P0119: Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor 1 Circuit Intermittent/Erratic
What to do
Driveable, but the symptoms will be erratic. Mention that the fault comes and goes.
What this code means
The coolant temperature signal is unstable. Because so much depends on this reading, an intermittent fault produces symptoms that come and go without obvious pattern — fans cycling oddly, fuelling that changes for no reason. The connector sits in a hot, damp part of the engine bay, and corrosion inside it is the usual explanation.
Likely causes
Start here
- Intermittent wiring fault · moderate
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Less common
- Faulty engine coolant temperature sensor · easy
- Low coolant level · easy
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about P0119.