is not occurring properly (or at all) in one or more of the engine cylinders. This can greatly increase emissions and seriously damage the vehicle's engine and emission control system. If the problem is left unattended, the resulting repairs could potentially be very expensive.

Posted

at least it seems to be running normal.....I just drove it around the block and it is still on, but no longer blinking.....oh well, I will be sure to report back once I find out what codes are coming out...

Posted
I have never seen one blink except when in diagnostic mode, are the fans coming on ?

 

nope.....it appears to be running normally :shrug: ...it stopped blinking now though...

Posted

when the SES light blinks that means an emissions probem. The OBDII computer in your cutty will store that code in memory so it will still be there when you go to autozone. if the car is running well it is probably a evaportive emissions code as stated above, and will not effect the drivability aspect of the car. Let us know what the Zone finds...

Posted

From what I've been told by way too many people - a blinking SES light is NOT good. Supposed to shut 'er down asap.

Posted
Now.. don't quote me on this, but I seem to remember that if the SES light is blinking, that it means your engine had a misfire somewhere. I definitely remember that from my Neon owner's manual. My Lumina manual says nothing about that, but I'm looking on various car sites to back this up...

 

That's the only time I've seen a blinking SES light, on 1 Impala at work, and my parent's 02 Impala too. My parents waited too long to fix it and it ended up plugging their Catalytic Converter too. Then it REALLY starts running like ass.

So I would recommend fixing it soon.

Posted
...and? Jeremy?

 

not blinking anymore :lol: ....I drove the 3/4 mile home last night and then back to work this morning....

 

the closest autozone is 10 minutes away, so I probably won't go until the weekend as long as the car continues to run "normally"

 

.....yeah, yeah, I know I am lazy

Posted

My car did the same thing before I got new plugs & wires....sometimes the SES light would turn off completely right after starting up the car, and then after a while of driving it might reappear...some days when it was really bad you could feel the hesitation and the light would flash during/afterwards.... It kinda freaked me out because I remember seeing in the owners manual something saying that a flashing light means pull over and turn off the engine. A set of plugs and wires fixed that problem.

 

When was your last tune-up?

 

 

YK

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