Saturday I decided to take my Camaro for a cruise. As I was backing out of the garage the Service Engine Soon light came on. I drove the car to my parents house, (maybe a 1/2 mile away). The car ran fine on the way there. I parked it and it sit for about 2 hours. When I went to leave the SES light came on again as I was backing out of their drive way. Again it ran fine. When I got about halfway home I stopped at a stop sign. Just as I went to accelerate it died. I tried restarting it and it would turn over, but wouldn't fire up. I had it towed home and let it sit in the garage overnight. I went out Sunday morning and tried to start it again. It took 2 or 3 tries and it did fire up, but it idled pretty bad and had a really bad gas smell. I shut it down and did the paperclip trick to see what code it was giving. It gave me a code 15 - Low temperature indicated at engine coolant temp sensor. Would this cause the problem that I'm having?

Thanks....

 

Yes, that sensor is telling your computer that the engine is cold when in reality it could be 220*. IIRC, sometimes they can tell the computer that the engine is like -100* and crazy things like that, so the computer tries to load it up on fuel (like it does on a cold start, but way richer), to the point of drowning it out - explaining your rough idle and horrible gas smell. Most likely, the computer thinks it is 0* or below outside and thats the cause of your troubles.

 

Thanks for the replay. I was expecting it to show me a code for the O2 sensor or something fuel related. I was kinda dumfounded when I saw it was a temp sensor. Thanks again!