That ol' check engine light
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Joined: Jun 2003
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That ol' check engine light
Howdy:
I just helped my wife buy a '97 Ranger, 4.0 with 45xxx miles on it. She drove it for about 3 days. She came home tonight and stopped the engine. She then tried to start it up about 2 minutes later and it's hard to start and won't idle properly. You have to keep the accellertor down to make it keep running. You could probably drive it, but I suspect it might stall at a light -- I dunno.
The check engine light comes on each time we tried to start it. so here are my quesitons:
Do we have a diagnostic problem here?
Is it possible that she might have partially flooded the carburetor? Would that make the light come on?
I've surfed some fourms and seen this come up before, but the answers seem to be different each time.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I just helped my wife buy a '97 Ranger, 4.0 with 45xxx miles on it. She drove it for about 3 days. She came home tonight and stopped the engine. She then tried to start it up about 2 minutes later and it's hard to start and won't idle properly. You have to keep the accellertor down to make it keep running. You could probably drive it, but I suspect it might stall at a light -- I dunno.
The check engine light comes on each time we tried to start it. so here are my quesitons:
Do we have a diagnostic problem here?
Is it possible that she might have partially flooded the carburetor? Would that make the light come on?
I've surfed some fourms and seen this come up before, but the answers seem to be different each time.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Post Fiend
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 6,940
Likes: 2
From: Eastern WA
That ol' check engine light
The check engine light should come on during starting indicating that the bulb is good; it should go off (and stay off) after the engine starts. As for the carb, there is none; it's fuel injected. Is a
she starting it properly? When starting FI engines, you should not touch the gas pedal. The exception to this might be if somehow you managed to flood it (not easy, but I know of a way to do it) and that will almost never happen.
Does the check engine light stay on after it's running? Is the problem just when it's hot? If the check engine light stays on, the next step will be to pull the codes.
she starting it properly? When starting FI engines, you should not touch the gas pedal. The exception to this might be if somehow you managed to flood it (not easy, but I know of a way to do it) and that will almost never happen.
Does the check engine light stay on after it's running? Is the problem just when it's hot? If the check engine light stays on, the next step will be to pull the codes.
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That ol' check engine light
It would start, but I had to keep the accelerator down to keep it fro stalling. It was idling so slowly it'd stop.
The problem has now been solved. Thanks to a suggestion I read somewhere on a forum, I took it to Autozone for a free diagnostic test (bless 'em -- saved me 470 right there!).
I keep forgetting the name of the darn thing, but it was a solenoid that helps regulate how much air is getting fed to the engine. It sits up on top and took only two simple hex nut screws to take it off with.
Talk about a rellef! It cost about $45 from NAPA (Autozone couldn't get it, oddly), but it's better than probably close to $100 or more to have it done for us!
Thanks!
The problem has now been solved. Thanks to a suggestion I read somewhere on a forum, I took it to Autozone for a free diagnostic test (bless 'em -- saved me 470 right there!).
I keep forgetting the name of the darn thing, but it was a solenoid that helps regulate how much air is getting fed to the engine. It sits up on top and took only two simple hex nut screws to take it off with.
Talk about a rellef! It cost about $45 from NAPA (Autozone couldn't get it, oddly), but it's better than probably close to $100 or more to have it done for us!
Thanks!
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New User
Joined: Jun 2003
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That ol' check engine light
Yep. That's the one.
Advance Auto parts wanted $85 for it. Yikes! My experience in the past is that NAPA is so often more expensive, so I was pleasantly surprised.
We'd had a lot of stressful things happen all week last week, and this problem just added to it. My wife was very depressed, because we'd just had the truck a week, and she'd only been driving it for 3 days.
In retrospect, she commented that she noticed something "funny" abouit the way it was running while shifting, and now I believe that the solenoid was getting ready to give out. To me, anyway, it seems to run fine now, and idles great. I think the next thing will be giving it a tune up, but I'm not sure how easy that would be for me, given I'm not all that auto-mechanically inclined.
But in any case, the one greatest thing I got out of this forum was the free diagnostics from Autozone.
Advance Auto parts wanted $85 for it. Yikes! My experience in the past is that NAPA is so often more expensive, so I was pleasantly surprised.
We'd had a lot of stressful things happen all week last week, and this problem just added to it. My wife was very depressed, because we'd just had the truck a week, and she'd only been driving it for 3 days.
In retrospect, she commented that she noticed something "funny" abouit the way it was running while shifting, and now I believe that the solenoid was getting ready to give out. To me, anyway, it seems to run fine now, and idles great. I think the next thing will be giving it a tune up, but I'm not sure how easy that would be for me, given I'm not all that auto-mechanically inclined.
But in any case, the one greatest thing I got out of this forum was the free diagnostics from Autozone.
