Hey, I'm a newb on this forum, but have been on other forums before so I did a search, but I didn't get any clear answers. Hopefully someone ehre knows WTF is going on.

I just bought an 02 WRX (MTX) and it has about 18K miles on it. While driving that thing on the highway, CEL pops up and the car stutters, pretty much undriveable. I'm thinking this might be the infamous "limp mode". Put it over to the dealer and they told me Oxygen sensor was bad and the EGT was reading too high. They did a fix on it (replaced the O2) but said I need to replace the entire exhaust manifold, which they would do since it's still inder warranty. Driving it tonight, the CEL pops up, same story, except while I'm driving the CEL started to blink. From what I gather, that means a misfire, which from what I see, is bad. Being this as it may, here are my questions.

- Would replacing the entire exhaust manifold seem like a plausible sollution, or are they so freggin desperate that they are just clueless as to what is going on?
- Is it common for the car to go into some sort of protective mode from a high EGT reading?
- Is it possible for the car to misfire under some sort of limp mode?
- Is it common for the car to stall under limp mode?
- Is it possible that the EGT sensor is accurate and for some reason the car is running way hot, causing all this mess. Stock water temp guage reads normal (little under half, I know this guage isn't the most accurate).

Any insight even remotely relevant is welcomed. I'm new to this car and I always found the forums to be helpful. Thanks in advance!

 

I do know there were a few people that had to have the O2 sensors replaced 2 and even 3X. There seemed to be a rash of bad ones. I thought they were past that though after they went to a new vendor. Maybe they had some old ones laying around. Just a thought.

 

doesnt a blinking CEL mean a knock not a misfire, i am pretty sure that a misfire just triggers a CEL and keeps it up, and yes i have had to replace my 02 sensor once allready

 

UPDATE.... now the CEL just went away. I started the car and it was on, after running for about 30 seconds it just went away.. does this mean anything? Thanks again!

 

it means you are good to go, the CEL clears itself after a while if it was not a big deal