My Epic 22 has had the red check engine light (CEL) on pretty much since I bought it two years ago. I reset it with the battery, but after a few minutes in the water it would come back. The two previous owners siad it had been on most of the time they had the boat too. It didn't seem to effect anything and Phil Dill boats (the original selling dealer) was apparently too stupid to fix it.
My day job is a Toyota mechanic who specializes in 90-95 turbo MR2's. Every week we get calls from people who expect me to psychically diagnose their car when they can't managed to use a simple paperclip and get the OBD1 computer to flash it's codes after a check engine light. So I took some of my own advice and decided to find out what my boat was trying to tell me.
I rented the diagnostic tool from Captain Ron. It arrived quickly and included a very useful genuine Toyota repair manual. We took the boat out for the first time this year and waited for the CEL to light up. It did, and this time I was ready for it. The diagnostic tool took about 5 key strokes to tell me the problem was in the VVT sensor circuit. So I ordered a new sensor from my Toyota dealer.
I installed it Wednesday and took the boat out for a test run. I had the diagnostic tool with me, but didn't need it. We ran for three hours and the CEL light never came on.
My point is that I NEVER would have guessed a bad VVT sensor. That $150 rental + $30 shipping was money well spent.
Aaron
