Engine light

[Nathan Pitman]

So, got in the car to pop to the local supermarket and was greeted with this on the way. Thoughts? Straight back to Bell and Colvill I guess. 😕

[Cdm2018]

Hi Nathan

welcome to lotus family 

I got engine light when I first drove my NA after a few weeks of ownership . I hadn’t drove it more than a few 20-30 min journey but as it was feb/March time the weather was appalling.

i took my car to my local lotus dealership who put the laptop and cleared the warning light 

the technician told me it was due to fact I hadn’t driven it very hard in the last few weeks and to be honest I don’t floor the car. 

My driving style is a conservative in the main although now i do try and give it a blast when the road conditions are safe !

so maybe your light is due to a similar issue that the car not been driven hard or given a big blast ? 

[Nathan Pitman]

@Cdm2018 you know what, that sounds a lot like me. Lots of short drives during the week. Only weekends that provide the opportunity for a blast and I’ve been pootling as I get used to the car TBH.

[Bravo73]

Buy a £10 OBD reader, read the code, delete the code. 

If the engine light comes back, call the dealer. Otherwise, you might just be wasting a trip to B&C. 

[Nathan Pitman]

Yea I think that’s what I’ll do. Argos have one I can pick up tmrw morning. 👍

[Techyd]

So in effect the warning is light is a ticking off for not driving it hard enough 😉

[Bruss]

No, a warning light is on because something has failed, be that temporarily or permanently. One of  the worst pieces of advice I've seen is to ignore a warning light.

[Techyd]

Ah I see, it was just a light hearted joke to be honest in response to the earlier comments - I take it you read those as well?  I guess that's both a warning light and a sense of humour fail now!  The latter is much more serious IMHO 😉

I think the overall premise suggested by Bravo was to see how consistently it comes up before deciding what to do about it.

[Bruss]

Yes, I'm well known for my lack of humour. However a new owner asks what to do about an engine light and he is informed by a Lotus forum that  he is not driving it hard enough. I don't think that is good advice.

As for Bravo, he has my respect as a fellow long term owner and modifier of his Lotus. He talks sense and yes if the OP has the same interest and can check the light via a non approved Lotus scanner and can trust his own judgement then he can decide whether his new car should go back to B and C or not.

If it goes wrong again and Lotus tell him he re-set it himself and that has caused whatever problem is now occurring , I'm sure the forum will club round to pay for any repairs.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nathan Pitman]

Well I went to Argos to pick up a code scanner and on my return to the car the engine warning light is no longer present. :?

[C8RKH]

The orange light can come on for a variety of reasons and it is not always down to the Engine per se. As Bravo says get a code reader to understand the code and a quick search on the interweb will provide an explanation, or, if you use an app like Torque on your phone it will give you the explanation direct.

When you cycle the car through the ignition sometimes the orange light may come on briefly for an intermittent fault. IIRC after 4 repeat occurrences in succession the Orange light will then stay illuminated to show a permanent error. 

This is why sometimes you see the orange light until the car is warmed up and then it goes off - it means the issue is not terminal, but does need to be followed up on.

If when you turn the car on the original light stays on permanently then you have a potentially serious issue and this needs to be followed up on . Again an OBD device and Torque will help you pin point.

I had this on the last day of ownership of my S1 NA. The orange light came on then went away. When i arrived at Silverstone they ran diagnostics and it was a failure with the air con unit - the ECI then shuts down the air con unit to ensure no impact on the engine (they are connected someway but i have no idea how / why - that is why I don't do my own Servicing lol).

Hope this helps - orange light on for a while then off - something is failing but not critical. orange light stays on, you really do need to get it checked and the codes read pronto to be on the safe side.  If absolutely critical, the ECU will go in to "safe" or "limp" mode to prevent critical damage - you will know about that as power will be about 30% of normal....

 

[Nathan Pitman]

Thanks @C8RKH - the light was solid and on for a 10 minute drive back from the supermarket yesterday. Car was not driven again until this morning, the light was still on (and solid) and I had the car running for about 20 minutes in rush hour traffic (lots fo stop/start). I popped to Argos to collect the code reader and when I returned to the car and started it up the light had gone and remained off for the remainder of my journey (another ten minutes).

I'll check in with Bell and Colvill, it needs to go back for the petrol odour in the boot anyway and some other little things I've spotted but I feel assured by the fact that the light has gone out all by itself. I didn't even open up the code reader! lol.

