Please Help!!!

I just purchased a 2001 996 a week ago. It ran fine for a few days, then one night I tried to start it up and the CEL started blinking, then solid, then blinking, etc. Since then, the idle is pretty rough, especially with the a/c on.

I put the code reader in, and I got P1130, P0300, P0301, P0302.

The car has 90,000 miles on it, and here is the rest of the story.

1. The night before, it rained pretty hard. It may have been the first time the car has gotten wet in months, as the previous owner kept it under a carport. My concern with wetness revolves around possible coil failure.

2. Also, I performed a oil drain plug swap. When I bought the car, I asked the owner to perform an oil change in my presence, so I could check the filter for particles (IMS). The filter was fine, but the previous owner had to reuse the plug gasket, so the car developed a slight drip from the plug. I ordered a new plug, and simply removed the old one, and shoved the new one in and tightened it. Some oil came out, but it was about 1/4 of a quart, so I replaced that amount of oil with new oil. Also, no more drip.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

Also, it appears that the P0301 code was pending, and was able to be cleared by the OBD2.

 

The rain stopped last night, so I figured I'd test my theory this morning. I read the codes again, which were:

P1130
P0302
P0301 - Pending

I erased the codes and started up. There was a rough idle, and the CEL started blinking again. Shut it down, read the codes.

Now only 1 code:
P0302 - Pending

Erased codes again...

Started again. Noticed the idle was completely smooth... Waited for the light... It never came on, so I took it around the block (just over a mile). The car ran fine... no CEL...

But, now it's raining again. I may wait for it to get real wet and see if the CEL comes back.

Thoughts?

 

Take a woman's hair mister bottle, fill it with water, start your car and mist the coil pack area. If the idle gets rough and the CEL comes back on then you have bad coils.

 

Just an update

The car was still running fine today. However, I noticed that the coolant is well below the minimum line in the reservoir.

Now I'm concerned I could be dealing with a head gasket leak (or worse). The reservoir is the .03 revision. If I had coolant getting leaking in the engine, is that a situation that would get better on its own? Can that cause the CEL for misfires?

Thanks again... again...

 

So I just brought the car to my local Indy. They are not open today, but they will get to it first thing tomorrow morning.

Once again, it was pouring down rain. The road was very wet and there were many puddles. On the way to the shop, I was in stop and go traffic (literally a red light every few hundred feet for a few miles). 3 or 4 times, when I stopped at a red light, the rpms would drop during idle and the CEL would flash. As I was looking for a place to pull over, the CEL always stopped blinking and the light wen completely out by the time I got to 20 mph.

Does this make sense to anyone?

My thinking is that the P030X codes make sense for misfire if I have bad coil packs getting wet, but my concern is that i do not understand the P1130 code. Additionally, the low coolant has me concerned that it could be related to the P1130 code and possibly be from a more serious problem. I added coolant this morning, and it didn't take very much. I would say the level was 1" below the minimum mark on the expansion tank.

Any thoughts are much appreciated...

 

It is very common for the coolant cap to leak after 10 years (or the reservoir itself) - replace the cap and keep your eye on it. Your coil packs could have cracks or (simpler yet) the connectors may not be properly snapped on. At worst, you may need new coils. Just replace the ones showing codes (Cylinders 1 & 2). They are temperamental and you could easily get another lemon if you replace them all - unless you pay the big bucks and get BBI (PlasmaDirect) coil packs.

It is also very common for some codes to lead to others - fix the easy stuff first and see if the 1130 code comes up again.