Engine light flashing on cluster momentarily?

[Garth g.]

Yesterday while driving my car, the engine light was flashing while idling at a stop light the car ran like crap for a bit. Hit the gas and it reved high with no power. Now it's back to normal. When the engine light was flashing it was rough and pulsating, anyone know anything about this?

[mimelio]

Yesterday while driving my car, the engine light was flashing while idling at a stop light the car ran like crap for a bit. Hit the gas and it reved high with no power. Now it's back to normal. When the engine light was flashing it was rough and pulsating, anyone know anything about this?

scan for the fault code in memory

[jra]

Engine light flashing usually means your cat is over heating, most likely caused by un-burned fuel in exhaust due to engine missing. could be bad plugs, coils, plug wires, cam or crank sensors, Like Minelio, said see if there are any codes set to point you in the right direction.

[tmontague]

likely a misfire but pull the code to know for sure. Most Partsource locations will pull the code for you for free.

I would pull your plugs and check for water in one of the plug boot holes. Somehow water sometimes finds its way in there and will cause an intermittent misfire even with the plastic cover on the engine. You may also just have a bad coil pack/boot.

[SirDigby]

Engine light flashing usually means your cat is over heating, most likely caused by un-burned fuel in exhaust due to engine missing. could be bad plugs, coils, plug wires, cam or crank sensors, Like Minelio, said see if there are any codes set to point you in the right direction.

no. engine light flashing means "the engine is misfiring right now!"

[CoryM]

no. engine light flashing means "the engine is misfiring right now!"

JRA is correct. The CEL will flash when catalyst damage is possible. Typically only seen when the engine is misfiring and dumping raw fuel into the catalyst. I think there are other reasons why it will flash, but they are not common enough for me to remember (or have seen in real life).

[Garth g.]

Thank you for the responses, haven't got around to putting a code reader on the car yet. Since I posted this I've had no problems whatsoever. I plan on using my buddy's scanner this weekend. (240,000k still going!!!) It burns a little bit of oil but who cares!!!!:😈

[Bluevitz-rs]

were you running low on gas at the time? Might have been a little water in the fuel causing the stumble.