Bulletin PIP5201 Cold Start Misfires MIL P0300 P030x

5291 Views 16 Replies 5 Participants Last post by DMC5180, Mar 30, 2017

jvidamins

Discussion Starter · Mar 10, 2017 (Edited by Moderator)

So for the past few days, I've had the check engine light start flashing when the battery finally dies and it kicks into engine mode. It's also stayed on twice after it's flashed. Checked the code with my OBDII scanner and the first 2 times it was P0303. Last night on a a test drive, I could only get it to flash, not stay on, and the code that showed up was P0300pd. I tried to swap coils, but realized it was a weird "all in one" coil pack that I've never seen before and I couldn't just swap colls to see if # 3 coll was bad. My engine only has about 30k miles on it, the rest of the 67k is all battery miles. So I can't imagine the plugs would need changed already, since they're supposed to be good for 100k.

One interesting thing to note... I have had this wheel vibration that's gotten worse over the past month or so, and it's gotten pretty bad just recently, almost maybe coninciding with the CEL. I read in the manaul that a flashing CEL could be caused if I used different tires than OEM, which is weird. I'm wondering if the vibration is somehow triggering the code/CEL??? Anyone ever experience anything like this? Any suggestions? In the mean time, I guess I'll fix the wheel vibrations and see if that fixes it. If not, I'm thinking replace the "coil pack bar" or whatever it's called and see if that does the trick. Any thoughts or ideas are welcomed.

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DMC5180

· #7 · Mar 10, 2017 (Edited)

Flashing and Solid Check Engine Light - P0303 and P0300pd

PO300 is a general code. PO303 is a misfire on Cylinder 3. Pull the spark plug and look for carbon tracking along the insulator. If it appears clean I'd bet you have a dirty fuel injector. It happened to me on my Prius. I did the easy stuff first. Plugs and coil position swaps. But those yielded nothing. I tried a few tanks of fuel injector cleaner which yield sporadic results. Ultimately I changed the injector on that cylinder and it FIXED the problem. No more CEL

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DMC5180

· #10 · Mar 16, 2017

If the ECM detects a misfire rate sufficient to cause emission levels to exceed mandated standards,P0300 will set.

DTC's P0301-P0304 correspond to cylinders 1-4. In this case cylinder 3 is misfiring enough to set the DTC P0303

When the MIL is flashing, the fuel injector may be disabled on the misfiring cylinder to protect the catalytic converter.

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DMC5180

· #12 · Mar 21, 2017

Ask for the service bulletin number. Head replacement is very extreme for a cylinder misfire.

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DMC5180

· #14 · Mar 25, 2017

I'd like to know what makes this a 2012 Volt specific issue? Did the they change the head design for 2013 model years. I found the service letter but could not access the full document without paying a $5 one time fee for that info. The title was " Cold start misfires MIL P0300". (Jan-25-2017)

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DMC5180

· #17 · Mar 30, 2017 (Edited)

This is a good tutorial on what I think was going on with OP problem and ties into what WOT was explaining.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/intake_valve_deposits_gdi_engines.htm

The very first sentence in the last paragraph of the article is what I think happened here. Prompted by the fact it was still under "Warranty"

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