My emissions light went off! Hooray!!! This is ; so after all this time including a drive last Tuesday, I decided I'd take it to a local tech to get a read on the code and find out what the cause was. I set a time for this morning as I was gone on business travel. I go to the car, turn it on, and VOILA! NO LIGHT.
You gotta love it. Maybe the car is just like me, I don't like going to the doctor, and maybe she doesn't like going to the tech
This forum is great. By reading everyone's comments and solutions I was patient and it paid off. I would say that I cycled the car on and off somewhere between 12 and 20 times prior to the warning off

 

Just took a couple of car washes didn't it

 

Yep. A clean car is a happy car

 

So this April I take the car out of winter storage and start driving it as good weather allows. In May the emissions warning light comes on again. I don't think too much about it as per my previous experience I assume it's been my modest city driving and occasional stroll on the highway that's causing sensors it to readjust. well it just went off today, about two months and 300 miles late. One day in June i took it to the track hoping that would solve the issue, it didn't. So here we are just as I was assuming this time it's a real problem to fix. Glad it wasn't.

So the question, when do you believe the light is indicative of a real emissions problem? How long do you wait for it to go off?

 

I typically give it 30 days... It has happened three times and each time its gone off all by itself.

 

Just because the light is off doesn't mean whatever set it off is fixed... get the codes checked. It's real simple for the emissions codes.

 

Emission system service required is nothing more than an idiot light. It can go off for all sorts of reasons and you won't really know until you hook up an OBD II reader and get the codes.

I too was getting the Emission system light a couple of times. So I spent under $200 bucks and bought a Foxwell NT510 reader. This reader can read both the engine and body codes. It comes with the Aston Martin codes as well as being a generic OBDII reader. It can also clear codes. So for under $200 bucks you can start to understand what exactly is going on.

I am not a mechanic but I've got some basic mechanical skills, computer skills, and a general understanding of how cars work. That plus this forum are all one needs.

You can find threads here and on Aston1936 to learn more about OBDII readers, options, and the Foxwell unit. I am a novice and learning more everyday.

So my car is a 2007 DB9 Volante. It now has 12,500 miles on it. I am the third owner and I bought it in September of last year. The previous owner spent a ton of money maintaining the car through the dealership and personally I think he got taken to the cleaners, since one of the last service bills before I bought the car was for over $15k. I don't have that kind of money to throw around and so I am trying to go about it smarter.

The funny thing about these cars is that multiple problems can trigger a warning light. The warning light can be from a simple problem or from something more serious.

For instance, the Emission warning can be triggered by a faulty or loose gas cap, bad oxygen sensor, the engine misfiring, to just name a couple.

So my car when driven leisurely in D had absolutely no issues. When I used the paddle shifters and drove aggressively maintaining higher RPMs the emission light would come on. Several cycles of back to leisurely driving and it would go off.

It drove me crazy. This is the kind of car I want to drive aggressively on occasion.

One day, I really was on it, and the car lit up like a Christmas Tree. Warning Immediately slow down, Red warning triangle lit on dash, check engine light lit, Emission Service message.

So I got out my Foxwell and found out that I had a fault in Cylinder 11 due to Misfires. The system, once it detects a Misfire above 1.5%, will shut down the cylinder to protect the catalytic converter from having unburnt fuel entering it.

What can cause a cylinder Misfire? Bad Coil Pack, Bad Spark Plug, or the car not having been through a Misfire Correction cycle.

Using my OBD II reader, I determined that Misfire Correction was not enabled.

So using my Foxwell I cleared the code. All warning lights have gone back to normal. I have been driving the car leisurely again and I have been through over 10 drive cycles without so much as an error.

So now I need to do a Misfire Correction drive cycle so the car can learn how to do what it is supposed to do. It requires driving the car up to 70MPH in D and then letting it coast down to 30MPH without touching the accelerator or the brake or turning the wheel to much. It should be relatively flat and the A/C needs to be off. Furthermore it is suggested that you fo this 3-4 times just to make sure it takes.

Well where I live there is constant traffic and I am trying to figure out the best time and place and road to do this on. Once I get this done, I will attempt an aggressive driving scenario again to see if the problem is gone. If not, then I know it's probably time to think about replacing the coil packs and the spark plugs. The car is almost 12 years old after all.

The thing is, when you swap out the battery, or in my case run the battery down low, the car will lose its Misfire Correction along with needing to reset the power windows and driver's seat. Dealers store the info before replacing the battery and can download it back to the car. At home you can't do that. So I would guess that many people who do their own work on the car may run into this.

That's all I know right now. But once I do the drive cycle will let you know.

Mark

 

My project with transitioning the Landrover LR3 gas cap internal to the Aston metal housing was a success.
The code did not go away by itself, I had to wipe the code per ODB2 plug in order to disappear from the dash.

I think I drove around couple drives and ~200 mls before using the OBD2 plug.