"Service engine soon" light

Echo

Graybullet, My issue was the gas cap. It took a lot of toying around, but we discovered that despite my twisting the hell out of the cap to tighten it the damn thing would just pop right off. On the other hand, the technician would tighten it simply and it would seal and stay on properly. It was all a matter of luck. I think the cap has two sets of threads so it could start to engage either at 0 degrees or 180 degrees. One way was just fine. One way was bad. That may not be it exactly but I proved to the dealership's satisfaction that there was a flakey issue with the cap that prevented it from sealing properly every time. They replaced the cap and it has never been an issue since then. Insist on a new cap and I bet your issue goes away.

theGreatGW

i just bought my 40th on 4/22 and with 79 miles on it the SES light came on today hopefully its not an issue

fairlady_Z

Mine threw a "service engine soon" light after some car audio electronics work done on it, and this is what I did to clear it:

1. Confirm that accelerator pedal is fully released, turn ignition switch ON (DO NOT depress clutch while you're doing this) and wait 3 seconds.

Repeat #2 procedure quickly five times within 5 seconds:
2. Fully depress then release the accelerator pedal.

3. Wait 7 seconds, fully depress the accelerator pedal and keep it for approx. 10 seconds until the CEL starts blinking.

4. Fully release the accelerator pedal (while the CEL is still blinking)

5. Wait about 10 seconds.

6. Fully depress the accelerator pedal and keep it down for more than 10 seconds.
7. Fully release the accelerator pedal (The CEL light will continue to blink).

Turn ignition switch to OFF position

Turn ignition switch to ON position and now you can start the car. The CEL light should be gone.

Rep me if this works for you as it did for me.

Zsteve

Its a forum rule that if you ask for a rep that you actually lose 2 rep points.

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2010 LS3 C6 Silver coupe corvette

6SPD_FTW

Once the SES light starts blinking, it is actually blinking out the DTC fault codes that's causing the SES light to be illuminated. It's a 4 digit code...the long flashes are the first digit (ten flashes for 0) and then it will quickly flash the 2nd digit, pause, quickly flash the 3rd digit, pause, quickly flash 4th digit and pause, repeat. No codes is 0000. So, with this, there is no need to have the codes read by anyone...the car will tell you what the codes are.

You can depress the accelerator pedal to erase codes and reset ECM ANYTIME during the codes being flashed out. So, this is much more than just a way to reset the ECM and SES light.

This is a tricky thing to do and that 7 seconds is VERY difficult to time exactly right. Need a stopwach for sure with this because it is a VERY EXACT process with timing it. Usually takes me 3 or 4 tries to get it right. Turn ignition off for ~10 seconds between tries.

NOW...for the next trick.

At the END of the 7 seconds, you floor the gas pedal and it SHOULD start flashing codes after 10 seconds if you've done it correctly. If you keep the acc pedal to the floor after it starts flashing and just keep it there for about 10 seconds after it starts flashing, the SES light will stop flashing and light up solid. IF you start the car within 3 seconds, that is the idle-air volume relearn. Any kind of intake mods will require you to do this.

To do this, the engine must be at operating temp, ALL accessories OFF, steering wheel pointed straight ahead, vehicle in neutral and no fault codes stored. Just let the engine idle for 2 or 3 minutes then race the engine a few times and verify that it falls smoothly back to a normal idle speed. DONE.

Late,
Trav

TARDCORE

I have a question, the evap lines for some of you were the cause. Did any of you have the FI cat back when you took it to the dealer? Mine came on 3 days ago and my gas cap seems fine and I checked all the imediated sensors under the hood which are fine. Im just wondering what the dealer is going to say since I recently had to order brand new oem headers and all 4 sensors due to Nissan's sh*tty manufacturing and building and I have a feeling the dealer is going to to bring that up for warranty reasons.

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XBL:EVENTYDE

TARDCORE

Okay, I took the car to the dealer, sure enough he said it was a gas code. Not a big deal. However here is something interesting he told me. He said that even though te exhaust and intake effect the way the A/F ratio run compared to stock they shuld not void the warranty. He told me in some cases long tbe headers MAY void a warranty but he hasn't sen that issue yet on a 370z (probably because it is still new). He said if it was evap lines the exhaust won't void the warranty even though I removed the heat shield at the rear end of the car to install the exhaust. Furthermore I have this insanely annoying "creek" in the hatch area of my Z. He said that as long as it is withing 12k miles it wil be covered. After 12k miles it will now be covered and the dealer told me they couldn't fix it I would have to take it to a body shop which would be covered which I think is sort of The passeneger side of my hatch has a 6-7mm gap comapred to the 3-4mm gap on the driver side.


I think we should provide a sticky of all the little issues that our Z's have had and how dealer respond to them with warranties, stock, modded, etc. It provides much more insight I think to other members who have these small things like a gas cap that seems to work fine but throws CEL's or a creek in a hatch that can't be fixed wuthout a week in a body shop.

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XBL:EVENTYDE

CB1

Ok, I just installed HFCs and cat back exhaust. I did disconnect the negative battery terminal because the directions stated to. Now I have a Service Engine Soon light when the car is running.
I tried the above meathod to clear the SES light with no luck. Will removing the negative battery terminal for a minute or two clear the code like the gas pedal meathod? If so, how long should I keep the negative terminal disconnected for before I reconnect it?
Thanks!

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2011 Metallic Black, Touring/Sport, Nav, AT
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