[C8RKH]

If you plug in the code reader it should still be able to show you the "historical" codes I believe - just do not clear them as B&C would then be looking for a needle in a haystack! :)

 

[Techyd]

1 hour ago, Bruss said:

Yes, I'm well known for my lack of humour. However a new owner asks what to do about an engine light and he is informed by a Lotus forum that  he is not driving it hard enough. I don't think that is good advice.

As for Bravo, he has my respect as a fellow long term owner and modifier of his Lotus. He talks sense and yes if the OP has the same interest and can check the light via a non approved Lotus scanner and can trust his own judgement then he can decide whether his new car should go back to B and C or not.

If it goes wrong again and Lotus tell him he re-set it himself and that has caused whatever problem is now occurring , I'm sure the forum will club round to pay for any repairs.

Thanks - just for clarity, I wasn't the one suggesting to drive it hard, that comment appears to be have been relayed via a forum member from a dealer technician.

Lets park this here shall we 🙂

[Simon Bateman]

57 minutes ago, Techyd said:

Thanks - just for clarity, I wasn't the one suggesting to drive it hard, that comment appears to be have been relayed via a forum member from a dealer technician.

Lets park this here shall we 🙂

 

15 hours ago, Cdm2018 said:

the technician told me it was due to fact I hadn’t driven it very hard in the last few weeks and to be honest I don’t floor the car. 

No experience with the Evora for this, but we also have a Civic Type R that is now a year old and has been faultless.  During the recent cold snap, I took it out of the garage...turned off the engine.  washed it, started the engine 30 mins later....drove it 100 mtrs.....turned it off again.  60 mins later turned it on and put it back in the garage.

All the time it was chucking fuel into a cold engine and then the following morning it turned over fine, coughed a bit and the light came on.  It cleared it's throat straight away, but the light stayed on.

The Honda tech couldn't find anything and said it was just probably over fuelled and reset the warning

It's been fine since and covered about 2000 miles.

 

[philcool]

My company Vauxhall vivaro van had the engine light come on and miss fired for a second 

16,000 Miles later it went in for a service at a main dealer when asked about the light they said oh we reset that it was nothing 

Forward four weeks and the turbo decided to fire itself through the throttle body 

The light came on all right then I can tell you.

I've since purchased a Launch 129 fault code reader and its worked on Ford Vauxhall Mercedes Masda  Lotus and Nissan you would be surprised how maney fault codes are in the memory of some cars and the information you can read seems to differ widely from manufactuar to manufactuar 

On the Lotus I can read 12 data streams but can perform miss fire test On my Mercedes I can see 52 data streams including all air bags and automatic gearbox solinoid tests and ABS but can read over 60 on  Ford Mondao things like brake peddle pressure and what speed the radiator fan should be running at when the A/C is on.

[Colin P]

Given the car is under warranty I'd tend to use the OBD, call the dealer, tell them the code and ask if OK to reset it. Did this with mine when I threw the MIL and Transmission lights (it wasn't an issue and I know why it did it), but cars can throw spurious codes these days. 

Our Vauxhall Adam did something similar, if you don't let a modern car go trough its checking procedure and you rush through starting it and putting it in gear etc  then it can throw these codes.

[Nathan Pitman]

Well I have th light again! A few short drives today though and I haven’t given it the beans for a while so I’ll check the code in the morning...

[Nathan Pitman]

“P0175 - system too rich bank 2”

Am I safe to reset that and then get it to the dealer for a check up at some point?

[EGTE]

Too rich is far better than too lean, that's for sure. How's it running?

[Nathan Pitman]

It’s a bit lumpy when it’s cold (like it’s misfiring) but once it’s up to temperate it seems fine.

I cleared the code and went for a bit of a blast and it’s not come back (yet). 

[Nathan Pitman]

And the light is back on, that was short lived. I wonder if it’s occuring while the engine is running cold, I cleared it successfully after the engine had been running for a while and was warm. Came back on again when running cold. 

[EGTE]

Short, cold runs are not good for any engine. I'd get it looked at (especially if it's under warranty).

[Nathan Pitman]

Its under warranty yea. Have emailed the dealer and will give them a call on Monday!

[EGTE]

Good luck! Probably nothing major, but as Bruss says, far better to check.

Plenty of "Italian tune-ups" when you get it back, though. 👍😎