Check Engine Light after plugs and oil change - How do I read a code without YDS?

[2kwik4u]

Changed the oil and the plugs in my '17 AR190 Saturday. Everything went as it should. No surprises or issues. Pulled 3.5qts of oil. Refilled to between the two holes on the dipstick.

3yr old was in teh boat "helping dad" and was messing with the key at one point. So I had the lanyard off, and in my pocket to make sure he couldn't accidently crank the boat while I was working on it. In hindsight I realize it still cranks, but won't fire with the lanyard off. I'll take the keys next time.

Went to restart, and FORGOT I had the lanyard off, so it took a few tries before I put the lanyard back on and it of course fired right up, but had a SHRILL constant tone from the gauges. I have a check engine light now. The alarm was almost instant after firing back up. Water flow was good, oil level looks good. I shut it off immediately, and rechecked everything. It was running smooth and started quickly and easily. I refired it, alarm still there. Seems to be running just fine. Again, nice and smooth, quick and easy startup. Oil level looks good, water flow looks good. Voltage on the gauge was reading 14.2V or so (which seems about right for this boat). There's not much else on this to check really.

NOW, if I just bump the motor to get the gauges to come on, I continue to have a check engine warning and constant tone. Even with the engine NOT running. Like the code is stored and is now on all the time regardless of engine running.

I ran the engine for ~15min ahead of time on last years oil and plugs to get it warm before servicing. No issues there, everything was fine. Battery has been on a tender all year, and checked good at like 12.5V or something just touching the posts with a meter.

How the heck can I clear this code to see if it comes back, and how do I read it without YDS? Hate to buy a $400 tool, just to read a single code. Don't really want to drag it to the dealership to have the code cleared either (although that is certainly less expensive than the YDS setup). Any thoughts from resident gurus?

 

[2kwik4u]

Putting this link here so I don't lose it.

Yamaha YDS pro2 - BRP Diagnostics <--YDS kit for '12+ models

 

[WREKS]

Perhaps disconnecting, waiting a few minutes, and reconnecting the battery would clear it. Just guessing.

 

[Gunner]

Same happened to me yesterday. I changed the oil, filter and plugs when I put it to bed in November. Yesterday I was prepping the boat for upcoming season and went to fire it up with lanyard off. Connected lanyard and it fired right up, but after about 5 seconds got the check engine alarm like you did. I then disconnected both the positive and negative battery cables, waiting about a minute, reconnected cables fired engine and check engine and alarm are gone. Good luck

 

[2kwik4u]

Same happened to me yesterday. I changed the oil, filter and plugs when I put it to bed in November. Yesterday I was prepping the boat for upcoming season and went to fire it up with lanyard off. Connected lanyard and it fired right up, but after about 5 seconds got the check engine alarm like you did. I then disconnected both the positive and negative battery cables, waiting about a minute, reconnected cables fired engine and check engine and alarm are gone. Good luck

Thanks for the tip. Also @WREKS

I thought the days of dropping the battery cable were long gone. Used to do that on OBD1 cars back in the late 90's, but when they went to OBD2 it stores the code internally. Figured boats were the same way now.

I'll give it a shot tonight, although I can't fire the boat as it's currently sitting on jackstands pushed up against the drywall in the garage. Have to get some tires back on it this week and move it around so it doesn't pee all over the garage!

 

[Gunner]

Good luck pretty sure you'll be all set.

 

[2kwik4u]

@WREKS @Gunner left the battery unhooked for a week. Check engine light and alarm is still there. Any other new thoughts?

Don't really want to drag it to a dealership. Don't really want to drop $400 on YDS.

Think I could just get a couple key cycles on the hose to see if that clears it?

How can I even tell what the heck is wrong with it this side of YDS?

I never removed the ground side. Maybe that's the issue (surely not ??!?!?!)

 

[WREKS]

Anything looking corroded? Does it fire up? In case you want to test without hooking up hose, you can run it for a short time. I periodically run mine without water for 1 minute plus to dry out the water jackets.

 

[2kwik4u]

Anything looking corroded? Does it fire up? In case you want to test without hooking up hose, you can run it for a short time. I periodically run mine without water for 1 minute plus to dry out the water jackets.

Yeap, everything looks great. No corrosion anywhere. Terminals looks fine.

Fires up and runs just fine, no issues there either. Settles down and idles no problem. Quick revs are also fine.

Little nervous to continue to run it until I know what the problem is.

@swatski any thoughts?

 

[WREKS]

Battery is fully charged? Nothing from generator disconnected? In my experience, Check Engine usually relates to battery/charging system.

 

[RobbieO]

Was the key on when you disconnected the coils? You said son was playing with the key, ECU may have seen multiple coil circuits open.
??

 

[I_squared_r]

I draw all my knowledge from being a car tech back in early 2010's so here's my thoughts: The ECU will remember the codes because there are capacitors inside. On cars we would disconnect the battery and touch the positive and negative cables together to discharge those capacitors. You can try it, but I don't know if there's anything weird about the yamahas.. It's worth doing a google search before doing it. The other option is to check that everything is connected and no wires are damaged on the harness and then hope that it eventually shuts off .. or will it beep all the time? Car check engine lights would clear after a certain amount of cycles without fault.

 

[Gunner]

@WREKS @Gunner left the battery unhooked for a week. Check engine light and alarm is still there. Any other new thoughts?

