Have a 98 mercury mystique v6. A few times a week i will be in traffic and it will feel like i have a bad spark plug wire. It will feel like there is a slight miss when accelerating. When this happens the "check engine" light will be flashing on and off. When this happens the car idles smooth and normal. This problem will last maybe 5 minuits and then the check engine light goes off and it pulls smoothly again for another 2 or 3 days and then acts up again. The engine has 145,000 miles on it and other than this problem runs great,and only started acting up with this 2 weeks ago.
The flashing check engine light is typical of a misfire issue. There are two things I would do to start with.
1. Take the vehicle to an auto parts store like Autozone and have them hook up their scan tool so that they can retrieve stored trouble codes. Even if the check engine light is not on, they should be able to retrieve recently stored codes.
2. Do a complete tune up. New plugs, new plug wires, new air filter, new fuel filter if it has not been done recently.
If the parts store pulls the codes and they cannot tell you what they mean, post them up here and I will see what I can dig up for you.
Yes, it most certainly would. The flashing check engine light is an indication in itself as a misfire is the only condition I know of that will cause the check engine light to flash as opposed to come on and stay on until the trouble is cleared or after so many drive cycles.
A misfire could also be caused by a faulty ignition coil but its not terribly common so I would first start with the plugs, plug wires and the filters I mentioned.
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stormstrikes,
Misfire as in a bad sparkplug or wire? Would this cause the check engine light to flash on and off?
Thanks................
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