No power, slow idle, fuel smell, misfiring
 

I was driving home today and accelerated a little briskly across traffic from a stop. The car fell on its face and had no power. I pushed the clutch in, and it would barely idle, dropping down to about 400 RPM and surging. The CEL would flash every 5 seconds or so, and there was a terrible smell coming from the exhaust. It smelled like partially burned fuel to me. There was nowhere I could safely stop, so I limped the car the 2 miles to my house. While driving, it surged and popped and could barely go 55 MPH.

When I shut it down and restarted it, it idled fine. I was afraid to drive it anymore, so it's just parked for now. There is no CEL on.

Has anybody ever had anything like this happen? It obviously has to be something electrical since the symptoms went away with a restart. With Christmas, it's gonna be a few days before I can get it to the dealer. I can't even read codes because my friend has my scan tool. I'd assume it has some codes stored. I could have sworn my engine was blown the way it ran. It scared the crap out of me. LOL

The car it totally stock with the excepting of FRPP GT500 axle backs. It's never been tuned or had any other mods.

Any ideas?

I had something similar happen on my Ford Focus. This sounds like the "limp home" mode which is what happened to me. Basically my car detected a fault and switched to this mode to protect itself. A restart "fixed" it. When I brought it into the dealer they found a filthy air filter and a dirty throttle body to be the problem.

In my case, the Wrench light came on.

I'd just take it in to the dealership as soon as possible, and have them diagnose it. You might send Deysha a PM as well.

Since you don't have a scan tool...Do the 2010+ not have any kind of engineering/testing/easter-egg/etc. mode on the radio that will display codes like the 05-09's?

Hello 2012WhiteGT,

I agree with stupidgenius36. I’d also like to escalate this to the customer service manager of your area and help get it resolved. Please make an appointment with your dealer for diagnosis, and PM me with your VIN, dealer, mileage, full name, and best daytime number.

Deysha

As soon as it does it again, I'm taking it in. I got my code reader back and checked codes--no pending or stored codes, so there's not really much the dealer can do now. I've driven it about 150 miles, and the poor running has not happened again. It's really weird.

I need to bring it in for an oil change soon, so I'll at least mention it to the service manager even if the problem doesn't return by then.

No problem. Please, keep me updated.

Deysha