Engine warning light

Titanium S1 111S (gla) · Post by **Titanium S1 111S (gla)** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:35 pm

Went out for a run yesterday, all well with the world, went to do the same today and got about 200 yds before engine warning light came on and car went into safe mode.

Had been running perfectly before problem.

Starts fine and runs smoothly, no oil warning light and levels OK no sign of high temp, in fact everything is fine until warning light starts to flash and goes into safe mode 30 seconds later.

Any thoughts

tenkfeet · Post by **tenkfeet** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:01 pm

Start and stop the engine 5 times ( I think) and hope it goes away . If its kept outside there was lots of rain last night , hope its just moisture.

A smarter person will be along soon I am sure .

Titanium S1 111S (gla) · Post by **Titanium S1 111S (gla)** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:09 pm

away to try that!

Ta

mac · Post by **mac** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:26 pm

I'd go for moisture in the ignition system.

Compressed air and a little WD40.

Cheers

Mac

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:11 am

The 111s did have a problem with misfiring and it was something to do with the low voltage signals driving the coil packs being interfered with. So I wonder it it's water on these leads or the coil packs.

BTW, if you can pop it in to MMC and get them to attach the lotus scan tool it may be able to tell you what it actually thinks the problem is ...

Cheers,
Robin

Titanium S1 111S (gla) · Post by **Titanium S1 111S (gla)** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:13 am

Seems to have a bit of trouble starting but does start, runs well for a few minutes then the engine warning light starts to flash, stops flashing then goes into safe mode.

Think you might be right about the damp, got caught in the heaviest down power I have ever driven through on Saturday and it was outside over night which was fairly wet, needless to say the boot was swimming.

Will take out the plug leads and give them a blast with WD at plug end and do same at distributor. Anywhere else I should do in the first instance.

Thanks

Titanium S1 111S (gla) · Post by **Titanium S1 111S (gla)** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:24 am

Thanks Robin,

Will have a look at that as well, if I can't make any progress then MMC for a diagnostic it is.

Am I correct in thinking that the engine management has a safe mode on a car as old as mine 99 S1? I had assumed it did not but given that the loss of power (sounds like it is only firing on 2 cylinders) only kicks in when the warning light flashing stops and stays on it seems unlikely that the loss of power is a cause rather than the symptom.

While looking at it yesterday it seemed to be longer before the warning light came on if I revved the engine a bit higher, say 2-2.5K. I was reluctant to try it any higher although all seemed OK.

mac · Post by **mac** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:15 am

All 111s have a misfire dection unit (which lights the engine warning light) IIRC - it's something to do with the VVC i think

Mac

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:23 pm

Titanium S1 111S (gla) wrote:Thanks Robin,

Will have a look at that as well, if I can't make any progress then MMC for a diagnostic it is.

Am I correct in thinking that the engine management has a safe mode on a car as old as mine 99 S1? I had assumed it did not but given that the loss of power (sounds like it is only firing on 2 cylinders) only kicks in when the warning light flashing stops and stays on it seems unlikely that the loss of power is a cause rather than the symptom.

While looking at it yesterday it seemed to be longer before the warning light came on if I revved the engine a bit higher, say 2-2.5K. I was reluctant to try it any higher although all seemed OK.

The VVC engined cars have a different ECU that has misfire detection. All S2's have misfire detection also (but with a different ECU again); it's only non-VVC S1's that don't have it or a warning light.

I don't know that it's anything to do with the VVC itself, just that they had to use to later ECU which in turn had the misfire detection.

The VVC engine doesn't have a distributor but does have twin coil packs. It would be worth removing and inspecting the connectors for these, but be prepared for some pain as they're at the bottom of the engine next to the boot divider ...

Cheers,
Robin