Solid orange engine malfunction light

[Bullyboy]

Cheers hound. Thanks so much

[Bullyboy]

75 Mike round trip today. No sign. Weird

[Hound]

Symptom of battery being slightly low, perhaps? Let's hope the glitch doesn't return!

[Deleted User 759]

I have seem MIL light come on randomly on most of my cars over the years and vanish. Could be something silly like unplugging a sensors and starting the engine up, to messing with the air con button several times quickly, or could be an indication of a intermittent fault.

I had one with the Micra DIG-S and it goes with Hound's comments. I parked up at Tesco and stayed in the car with the kids with the radio on. I didn't realise at the time but I had left the head lights on as well. Came to start it back up, the dash lights went a little nuts and the engine was lethargic to turn over, but it did start. However, MIL came on and the car was in limp mode (it was hideous to drive). Drove it home, plugged in my sensor tool and it moaned about voltage to the boost sensor. Cleared it, threw on a battery charger for a few hours and never seen it again since!

The QQ has been known for its iffy battery's in the early models and possibly iffy charging system (wont go to detail here, have a search for the threads) so with low mileage and short, quick town trips could easily allow the battery to get to a lower state of charge. The other issue could be an iffy earth. Again, mostly early cars were affected and poor/too quick pre-delivery inspection by the dealer caused this.

Even when the MIL light goes out, the ECU still stores the error code for review later so still worth getting the cheap reader, or even nipping into the garage and discuss with them

[Bullyboy]

Thanks splank. Waiting for the reader to arrive and will report. I do wonder if me shuffling cars around on the drive some unburnt fuel in the system which throws up the error.

I'll report further as soon as I can .

[Deleted User 759]

unlikely. I do that all the time and its never caused me an issue. But what you describe matches what happened *once* in the Micra

Also keep in mind, just because the fault may show a sensor is faulty, it may not actually be that which is at fault of that makes sense. If could be something else causing a fault condition on that sensor that's flagged. IE in my case, low battery voltage caused the boost sensor to read outside of standard parameter values thus getting flagged up!

[Bullyboy]

Reader arrived. Code P0138. Oxygen sensor. I can take screen shot if you wish. Started the car up to read the code and left it running for 5 mins. No light.

What do you think ?

[Deleted User 759]

IS this the 1.6 DIG-T engine? Does it say anything else, IE to indicate which sensor it is as there are at least 2 sensors on car these days, sometimes more.

[Bullyboy]

Yes it is 1.6 ( see my signature). It did say something else. I'll take a screen shot tomorrow and put exact words on the post. Cheers

[Bullyboy]

Read it today and stupidly must of erased the code as said no code shown. 35 miles today no light.
Net time it happens I'll read and take picture. I still have a suspicion that because I moved the car a couple of times and switched it off and on some unborn fuel in the sensor. Appreciate the comments. I'll update if it happens again