Just this morning I was chided by an alert reader that my use of the word "sick" to describe our 2009 Nissan GT-R's awesome performance in yesterday's post was misleading.
"For a moment there I really thought your GT-R needed a doctor," was the exact text.
Well, anyone who has watched an episode of "My Name is Earl" knows that karma is a powerful thing. Perhaps I souldn't have been alarmed when the above dire warning flashed before my eyes as I merged the GT-R from the Marina freeway onto the 405 south with a downshift and a squirt of throttle.
It must be serious. After all, three warnings came on all at once: a big yellow warning declaring an "engine system malfunction," (which, in a double-karmic move, obscured the digital speedo I spoke of in the "sick" post), a "service engine soon" lamp and, worst of all, a triangle containing the dreaded exclamation point.
I finished the drive home since the words "visit dealer" and "soon" appeared, instead of "pull over" or "now". I was further encouraged by the normal status of the plethora of gauges that can be called-up on the navigation screen, four pages worth.
At home I have a ScanGauge, a useful device that plugs into a car's OBD port and, among other things, reads trouble codes. Some of the more benign ones can even be reset with the thing.
It told me that our GT-R was suffering from a classic case of P0455, which stands for "Evaporative Emission Control System Leak Detected." Oh dear, not that!
Relax, it's probably just a "loose, improperly affixed or non-conforming gas cap." It could also be an honest-to-god leak in the EVAP system itself, but I don't smell any fuel. In that instance, standard procedure is to remove and reinstall the gas cap, clear the code and drive it for another day or so to see if it recurs.
So, with the help of my ScanGauge, that's exactly what I've done. But it seems odd that the warning didn't come until 175 miles after the last fill-up--and that happened before I appropriated the keys to this beast, so I don't know how that last pit stop was handled.
Karma can be a real pain in the butt.
Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing @ 4,511 miles
PS: The car will be at Cars and Coffee, 7:00 am this Saturday in the parking lot between Ford's Premier Automotive Group and Mazda North America HQ, near the Irvine Spectrum.
PPSS: No it won't. See comments below.
penboy says:
01:08 PM, 08/15/08
You know, there aren't many things that can motivate me to be awake and some place at 7:00am on a Saturday, but seeing this GT-R in person is certainly tempting...
tmanz says:
01:49 PM, 08/15/08
all those displays and computer power and it couldn't just tell you "check the gas cap"?
nocturne1 says:
02:02 PM, 08/15/08
No Cars & Coffee event this weekend due to Pebble Beach / Monterey events. Unless you are heading there to let me drive it... ;)
Dan Edmunds says:
03:14 PM, 08/15/08
Blast and tarnation, you are correct! I did not know that Cars & Coffee took a break this weekend. Another Saturday, then.
athens says:
04:17 PM, 08/15/08
Dan:
I promise to emit nothing but good karma on these posts, especially when it comes to the GT-R.
Here's to one super healthy "sick" GT-R that runs like a jewel from now on.
eidolways says:
09:00 PM, 08/16/08
My Mazda threw this code one time. It turned out to actually be a flaw in the evaporative emission automatic testing system.
Essentially, the pump to evacuate the gas vapors from the tank and into the carbon filter would be turned on. Then the system would measure the load the pump was experiencing. Larger loads would mean the pump would be moving more air. In the case of a fuel tank, it should be a closed, sealed system. There shouldn't be much air to move. So a large load meant a leak.
The problem is that any draw on the battery during the same time period as this test, such as flashing lights or whatnot, would make the system think the pump was experiencing a load. So the "evap system leak" OBD code would fire. Thankfully, a dealership flash fixed the problem. Either that or they just cleared the code and the problem hasn't reoccurred.
So it could've been something like that here.
subytrojan says:
02:10 PM, 08/17/08
Good detective work, Dan! P0457 is usually specific to the fuel filler cap.
The 'Rex threw a P0456 on me a couple of weekends ago. I read the code with my COBB AccessPORT, reset the ECU, shut the car off, removed and retightened the gas cap, restarted the car, and went on my way. The code hasn't returned since. The puzzling thing is I always tighten the gas cap until it clicks at least three times. :shrug:
tinyelvis says:
06:56 AM, 08/18/08
"Blast and tarnation"
It's so nice to hear those soothing old school words.
m_thrizzle says:
11:40 AM, 08/18/08
There was a pair of GT-R's at Laguna Seca this weekend parked in the Corral. I think the car looks better in person than it does in pictures. The rear end looks menacing and the front is not as long in the tooth as some photos portray. The engine bay seems pretty small despite a normal length hood.
Dan Edmunds says:
12:16 PM, 08/18/08
Monday morning update: The code has not reappeared, so we are still attributing this to an improperly tightened cap. But because the fault appeared at 179 miles, that doesn't sit entirely well with me.
eidolways' comment strikes a nerve: The electrical system was under load because the turn signal was on and I had just commanded an electronically-executed downshift at the moment the trouble warning came on.
stingray454 says:
02:10 PM, 08/18/08
Why doesn't the car just display a message for you to check the gas cap, instead of alarming you with 3 messages of impending doom? "Engine system malfunction" doesn't sound good at all - why worry people needlessly?
apexing says:
11:28 AM, 08/22/08
Techy Tidbit: If the gas cap was the issue, it took that amount of miles for the fuel level in the tank to uncover the filler neck opening. Once the neck was uncovered, then the neck was EVAP tested in addition to the rest of the tank above the fuel level. Typically about 1/2 tank is when the neck starts to become uncovered. P0456 is EVAP very small leak. Could have been the cap wasn't screwed on "perfect." Had the cap been left off, P0455 is that code, EVAP gross leak.
Lesson endeth. For now.