This happened on the interstate last night...

All of a sudden, the car went into full limp-home mode. DSC fail, parking brake fail, engine systems fail were the messages I got on the message center. Red warning light. Car slowed to a max speed of 30 mph and max rpm of 1500. Keep in mind this is a 5-speed manual car.

Anyway, I pull off to the side of the road, shut it off, power it back on, and it's fine -- for 2 minutes. Then it does it again. And again. It proceeds to do this several times until finally we were just going to have it towed. I was hoping not to have to find a tow truck on Thanksgiving.

While I waited for my wife to come out of the gas station we were at, I just decided to check fluids and whatnot to keep myself busy. Noticed the oil was off by about a quart. So I put a quart of oil in it. We decided to try one more time to continue our trip, and this time, no faults or red lights or limp-home mode. We were able to finish our trip, another 100+ miles.

I chalked it up to a really weird way of telling me it needed oil. But this morning, while running errands, it happened to my wife again.

We haven't had time to check codes yet, but is this ringing a bell for anyone? Knock sensor or something? Any guesses would be appreciated.

Jess

 

Failing battery is probably the #1 suspect. The missing quart of oil was unrelated.

 

+1 on Mikey's guess, but check the codes and let us know what shows up.

 

+1 on post #2 and #3.

See you soon!

 

+2 on a failing battery...

 

But could be a wet (damp) coil and it dried out. Adding the oil was good, of course, but not the "fix".

 

And remember that moisture getting into the throttle body will also throw the vehicle into limp mode....

 

Mmm. I had wet-coil problems before. Certainly causes a misfire and some amber engine-light activity which ceases when it gets a chance to dry out, but not the full poltergeist performance described in the OP. +3 on the dying battery theory!

BTW, and I expect this has been done to death already, but anyways - I use and recommend the Bosch Silver HSB019 battery for these things. Solid performance and plenty chunky AH and CCA compared with OE.

 

I like the terminology!

 

Only time my S-Type went into limp-home mode was when I let a friend drive it.
Perhaps there's a lesson in that.......

 

Was it raining out?

 

That's the weird thing, it wasn't. No car washes or anything like that, either. This car hasn't seen rain in about a month.

Jess

 

Definitely look for codes ASAP.

Battery (possibly its wiring/etc) is by far #1 suspect. It MUST supply good power even when engine running (for computers & peaks such as coils & injectors). The alternator does not do that.

 

I'm with JagV8 on this one... Get the codes read soon. I big hint to battery issues is if you get codes coming from systems you know are fine.