eagleb Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 After leaving the 96 obw AT at my parent's house for the weekend (I was using the old man's pickup to help with my residential move), I decided to bring it home. My parents driveway is very steep, and the car was parked pointing downhill. When I started the car, it began shaking, sputtering a bit, and was belching smoke from the tail pipe. CEL started blinking. I pulled out of the driveway onto flat land, and shut the thing off before I suffocated. After calming down, I went back outside, started the car, and it ran fine. Made it the 25 miles home no problem. CEL is still on, I'll have it checked tomorrow. I'm guessing it'll say P030x. Any guesses as to why this happened? Should I avoid parking on declines for extended periods of time? Hopefully it was an isolated event. I'll get the code checked asap, since I hate seeing the CEL illuminated. eag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericem Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Maybe it was bad fuel or fuel delivery issue or a fluke. Were you low on gas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porcupine73 Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 Flashing CEL was probably cylinder misfire. Not sure but my guess is maybe oil seeped into the cylinders or something from the very steep angle of parking, hence the smokiness for a short period? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagleb Posted November 5, 2007 Author Share Posted November 5, 2007 Fuel was at >50%. The smoke did smell like a bit of burning oil. Probably was a bit of oil getting combusted, definitely seems like a fluke. The question is, does something need to be replaced (oil seal somewhere), or would this happen to any 11 year old boxer parked in a similar manner? The car runs great now, I'll get the code checked at lunch and update the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porcupine73 Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 If the code(s) are P0301, P0302, P0303, P0304 or any combination and you haven't had any issues with misfire lately I'd just have the codes cleared as it may have just been temporary from the oil burning, if that's what the issue was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster2 Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 agree with previous poster.......trouble was caused by parking on a really steep angle as you said. Clear the codes, and you should be okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x_25 Posted November 6, 2007 Share Posted November 6, 2007 The question is, does something need to be replaced (oil seal somewhere), or would this happen to any 11 year old boxer parked in a similar manner? QUOTE] I have A '99 obw and my driveway is also steep (ie. i need to pull the parking break almost all the way for it to hold). The car has ~132,000 mi on it and it is parked faceing down the hill all the time and it has never had a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagleb Posted November 7, 2007 Author Share Posted November 7, 2007 Check engine light went out on its own, checked the code and it was indeed a misfire, on cylinder 4. I had a problem with the same misfire before I had the headgaskets done at the beginning of the year, but this is the first time the CEL has come on since the HG job. Probably an isolated incident, but I'm gonna have the mechanic check it out when I take it in for an oil change (there's a slight oil drip coming from the drivers side of the tbelt cover). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LosDiosDeVerde86 Posted November 8, 2007 Share Posted November 8, 2007 would it be possible that parking it on a grade for a period of time + possible low fluids might cause a dry spot in the engine or tranny? i dunno, just throwing something out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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