P0442 CEL, hard start

Bombard

Member
I have an '04 6. It is a 2.3L automatic with 65,000 miles on it. Recently the CEL has come on, I took it to Autozone and had it read. It came back P0442, they told me to make sure that the gas cap was tight and cleared it for me. It came back on a couple of days later, so I again had them clear it and replaced the gas cap (Mazda OEM). The light has since come on again, I would assume for the same code (I have not yet had it read).

Around the same time as the CEL started coming on the car occasionally became hard to start. It only happens after refueling, I have to crank the starter a lot longer than usual to get it to turn over.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I did a search but didn't come up with anything similar. Is it probable that the two problems are related?

Thank you in advance for any help.
Jason
 
Have you done a disconnect reset yet? Disconnect the battery for about 20 minutes and re-hook it up.
 
I have tried disconnecting the battery. I left that out of my first post. The light has come on 4 times now, twice reset by Autozone and once reset by me. The starting problem hasn't gone away and the CEL still came back on a day or two later.
 
I just took the car to Autozone to have the code read. Two codes popped up, P0455 and P2187. I noticed there is a TSB for a stuck purge solenoid that references all 3 of these codes (TSB 01-045/04 I believe). Could this be the cause of the problem?
 
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