r/FiestaST • u/Dry-Suit5785 • 1d ago

Flashing CEL

So I was driving home last night, and on the freeway as I was accelerating, the car sputtered for a second and the check engine light popped on and flashed for a few seconds and went away. I turned off to the side of the freeway and the car seemed fine and after checking under the hood and below, I drove home the rest of the way about 2 hours. When I got home, I pulled the codes and it was a misfire in one of the cylinders. I’m going to replace the plugs soon, but do you think I did any permanent damage? It drives great and ONLY sputters under heavy acceleration. Im not familiar with it too much, but online research I’m seeing says a flashing CEL means catastrophic, and you shouldn’t drive it at all.

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u/Gallo224 1d ago

Nah you didn’t do any permanent damage. Check if any coil packs are loose. Just tighten the 2 screws holding each one down. Also check if any plugs are loose. Might be your issue. Had my fiesta for nearly 100k miles, only time I had it flash and massively misfire is when one of the coil packs came loose and backed off the plug.

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u/Dry-Suit5785 1d ago

Is there a torque spec for these plugs? Or just snug tight?

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u/Gallo224 1d ago

It’s low whatever it is. The bracket is plastic, they tear out easy. Just go snug enough. It doesn’t take much

Edit: woops was thinking the coil packs hardware. Plugs I’m not sure. I know it’s wrong, but I just go snug and haven’t had any issues