scofield

I'm in a terrible bind, 700+ miles from home (visiting family) and now possibly stranded for several days. Here are the details for my car:

'02 E320 wagon 123k miles everything perfect (until today).

I'm driving in 15F (cold) weather with a very low gas tank (gauge says 1 gallon). All of a sudden the car starts missing, like it is running out of gas, engine light turns on. I limp into the station, fill up with 17.6 gallons and hope that the missing goes away. It doesn't. I ran to an O-Reilly's to read the codes and get:

P0300 - Random misfire
P0301,2, etc for misfires on cylinders 1,2,3,5

P0444 - Evaporative Emission System Purge Control Valve Circuit Open
P0128 - Coolant temperature below thermostat temperature?

I understand that the 128 code could be related to bad thermostat, the car might have been running a little cooler (it was pretty much at 80C though).

Anybody have any idea why all of these would show up simultaneously? Again the car immediately ran terrible. It was missing and so rough you would think the ignition was out of time. After the fill-up it seamed to be running a little better, but not sure.

Help Please!

scofield

Started it up this morning and everything seems fine. The engine light is still on, not surprised by that. I'll get it reset as soon as possible to see if the codes come back up. I'm still concerned that something isn't quite right, but we are going to head out and cross our fingers. Only thing I can guess is that emptying out the tank caused some sediment or moisture to come loose that caused temporary problems.

scofield

The next morning, the car seemed to be running fine. Engine light still on, no surprise there. Started on 700 mile drive. After the first stop for gas (ignition cycle off and on), engine light goes out. 1000 miles later, everything still fine, no sign of any issues.

SO: The issue must have been the low fuel. I've run the car low(er) before. What I think I failed to mention was that I was going up/down steep hills which could have prematurely caused bubbles or loss of pressure in the fuel system. What really threw me off was that the car was running crummy for 20-30 minutes after the fill-up. Maybe the low fuel caused some contamination to the fuel system/lines. Anyway, everything back to normal!

kjb55

Glad everything worked out. I was going to be too quick to condemn the MAF. My C55 is stored winters, but with the cold Chicago weather I keep my winter car above 1/2 always.