jlew39

Today I was driving to a buddies house and my check engine light came on after some moderatly hard acceleration. The car sputtered. The light remained solid. After a mile or so I gave it a little gas and the car sputtered again and the light started bliking for about a minute, then it went solid. Could this be the infamous coil pack failure? Or maybe and O2 sensor is bad? The manual said that if the check engine light blinks there could be catalytic converter damage?!?!?!?!?!?
Any wisdom/thoughts is/are appreciated.
BTW I have and '02 3.0 quattro auto

leonpro

If coilpack failure then I believe from other posts, the sputtering is continuous. I haven't seen a coilpack failure where it will fail and then fix itself.

I'm guessing either a bad O2 sensor. If it's a damaged catalytic converter, then this I believe is covered under their warranty, right?

Teknic

Blinking CEL = Very bad.

dagmz6s

For a catalytic converter CEL to get to the blinking point I think you'd have to let a solid CEL for cat inefficiency go for a long time. My cat was just replaced and the catalyst had broken free and was rattling and I still only had a solid CEL.

Bronze

Won't be an O2 sensor (solid CEL). I vote coil pack.

jlew39

I am 2 months out of warrenty : (

jlew39

solid 95% of the time. the only time it blinked was when I gave it a little gas.

dagmz6s

Emissions warranty is 8 years/80k miles, but I dont think thats your problem

Bronze

How many miles on the car and/or coilpacks?

diagnosticator1

The flashing CEL, indicates that there is a current engine/emissions control system condition with the potential to damage the CAT, not that CAT damage has or is actually occurring. (Although, with the potential, it could be doing damage, or already is.)