MIL blinks...
 

My car is 2009 6MT and has 25000km.

I got MIL light on the way home from gas station. The MIL light blinked at me around 60 MPH and the car immediately went into limp mode. The power was cut so severely (@ around 4000RPM) that I felt as if I was riding a motorcycle sipping it's last drop of gas in order to keep the engine running. I tried WOT with other gears, the power is keep cutting (feels like disengage gear by itself and rev doesn't go up when acceleration.) @ around 4000rpm. I restarted engine and checked idle and found that my idle stays @ 1K rpm never go below 1k rpm even engine is warm enough. I haven't scan the code yet. my guess is the fuel cap. but my Q is.. would loose fuel cap cause the happen that i said above?

I think the loose gas cap throws an EVAP leak code, which would not produce limp mode as I understand it.

Bad gas?

Can you get a hold of a code reader or get it to the dealer?

I'm with Dave, Evap leak shouldn't produce limp mode. Need to read the code asap.

whats MIL mean

The indicator blinks when you have a misfire bad enough to damage the engine. MIL= Malfunction indicator lamp I.E. Check engine light.

Check your code ASAP. Probably a misfire code. Diagnose from there. Evap
not going to make you misfire.

Not necessarily anything to do with a misfire, and certainly doesn't have to correspond with engine damage. A malfunctioning sensor is the most common reason for a CEL/MIL.

Thanks for inputs guys.
My buddy scanned my car and yes it was misfire. He told me that it was caused by bad gas. He deleted the engine service soon light, but after 5mins of driving, the light came back on again. should I bring it to delaer ASAP? or would the light turn off after the gas tank is emptied? Do I need to worry about getting my engine damaged by misfire.?

Cars still under warranty right??? Why play all these games, just bring it to the dealer, A blinking MIL usually means a serious problem.

:iagree: insurance would normally cover this.

whoa thats gnarly. dealer that sucker ASAP

subscribed !waiting for the result

good luck with the Z !

bad gas?...which station was this?? i'll be sure not to buy from them :)
which dealership do you go to?...update with results, thxs.

:iagree:

i usually go with chevron but now im wondering what gas has less ethanol and which is better for my car..

I went chevron on mountain hwy and Lynn valley in north Vancouver. I put 91, but got SES light after.. I'm so pissed..... :( I made an appointment at morry nissan on willingdon in burnaby.

Your flat out wrong, maybe you should do some research before you try helping people.

When MIL is on and it flashes as you drive the car is suffering from major misfires that can damage engine components and the catalyst.

joseph you just saved yourself from me trolling you with your ninja edit. btw its "you're"

?? People need to be properly informed of what is happening with their car when the MIL blinks lol. The ignorance on this board is most amusing.

I think people are interested in the outcome. Nobody likes to see the owner of a new car (especially the same one we own!) have codes thrown and limp mode engaged.:tiphat:

I agree professor Dave.

If it is flashing then it indicates a critical fault, hence why the engine is in limp mode. The result can be because of a critical sensor failure (e.g. crankshaft position sensor, camshaft position sensor, VVEL position sensor) or because of a misfire. Obviously the first step is always to immediately read the code to determine the next step of diagnosis - the very first thing I said. System readiness test failure on start up will also cause the MIL to blink, but in a different fashion, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds flash. Sure in the OP's case it was a misfire event but for the purpose of general information I was trying to point out that the MIL light can indicate different things.

Rather than attacking other posters why not refer to the service manual with specific information? I don't think I fed misinformation to anyone, so the responses are unwarranted.

That response was much better than your first post Chris.

if that happened to me i'd freak out.. i'd be at the dealership before i could even post on this forum about it............

but noway its bad gas imo

I'm thinking the same about the gas. Worst I can imagine is the trucker dispensed the wrong fuel into the tanks. Mebbe he got diesel? I'd figure everyday engines would sputter or die with diesel in them. Would a Z's engine be different?

