So I washed my car and hosed down my engine bay this afternoon. Later in the evening the CEL came on after about 20 min of driving on the streets (no freeway). I'm guessing something happened when I cleaned the engine bay, but I've done it many times before and it has never done this. Anyhow, AutoZone was closed by the time I got there so I couldn't have them run a quick scan.

I unpluged the neg battery terminal for a quick ECU reset and that didn't help. Its now idling around 500 rpms or lower and feels like it wants to stall!

Anyone have any ideas what it could be? I'm hoping it's nothing too serious.

(btw I have a megan racing header and k&n cai if that makes a difference)

 

...did u wet ur cai?

 

nope... just hosed behind the header and below.

 

after resettin the ecu, the car does feel like its gonna stall at first...it will go away after lettin the car run....

cel proll caused by ur headers...i have the same problem..its drivn' me nuts

 

i dont really know how well i trust the OBD in the tC... i didnt even bother doing and CEL eliminator or anything with my header and it ran with the CEL on for about 20000 miles and then last week it just shut off... it didnt burn out either... the test light still comes on when it starts it just doesnt come on the rest of the time anymore.... its wierd.

 

hmmm well i did the cel fix for the header when i first installed it, so i doubt its the header throwing the cel since i've had it on for over 5k miles.

 

Well the problem fixed itself.... I just went for a quick drive to the market and it wasn't there.

Ohh well.... mods u can give this one a lockdown.

 

all that probably happened is that your spark plugs got wet or possibly something else electrical. The engine was running rough because it had to burn off/evaporate the excess water...it can happen even if the slightest amount of water gets into the system.

The CEL initially came on, more than likely, to compensate air and fuel for the amount of water in the system....just a possibility to think about.