Flashing CEL

[Crazygirl]

Just bought a 2013 Terrain SLT-2 with just over 142,000 miles. The CarFax report looked good; a minor accident involving the front end when it was less than a year old with no airbag deployment. Report shows regular maintenance done, and right off the bat the dealer told me the alignment was off a little. I trust this dealership since my stepdad was a mechanic and bought at least 3 trucks from them.

That being said, after I had driven it less than 50 miles, I was on the highway when the CEL flashed for about 30 seconds, then stopped. There didn't seem to be any problems while driving, and the light stopped going off before I even had a chance to pull over. I've driven it a couple of times since then, but it hasn't come back on.

I haven't hooked it up to the code reader yet to see if there are any stored codes, but was wondering if anyone might have any thoughts on such a brief experience?

[maxwedge]

Got to look for pending or history codes, no other way to approach this. So they tell you the alignment is off, now what?

[Crazygirl]

I hooked up the reader, but there are no codes, not even anything stored. I guess I'll have to hope it was an isolated incident, but keep the code reader in the car, just in case.

[Stealthee]

Usually a flashing CEL indicates a multi-cylinder misfire.

[maxwedge]

Stealthee is correct. Basic code readers do not have the capability to read pending or history codes.

[Blue Bowtie]

It could also be a short term fuel trim out of tolerance from a lazy sensor or fuel pressure fluctuations.

The above responses are correct. Instead of throwing parts at it to guess what the problem may be, scan it for pending/history codes and the data streams associated with them. That should narrow down the possibilities.