Long story short the wife’s 2015 4 cylinder TLX is going into limp mode when under a heavy load like going up a long hill on the highway or hard acceleration / high cruising speed.
when it goes into limp mode the engine light flashes and the car has no engine power. I have to pull over, shut it off. When I turn it back on it’s totally fine and drives normal
no CEL and no stored codes in the computer

ive checked the obvious like oil and air filter but both are new. I did them 2 months ago.
many ideas where to start? I was thinking a failing fuel pump.
The car has 80,000 miles

thNk you

 

flashing check engine light indicates a misfire condition.
if it's misfiring, it makes sense that there is no power for acceleration.

 

any ideas on what’s causing the misfire?

 

could be bad fuel.
could be faulty spark plugs.
could be faulty coil packs.

I would start by troubleshooting the coil packs. With the engine running, I would disconnect the connector from the coilpack to the wire harness, one by one. the engine note should change. plug it back and move on to the next coil pack. if the engine note does not change, that's the faulty coil pack. troubleshoot even further by swapping the coil pack with a known good one...issue should follow the coil pack. lets say #3 is faulty. swap it with #1. if problem follows to #1, then that is def. the faulty coil pack.

if coil packs are good, I would move on to spark plugs.

 

10/4 thank you I’ll try that when I get home

 

any updates?