Elkad

1991 (manf 9/90) 3.8L v6 Taurus Wagon, 141,000

Just bought the car. Won't start without hitting the accelerator, idle wanders a bit, and after reaching operating temp (5-10 minutes) the check engine light comes on. Tries to die at stoplights occasionally, otherwise runs fairly well.

Searched thru about 20 pages, found lots of references to codes, but none on how to get them in the first place. From what I've seen here, it could be a number of things (IAC, MAF, etc), but I'm not about to start randomly throwing $50-$100 parts at a $300 car.

So how do I pull blink codes and get a more directed approach?

 

RickMN

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Elkad

Worked.. OK, got a bunch, hopefully I'm reading them right...

KOEO
111111
1124176124176

Assuming the string of 1s is nothing, I get
124=TP voltage low. Throttle position sensor?
176=Left/Front O2 sensor fail?
And a repeat?

KOER (note, engine was NOT warmed up, so I probably need to re-run this)
3
5ish (very fast blink)
412116639536521543
412116639536521543

assuming its 3digit groups I get
412-Idle Low- duh...
116-Coolant out of range (cause I didn't warm up the car?)
639-Transmission Speed Sensor out of range.. Uh, it was in park.. if this was stored, wouldn't it have shown before I started the engine?
536-Brake On/Off shorted?
521-Not listed
543-Fuel Pump No Power.. Well its getting fuel....

Tried to get it to do goose, got 538538, which looks like it didn't like my attempt.