My CEL came on...

[S.Menchavez]

Out of nowhere! It's not like I just drove through a puddle with my CAI or anything, just got it on the way home from school today. I will take her to Toyota first thing tomorrow, but I gotta drive to work tonight. I am a little scared, does the CEL always mean something really bad?

:wtc:

[BoonyBoun]

Don't worry about it too much. One of your tubes are probably loose. Check all of the vaccum tubes, and gas cap. Make sure eveything is tight. :)

[atehrani]

If after checking everything it is still on, I highly recommend taking it to a dealer to get it checked. The same thing happened to me and my #2 cylinder was miss-firing. Hope yours won't be as bad. Let us know how it turns out.

[Maelfyn]

My CEL is on half the time and I run 15.0. Doesn't mean anything bad really. Typically it's just a code being tripped off in the ECU that doesn't significantly effect the engine's performance.

[selika2000]

Originally posted by S.Menchavez
Out of nowhere! It's not like I just drove through a puddle with my CAI or anything, just got it on the way home from school today. I will take her to Toyota first thing tomorrow, but I gotta drive to work tonight. I am a little scared, does the CEL always mean something really bad?

:wtc:

Aww!! Babe!! I'm so sorry! Do what the guys say and check your tubes before you take it into Toyota.. ya know they will blame it on the intake.

Ya know, it's so funny because my CEL has never come on and we put on our ingen's together at the same exact time.

If you want company at Toyota, pull my ass outta bed, I need to go get my tint pealing sunroof fixed.. ya know, the problem I've been having like for 9 months.. LoL. I want to fix it before the Phx meet.

[S.Menchavez]

Thanks BoonyBoun. Yes, I checked my tubes, hoses etc, and everything seemed okay. A friend of Selika and I suggested disconnecting the battery for 10 mins and reconnecting. That worked, and my CEL didn't come on to or from work tonight.

Maelfyn, I hope you're right about code being tripped off, have you ever gotten it checked out by Toyota, though? I was a little worried about that cylinder mis-fire thing atehrani is talking about, I've read about that happening to other people.

Well, I guess my baby is okay for now. I will see if it happens again. Thanks for the help everyone, I just panicked and posted right after it happened!

But now my sunroof won't do the auto-close or auto-open when you hold the button down. WEIRD!! Just started after the CEL thing. Whatever :rolleyes:

[Maelfyn]

Resetting your ECU will always get rid of the CEL. However, it will not prevent it from going back on again :) A lot of times I have done troubleshooting to get rid of my own CEL problems and I keep resetting my CEL and fiddling with my engine bay until I figure it out. I haven't had a CEL in 400 miles so I think I solved my most recent problem. This time my ECU cooling hose fell out of place and it wasn't properly cooling my ECU.

Regarding your sunroof acting strange, I don't know what that's all about. But, I would check to be sure my battery connections were tight. Every time I have had that problem my battery was weak.

Anyway the moral of the story is CEL = minor annoyance.

[oldster]

Originally posted by Maelfyn

Anyway the moral of the story is CEL = minor annoyance.

That is not an accurate statement. A CEL could also indicate you have a severe problem which will lead to heavy damage if not rectified.

[Kit99bar]

it could have been a one time missfire

if it comes on repeatedly though, go to your dealer

[caj26]

the auto open sunroof function will not work right away after resetting ECU in my experience. In order to get it to work again you have to hold the button down until it won't open any more and then do the same to close it making sure you have the button held down the entire time. This shoud reset your sunroof.