Less than a mile from home on the way to work this morning the CEL came on again. Donna said turn around, so we went back and got in the Purple Whale to finish the commute.
Got home tonight and scanned for the code and it was the ol’ favorite P0012.
Checked a couple other things that I had found on the forum that should be tested to see if they might be the cause. First up was the VVT actuator. Measuring across the coil contacts should yield 6.9-7.9 ohms and it did. Then you pull the actuator loose from the valve cover and apply 12V across the contacts. No matter the polarity, it should fully actuate, and when removed, it should return back – it did. Next thing was the oil line filter and I had to read through several threads mentioning how easy it was to check before I found one that led to its actual location – it was clean as a whistle.
I guess the high detergent oil didn’t do the trick. I’m supposed to change back to regular stuff after a 1,000 miles, but we’ve not driven more than a few hundred so far. I think tomorrow I’ll just go a head and go back to the regular 5-30 Penzoil. Cleared the code and we’ll see how long it takes to show back up again.