Don't really want to drag it to a dealership. Don't really want to drop $400 on YDS.

Think I could just get a couple key cycles on the hose to see if that clears it?

How can I even tell what the heck is wrong with it this side of YDS?

I never removed the ground side. Maybe that's the issue (surely not ??!?!?!)

I first only disconnected the positive side and the check engine would not clear. I then disconnected both cables and the code cleared and alarm went off.

 

[2kwik4u]

Battery is fully charged? Nothing from generator disconnected? In my experience, Check Engine usually relates to battery/charging system.

Checked all the plugs/wires I can see.

Have it sitting on the tender now. Flashing green which means it's 90% or greater full.

I touched the ground and positive cables together (off the battery) no dice. Still the constant alarm after start-up.

Read some other threads about someone doing a gauge reset. No idea what that is and I can't find a procedure on it. No idea if that will help or not either.

 

[RightStuff]

There is a way to get the check engine code without YDS. Check in the system menu or the tach display, one of those menus will display a "trouble code" number. If you can get to that you can then look up the trouble code to see what it represents.

Here's a user manual for reference (might not be the exact same year/model)

YAMAHA LIT-1862-609-78

boats.yamaha-owners-manuals.com

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Does / do your gauges say anything on them?

Here is my story. Was out on the lake, reeling in big fish with engines on and drifted into reeely shallow water. Went to leave and got starboard engine high heat alarm with shut down instruction for starboard engine. By the time I get away from shore I got a take it to your dealer alarm. When I did shut it down and pulled the clean out plug debris was gone. Refired starboard engine and checked pilot circuit, all good. Headed back towards launch at slow speed. All the while every few mins the alarm would come back. Stopped, turned off batteries, waited 10 mins, re started alarm still there. I did this a few times before heading to the launch with the hopes it would clear..it did not. Got back to the dock resigned to the fact I was going to have to make the journey to a dealer. Went and got the truck and trailer, backed in and then jumped in boat to put it on the trailer. When I started the boat the alarms were gone, and have never come back.

After reading some posts here I learned that alarms like that will clear after several cycles of start up and shut down with all parameters in the green.

Don‘t know if that will help you or not....

 

[2kwik4u]

There is a way to get the check engine code without YDS. Check in the system menu or the tach display, one of those menus will display a "trouble code" number. If you can get to that you can then look up the trouble code to see what it represents.

Here's a user manual for reference (might not be the exact same year/model)

YAMAHA LIT-1862-609-78

boats.yamaha-owners-manuals.com

HOLE-LEE-MOLE-LEE

Had this boat for 4 years and had no idea you could access a separate menu.

Still got no info because it's raining and I don't want to start the boat in an enclosed garage on mother's day. Also can't run it on the hose because it's literally touching the wall on the witness line side.

More investigation tomorrow.

THANK YOU!

 

[mrcleanr6]

So on my boat anyway if you get an overheat and you fix the issue and all is running good again, when you disconnect the battery the code clears from the system menu. After that though when you fire up the boat and get an alarm that if i remember correct says over temp, please take to you nearest dealer. You can press ok, the alarm shuts off and you can run the boat normally. It does this on startup only. What its doing is saying that the engine overheated at ine point and a dealer needs to inspect to make sure everything is ok. I guess its a way to freak people out and steer more work toward the dealership. In anycase, it goes away on its own. I dont believe it was the # of startups but rather a certain amount of run time. After that i guess it realizes your not going to the damn dealer so it gives up lol. Mine was maybe 10 startups on the hose with a run time totaling maybe 55-60 min. Not sure if its run time, # of starts or a combo of both.

 

[2kwik4u]

Well, wanted to follow up on this thread......

Got the boat out of the garage and ran it on the hose yesterday. The alarm was silent and the warning is gone however it still says "AL" in the bottom of the screen.



If I hold down M for 3 seconds, navigate to and select "6-Engine Diag" I get this screen.



I also went through the "Read Data" screen and it gave me various pieces of information, but nothing revolutionary or overly interesting to be honest. Neat to know that screen exists though.

I let it run for about 10min or so. Varied between idle and various No Wake Mode settings, and a few small revs to make sure throttle was working. Started it 3 times as well to make sure the alert was gone. Everything appears to be in fine working order at this point. Not going to mess with it any further.

I'm going to assume it had something to do with low oil pressure after an oil.change and cranking with the lanyard disconnected. Who knows really.

Bring on the summertime!

 

[Julian]

Well, wanted to follow up on this thread......

Got the boat out of the garage and ran it on the hose yesterday. The alarm was silent and the warning is gone however it still says "AL" in the bottom of the screen.

View attachment 150234

If I hold down M for 3 seconds, navigate to and select "6-Engine Diag" I get this screen.

View attachment 150235

I also went through the "Read Data" screen and it gave me various pieces of information, but nothing revolutionary or overly interesting to be honest. Neat to know that screen exists though.

I let it run for about 10min or so. Varied between idle and various No Wake Mode settings, and a few small revs to make sure throttle was working. Started it 3 times as well to make sure the alert was gone. Everything appears to be in fine working order at this point. Not going to mess with it any further.

I'm going to assume it had something to do with low oil pressure after an oil.change and cranking with the lanyard disconnected. Who knows really.

Bring on the summertime!

I read that starting and stopping the boat 5 times clears the alarm (no validation of this from Yamaha).

Guess I should ask them if that's true.