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My smog is due in a few week so I went to my local O’Reilly store for some cleaning product and the employees over there suggested Sea Foam for me. I followed instruction and put about 1/3 of bottle in oil and 1/3 in gas tank two weeks ago. Last Sunday, I decided to put it into the vacuum line as instructed while the odometer is reading 131500. After blowing white smoke for a few minutes and driving around for a bit, the car started to have some misfire symptoms. When I went to my mechanic, he said I should drive around with a misfire for a bit to burn off all the sea foam that’s in there. I’ve drove for total of 25 miles in last three days and I’m wondering if he is right? Also, my dad didn’t change his plugs at 120k maintenance, would that be a cause too? and how would I resolve this? thanks a lot
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Is the misfire still present ? is the check engine light on? check for any stored trouble codes and post them. 120k on plugs I would definently change them.
Yes the misfire is still there, the check engine light is still on and flashing. I had a intermittent P0420 before anyway so I thought the Sea Foam might help. The plugs were changed around 70k back in 07. Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner and can not pull any code at this time.
Is there an Autozone around your area? They should be able to pull codes for free.
Also, as far as I know, changing plugs after ‘seafoaming’ is recommended. It makes sense if they were in contact with the seafoam.
A P0420 is an automatic emissions fail… says that the cat is not performing to standard… Sometimes this is true, sometimes it isn’t…. Toyota had to do a bunch of re-flashes of ECM’s on different cars of this era to keep this ODB II code from failing everybody at an OBD II based emissions test station. The fact is, the cat can still be at 80-90 percent efficiency and still throw a P0420. This is a big problem in Gen 8 Corollas to this day….
Seafoam will not help a P0420… A lot of people also buy new Downstream O2 sensors in vain…. I recommend you suck it up and have it checked by a Toyota/Lexus Mechanic…. You can check Cat with a IR temp gun, but I’ll make the assumption you don’t have one of those….Even so, it only lets you know a rough efficiency of the cat….. If you have alternate emissions testing, then you may be able to pass even with a CEL for a P0420…
Anyway, ensure everything is plugged back in that should be plugged in…. A misfire code should be p0300 or P030X…… Definitely have your code read…
Also… You do need new plugs… the front 3 are easy… the back three are easiest if you remove the intake plenum… I can do that in about 25 mins, but I do that all the time…
Good luck… if you need more assistance let me know…
Cheers
Karl
Yes there is and I went there. Apparently they were sued for pulling codes? I don’t really understand the concept but they told me that they can’t do that anymore.
Karl, thank you very much for your information, but since my Dad have never properly maintained this car, I’ll just hand it over to the professionals for some help.
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