Dreaded CEL/SCL Combo

[IceCreamMan]

I'm starting this thread as a reference for me and for anyone else (alot of people who have already posted up about theirs) that might have this issue in the future.

Today I brought my car in for its first service at just under 7500 miles. I'm following the guidelines from Toyota/Scion to the letter so that there will be no questions of warranty work being covered.

I have had the "crickets" issue as well as the drop in idle, however the car has never stalled before. I alerted the service personnel that took my car in of the Toyota Service Bulletin reguarding the "crickets" issue as well as the reflash that was supposedly sent out to correct the drop in idle. At this point I had never had the CEL light come on, ever.

My appointment was at 7:30 AM this morning, so I dropped it off, not thinking that it would take more than an hour or so to do what they needed to do so early in the morning. After about 40 minutes or so the service guy comes up to me and lets me know that they don't have the right filter there and it would take about 30 minutes to get it (even though I purposely mad the appointment so they would have the right one, he said there was one showing in their system but it wasn't at the dealership). They offered me a ride somewhere in the courtesy van, however I decline as it was my day off and I didn't have anywhere to be, so I sat and played golf on my phone . About 45 minutes after that he comes back to me and wants to talk to me outside...... ugh.

So he informs me that they just want to run some diagnostics to confirm that it is the fuel pump (HPFP) from the TSB that needs to be replaced (I really think he just needed more time to get the filter but that's besides the point) and says my car won't be ready until 1pm. So at this point I accept the courtesy ride back to my house and do some chores and then I get a call at around 12:30 pm that my car is ready and the van is leaving to come get me. Sweet! He informs me that the HPFP is the cause of the chirping so they will be replacing that under warranty, however its back ordered so he will call me when it comes in. NBD.

So the van picks me up and I get back to the dealership at about 1:15 PM and I find the service guy to get my keys. On the way into the service department, there was some guys checking out my car, so I told them I would open it up once I got my keys so they could check it out (not the first time I've done it!). The service guy tells me he's never heard one and wants to hear the exhaust note, so I fire it up, just blip the throttle a little, maybe hit 3k RPMs on the tach, sounds good. I pop the hood and we are all checking out the engine bay while the car is running. Once the idle dropped, it began a very loud clicking noise that I had never heard before, I went around and checked inside and the CEL and SCL (stability control light) were on. So we shut the car off and the service guy runs in to inform the techs of the problem.

At this point I am told I'm going to get a rental car, so I sit around and wait for the service guy to make it back to me, so I start reading up on it more seriously. I've read about the topics before but nothing too in depth since I hadn't had the problem myself. Then I read some of the horror stories and I pretty much knew at that point my car would be here for a while. After about an hour of waiting, I finally get taken over to get a rental car..... a f***ing Nissan Versa, however I'm told that it should only be there until the following day. I am immediately skeptical.

So I get the rental and I drive away, there is a 5 Guys burger joint about halfway to my house, so I stop there to drown my sorrows in cow meat and fried potatoes. As I'm leaving to go home, I get a call from the service guy saying my car is done. Sweet! I go back to the dealership and he tells me it was something with the ECU flash that got set wrong and that they have corrected it, even took it for a 5 mile test drive and its running just fine. I fired it up and waited to see if the idle would stumble. It was idling fine around 600 RPMs which seemed a little low, but the car wasn't struggling with it, then I noticed the A/C was off. So I turned the A/C back on and the idle was all over the place between 500-900 RPMs, I looked back at the service guy and told him to look and when I looked back down at the cluster, the CEL and SCL were back on. Ugh.

We take it back to the Service bays and we walk back to my rental. He tells me that now he's going to have to make a technical case with Toyota and that it would be at least Tuesday before he knew anything. So now I'm stuck in a POS rental for at least the next few days (I have a feeling it will be much longer) waiting around for this to get solved. I'll be updating this thread as I hear anything back from them, lets hope it doesn't take too long.

Update 10/16/2012: I talked to the service "manager in training" today to get an update over the phone. He told me that basically the update was that they had submitted the technical case to Toyota and were waiting for a response. I went down to the dealership to speak with him in person and just get some specific information as to what exactly they have done and the only thing that has been accomplished is pulling the P0019 code out of the ECU. Fun. He says he has no idea when Toyota will get back with him. I am stuck driving the POS Versa for a while longer.

Update 10/18/2012: Talked to the service guy today. I guess my technical case finally got reviewed and approved by Toyota. He says a new ECU is on the way, but it won't be here until next week. Hopefully this fixes the issue as I know it has for a lot of people, but if some of the articles I'm reading online have any truth to them, its really just a band aid unless they did some different programming in the ECU. He also says they have a third FR-S there at the dealership with the same exact issue, but I don't know if he's just blowing smoke up my ass or not ugh.