Shawn (OP) what's the word on your baby?

ok, I left my car @ the dealership this morning. they just let me go home without the car. and got call afternoon from them, they said still couldn't find what is the cause of misfire. but they think that its cause of computer problem... so need to order new computer (I think its ECU??) from japan. so i need to wait for 2 weeks to get it. and asked them to provide me a rental car. but they said no. and... they keep saying that it might not be covered under warranty, because i had car accident before. it was an year ago. and was front end damaged. I had to replace condensor and radiator. (Not the engine.) and car has been running great since then. Do you guys think misfire is cause of the accident?? and really think it won't be cover under warranty?? I was really pissed off that i heard that from dealer. I don't know what to do... should I call nissan canada if they say it can not be covered under warranty???

I've bought gas at that station in the past(not w/ 370Z) never had problems...guess the 370Z didn't like that gas:confused:

Morrey is where I take mine, they're alittle slow b/c their so busy but overall no complaints.

Replacing the ECU seems a bit drastic, did they discover any other evidence to indicate that the ECU was misbehaving? Also I doubt that the ECU could have been damaged in the kind of relatively minor accident you are describing. I've seen working ECU's come out of total wrecks, they are pretty durable.

I love how quick the dealers are to pull the "your warranty is void" card. In order for them to actually do that they would have to establish some kind of correlation that there was unrepaired or hidden damage. For an accident that was a year ago that is going to be a pretty tough sell.

:iagree: And the tough sell would have to be to your insurance company, since the dealer is claiming they've found previously undiscovered damage. I'd educate yourself about warranties a bit (lots of threads here, some with horror stories) and play hardball with these d-bags.

Keep us posted...

i encountered a similar problem today... while i was cruising on the highway about 100mph and when i was about to go in a junction maybe another 400m away, i put the gear to neutral. My intention was to let the engine breathe the incoming air to lower the oil temperature but suddenly the Zs' engine cut off, & limps on... brakes wasnt working normally, steering was hard to steer and the Malfunction light lit on. Got panicked, but eventually the car limped to a stop safely on the side of the road.. Tried restarting it and it was back to normal...

I wonder what made the Zs' engine died unpredictably? Any ideas guys? was it because i put the gear on neutral too soon after aggressive revs?? sudden drop of heat to the engine oil perhaps? i dunno?? Please advice.... Thanks....

Were you low on fuel? A complete engine cut like that has mostly only been experienced by people driving hard when below 1/4 tank. I don't think it has anything to do with oil temperature, this is not limp mode.

report every problem to the NTSB no matter how small even if the the dealer fixes it with a smile.they keep records and can see a developing trend for a recall if needed.

PM me to provide you with some emails address that can get your case rolling for the best.

Also check the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act which is somewhere in this forum.

What is limp mode then? Anyways I just filled my tank yesterday... when it happened it was 2 dots on the indicator to full.. i sent my Z to the dealer today... hope to get some answers some time this week... Hopefully its nothing serious....

NTSB? where is that? the dealer?

Let's not forget the OP is in Canada, so if it is being serviced at a Canadian Dealership their laws may or may not require the dealership to prove anything like the ones in the states are supposed to (though they rarely do).

The misfire code is P0300 and is common. If this is the code, its not a big deal.....it can damage your cats.....but nothing else. It will also make it hard to pass emissions....if you have emissions in your area.

I dont have cats......so no worries for me.

Want a cheap code tool? Go to obdcom.com and you can get a laptop OBD2 code program and kit. It will read the code and clear it. $87

National Transportation Safety Board. The dealer would be the Small-town Transportation-we-don't-care-about-Safety bunch of Bored liars.

Sorry, that's all I got.

good effort, LOL

My Z has just came out from the dealer and found out a DTC code out of their system.. they said its something to do with the transmission sensor.. they explained further that if there's an unusual activity detected by the sensor it might shut the engine down or maybe they said because of a miss gear??...

So i assume that the immediate engine shut down of my Z may be caused by the action of putting the gear from D to N at high speed.... i dunno... just assuming tho... what do u guys think? Sensible answer?

Automatic gear boxes don't usually like to be run in neutral at high speed, not sure if it would dislike it enough to shut the engine down, seems unusual.