Weird series of events: refuel, rope sucked up, check engine light

[Laminar Flow]

My 2015 242 Limited S (5 star CA Emissions) has been in the water here in DC for about 10 days now and so far, so good until today. About 150 hours on the engines -- I'm the 2nd owner and put about 100 hours on the boat last season and 15 so far this season.

I let folks borrow it a good bit -- and expecting things to go wrong kind of comes with that territory, but that's OK. I was not aboard when this happened.

So this is the sequence of events as I understand them. The two engines started up fine, no issues, they idled over to the gas dock and refueled from 30 to 100%. Most of the old gas from last season/storage should now mostly be cycled through. They called me when leaving the fuel dock and got a STARBOARD check engine light -- so I hopped in the car and ran down to the marina. Given the STARBOARD indication, I checked the right-side cleanout port (nothing in there) and then read the code in the Connext engine diagnostics screen as a "203 (52 1110)" which from this thread I believe to be an issue with the post catalytic converter O2 sensor.

So given that information I told them it was fine and just mute the alarm and let them go back out -- they call a little while later and say the boat won't go over 7-9 mph even at high RPMs. I then just told them to come back to the dock and ended the day. I test drove it myself and confirmed with just me aboard it wouldn't get going -- obviously something was wrong, felt like when a clean-out port plug had blown, though both were seated -- so I went back to the dock.

And then...I checked the PORT side cleanout plug -- they had sucked up an entire dockline -- and I'm 99.99% sure this occurred as they were leaving the fuel dock -- right as the STARBOARD check engine light was thrown.

I cut the rope out, wasn't too bad, took 15 mins, I got all of it out. But now I've cycled both battery switches a dozen times and cannot get the check engine light to go away. I haven't yet gone out onto the water to make sure I can get up to speed as it was getting dark after I cut the rope out.

So my question is -- any idea why the rope being sucked into the PORT impeller would throw a check engine light on the STARBOARD engine or is this a huge coincidence?

I can try swapping the O2 sensors tomorrow as I believe that's not too hard to do, right? I would say I'm medium on the technical/mechanical inclination. I am going to go for a longer test drive before trying that, though.

Thanks for any tips or tricks you guys can think of -- I will update as soon as I get out on the water tomorrow.

 

[WREKS]

Are your batteries fully charged?

 

[Troch1]

Also, as I understand it, the cycling of on/off needs to include actually starting the engines, not just the battery switches. At least for me that is what cleared my codes.

 

[Laminar Flow]

well, to close the loop here to make sure if this thread shows up in the future that it can be sort of helpful for people.

the new oxygen sensor fixed the "203 (52 1110)" check engine light code -- and I got the last one in the whole damn country it seems like, found a dealer in California who sent it to me, cost about $215 for it.

My boat has the CA Emissions, so there are two of these sensors (part is identical it seems upon comparison) -- one that's visible on top of the engine and then one that's at the far back left in a pretty tough to get to spot. I changed that one as the error indicated it was the sensor AFTER the catalytic converter that was throwing the alarm.

What sucked is that the check engine light did not go away immediately, or even after 5-6 battery cycles, but did go away today after a longer period of rest overnight (or just enough cycles off/on, who knows) to clear it.

Seems to be in good shape now.

 

[Daren and Heather]

Hoping to help others who might stumble upon this out on the water after sucking in weeds or a rope, and are getting a persistent check engine/shut off engine alarm even after cleaning the impellers/ports.

So I read this thread yesterday while on the water, after I got a check engine light for the starboard engine. The part where I docked was very weedy, and I could feel the engines weren't thrusting the way they should. All the sudden the console started beeping at me with a message to "Stop Starboard Engine, Contact Yamaha Dealer" or something to that effect. Well I did the first time, went back and cleaned out all the weeds and crap through the cleanout ports. Started both engines back up, everything seemed to run fine, but the alarm started sounding off to "stop starboard engine" and the check engine light was still on. No overheating (although I can't find a temp gauge for the engines anywhere on my boat), I did check to make sure water was pumping out to the coolant valves for both engines and it was. I turned off the battery, waited 5 minutes, turned it back on, and still the check engine light was on, and the alarm was sounding. But everything ran fine, so I decided to go about our boating day - with the alarm blaring again every 10 minutes or so, and me muting it, and then it blaring again 10 minutes later. Shut off the battery a couple more times, but didn't help. Finally we anchored up and I turned off the boat (not the battery) and we chilled for about 3 hours listening to the radio. When I started it up again, the check engine light was off, and no more alarm. So I'm thinking that you must have to wait a certain amount of time for that code to clear, and simply starting/restarting, cycling battery, won't do anything to speed up the process.

 

[Troy JK]

I’ve had the BCU code a few times. Once it took leaving the batteries off for an entire “rehydration” break to clear it.
sucks because wifey like her music during breaks.
BCU code happens when the reverse buckets are restricted from moving in either direction.