My car is a 1998 Protege LX, 5 speed manual trans. with 133,000 miles. My engine light has been on for a few weeks now. Normally the light comes on, stays on for a week or so then goes of for several weeks. Well now the engine light has come on again, but it is now flashing on and off. The car idles rough, and then idles normally, then rough, then normally...... I cannot find any obvious problems...The oil level/color is fine, the car is not smoking, I did just replace the radiator a week ago, but it ran fine after the replacement. I did think at one point that I might have smelled gasoline vapors around the engine.

I do not have a scanner to check for the codes. There is an auto parts store about two miles from my house. But I have always heard that you shouldn't drive a car with a flashing engine light. Any opinions on that?

 

In my past experience with the engine light, a lot of the times it usually has something to do with emission controls. Most auto part stores like Advanced, AutoZone, will be able to check for free, using their scanner. If it was me, I would take it up there, since it isn't far, to see what the cause is. If it was say 20-30 away I would be a bit more cautious. Since it is only 2, I don't think you'll have an issue. Though if you did smell fuel coming from the engine, I would check the forums for a post dealing with that, as I remember reading that can possibly be the sign of headgasket trouble.

 

Thanks for the reply....I took the car down to Autozone and it has 4 or 5 codes popping up. But the big one explains why the car is running rough. A #2 cylinder mis-fire. That explains the gas smell, and probably the other codes that are popping up. All those code are screwing the emissions up so much no wonder the light is flashing. I will start by tuning it up and see if they all clear. Thanks again.