Update 10/24/2012: Got a call today. The fuel pump has come in and has been replaced. ECU is supposedly scheduled to arrive Friday sometime and they say I will have my car back by Saturday. We shall see!

update 10/26/2012: Picked the car up today, idles much smoother so far, only put about 20 miles on it so far. Only thing I was really unhappy with was the fact that the car has 40 more miles on it than when I dropped it off, does that seem excessive?

[wheelhaus]

That's quite an emotional roller coaster ride. I'm beginning to wonder how many people having the CEL have had idle anomalies long before the light kicked on. My BRZ is 1k miles old today and the idle is rock steady at 600. Occasionally it bobbles slightly only with the AC compressor kicking on/off, but its never dipped below 550 or jumped higher than 650 when this happens. AC off and it's dead steady.

[fistpoint]

What is your VIN number?

[xwd]

Best to post in the other thread but the good thing is you are coming at the tail end of things and not the beginning, so they have a bit more figured out at this point in how to diagnose and fix the issue.

[Rob_g]

The ECU flash/replacement will not fix idle dip.

Rob

[DaJo]

Damn... I've got the idle dip on mine, in fact... It went down to about 500 RPM at one point and the LED DRL blinked off and back on instantly...
I'm bracing myself for the worst to come... Living like this thinking your car can fail you ANY TIME of the day or night isn't healthy at all...

But what can we do?... right?

[eurospeed]

Sorry to hear you are having problems and I wish I had good news, but your car could be in the shop for weeks based on Toyota's pseudo-random repair methodology. In the meantime, welcome to the CEL club and I've added you (you're #140) to the master list here: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15577

[jesperswe]

So you never had any CEL/SL before. Just some idle dip.

You went in for a regular service with oil change? When you are going to pick it up, then suddenly when you start it it's disco time with CEL and SL. There's been other reports of the CEL coming on after oil change.

Also if they didn't update your ECU with a new software, would the CEL/SL issue never appeard?
My car also has idle drops when its cold, when it's warm the idle is rock solid.
I had CEL/SL light after a couple of miles only and got a new VVT gear which sofar have fixed my issue.

[IceCreamMan]

Originally Posted by jesperswe

So you never had any CEL/SL before. Just some idle dip.

You went in for a regular service with oil change? When you are going to pick it up, then suddenly when you start it it's disco time with CEL and SL. There's been other reports of the CEL coming on after oil change.

Also if they didn't update your ECU with a new software, would the CEL/SL issue never appeard?
My car also has idle drops when its cold, when it's warm the idle is rock solid.
I had CEL/SL light after a couple of miles only and got a new VVT gear which sofar have fixed my issue.

They said that they never actually flashed the ECU because they said it was up to date, that was one reason I was so skeptical, just that they triggered some old setting in the ECU (which was probably complete BS) and that's why the CEL came on. I'm guessing the just cleared the code and when it stayed gone on the 5 minute drive they decided to tell me it was fixed.

[Calidrifter]

I guess if there is a silver lining it's that it all went down at the dealer so there was no need to drive home and back twice for the same issue.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

[samseed]

took mine in today..waiting on parts for the crickets..but now got cel/scl lights on..no idle dips however..i just hope they don't take forever fixing my car.

[IceCreamMan]

Updated from yesterday.

I talked to the service "manager in training" today to get an update over the phone. He told me that basically the update was that they had submitted the technical case to Toyota and were waiting for a response. I went down to the dealership to speak with him in person and just get some specific information as to what exactly they have done and the only thing that has been accomplished is pulling the P0019 code out of the ECU. Fun. He says he has no idea when Toyota will get back with him. I am stuck driving the POS Versa for a while longer.

[ScionFR-S]

so what is the fix? my car also has severe shaking at stops , dips at idle to about 400 -300 RPMs, CEL and SL light on, now they told me they have to keep my car and will let me know how long it will take for the ECU to be shipped because its on backorder in Japan. this is a disgrace , so disappointed. will the ECU replacement fix the problem ? what will if its not ?

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by ScionFR-S

so what is the fix? my car also has severe shaking at stops , dips at idle to about 400 -300 RPMs, CEL and SL light on, now they told me they have to keep my car and will let me know how long it will take for the ECU to be shipped because its on backorder in Japan. this is a disgrace , so disappointed. will the ECU replacement fix the problem ? what will if its not ?

You have a lot of reading to do (not really though, it's simple answers). The answers are all here, this sub-forum.