Dammit! Its the stupid Check Engine light

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soydios

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2006
2,708
0
0
Eh, change your oil when you hit 6k miles. Have Autozone pull the codes if you're curious.
 

CowZ

Member
Apr 24, 2006
188
0
0
my car did the same awhile back. The dealer said its something to do with the exhaust system sensor or another. They also said its not that big of an issue cause my car drives fine? Im guess they're prllly not messing w/ me cause dealers always wants to make a quick buck right?
 

Colt45

Lifer
Apr 18, 2001
19,720
1
0
you going to tell us how many miles are on it or give us some kind of ****** hint?
 

cavemanmoron

Lifer
Mar 13, 2001
13,670
34
91
what kind of car?WHAt year...........

Originally posted by: jmebonner
Meh, mines been on for about 50,000 miles. Still drives fine, gets good mileage, I ignore it...



In NY State, and many others,
a Check engine light will keep your newer cars {1997+}
from passing its yearly inspection.
 

akshatp

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
8,349
0
76
Originally posted by: cavemanmoron
what kind of car?WHAt year...........

Originally posted by: jmebonner
Meh, mines been on for about 50,000 miles. Still drives fine, gets good mileage, I ignore it...



In NY State, and many others,
a Check engine light will keep your newer cars {1997+}
from passing its yearly inspection.

Same holds true for NJ... If your car has an OBC port, they plug it in and make sure your sh|t is legit!
 

imported_goku

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2004
7,613
3
0
Originally posted by: akshatp
Originally posted by: cavemanmoron
what kind of car?WHAt year...........

Originally posted by: jmebonner
Meh, mines been on for about 50,000 miles. Still drives fine, gets good mileage, I ignore it...



In NY State, and many others,
a Check engine light will keep your newer cars {1997+}
from passing its yearly inspection.

Same holds true for NJ... If your car has an OBC port, they plug it in and make sure your sh|t is legit!

OBC? You sure you don't mean ODB? And anyways ODBII is on all cars 1996 and newer. ODB-I was an unofficial standard that came out in the late 80s and was on cars till '95, '96 was when they made the standard, a standard where it didn't require as special equipment to read the onboard computer.
 

akshatp

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
8,349
0
76
Originally posted by: goku
Originally posted by: akshatp
Originally posted by: cavemanmoron
what kind of car?WHAt year...........

Originally posted by: jmebonner
Meh, mines been on for about 50,000 miles. Still drives fine, gets good mileage, I ignore it...



In NY State, and many others,
a Check engine light will keep your newer cars {1997+}
from passing its yearly inspection.

Same holds true for NJ... If your car has an OBC port, they plug it in and make sure your sh|t is legit!

OBC? You sure you don't mean ODB? And anyways ODBII is on all cars 1996 and newer. ODB-I was an unofficial standard that came out in the late 80s and was on cars till '95, '96 was when they made the standard, a standard where it didn't require as special equipment to read the onboard computer.


yea thats what I meant lol... its 7am forgive me!
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
If you choose to ignore an annunciator and its presence is benign why not just remove the lamp from the socket?
 

jme5343

Platinum Member
Nov 21, 2003
2,333
0
71
Originally posted by: cavemanmoron

Originally posted by: jmebonner
Meh, mines been on for about 50,000 miles. Still drives fine, gets good mileage, I ignore it...



In NY State, and many others,
a Check engine light will keep your newer cars {1997+}
from passing its yearly inspection.

We don't have inspections...ever :)

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

If you choose to ignore an annunciator and its presence is benign why not just remove the lamp from the socket?

Too much work ;)
 

AMCRambler

Diamond Member
Jan 23, 2001
7,717
31
91
Check engine light does not come on from not changing your oil. If your car has a maintenance indicator, that might indicate oil has not been changed, but usually that's something the driver resets. The check engine light is there to indicate more serious problems with the car. If the light has come on and the car still seems to be running fine, more than likely it's an emissions related problem with a sensor or valve. Depending on how new the car is, you can go to Autozone or similar parts store and they have a code reader that will plug into the OBD port on the car and read the code. Older cars usually have a way to pull the code using the check engine light itself. For instance my girlfriends 94 Plymouth Aclaim, you turn the key to the on position and then off three times then back to on, and it blinks the two digit codes to you with the check engine light. Count the blinks and the longer pauses indicate the next digit. If you tell us what car and year you have, somebody might be able to find a website with the procedure for pulling your codes.
 

Ramma2

Platinum Member
Jul 29, 2002
2,710
1
0
Just had an SES (service engine soon) on my car, ended up being the MAP sensor. Autozone couldn't read it because my car uses an ODB 1.5, but thankfully Checker had the right equipment. 40$ later and I was back on the road. Good for another 50k miles! (205K and counting)
 

funboy6942

Lifer
Nov 13, 2001
15,368
418
126
Originally posted by: akshatp
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: moshquerade
Originally posted by: JSFLY
Originally posted by: moshquerade
when was the last time you checked or changed the oil?

Its been about 5 months.
how many miles?

Low oil doesn't usually throw a CEL. You would have an oil light for that.

QFT

CEL is usually triggered by something more serious like an O2 sensor or Air Flow Meter gone bad or something..

Most of the time its not all to serious though unless it goes on and the car is running like sh1t or it wont shift out of second. Most cars it takes the same code tripped 3 times before the cel will even go on. And in some cases its a bad trip and dissconecting the battery cable for a minute or two and clearing the computer will turn the light off. Then if it goes back on right away or in a few days there is a problem, then spend money and have it proffesionaly looked at if you cant do it. If light doesnt come back on in a few days it was a bad code and forget about it.

Hell my 88 firebird thows the cel light on ONLY though when im at highway speeds. Keeping it under 45 and the light never comes on. Turn the car off then on and the light is off again tillI hit speeds again. Typical older chevy o2 or due for a tune up. In either case Im not worried about it. Again its really a huge deal when the light comes on and the car is running bad or the trans is shifting different or not at all out of second (most newer cars if it is a trans code it wont shift out of second and puts the tranny into "limp" mode forcing you to drive slow and take it some where right away so not to damage it further. Which is kinda funny because when most came in with that light and problem the first theing they tell me is it would shift and they basicaly red line the engine all the way to the dealership where I worked and yeah thats good for the trans and engine :p Limp mode my ass, more like make sure you blow the engine or trans because the driver is pissed it wont shift mode.)
 

d3n

Golden Member
Mar 13, 2004
1,597
0
0
Something I found out a while ago. Those No Top-off stickers on fuel pumps are there just as much for the protection of the cars fuel system as for the epa vapor control rules.

For some cars there is a charcol canaster hooked to the fuel tank for vapor recover. May or not be tied to the CAT or the 02 sensor. When you top it off it actually saturates that system with fuel. This can spit out all kinds of error codes.
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,143
10
81
Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
I hate those fvcking things.

Mine does it on a fairly regular basis. So far it's been fuel system sensor, onboard computer, and one of my O2 sensors. I have no idea what it's bitching about currently.

Will have to check Autozone if they do it for free. I wish car manufacturer's would just make it a USB interface or something so you could do it at home, but lord knows they won't because it'd cut into the tidy profit they make on the damned things. I agree with SketchMaster's sentiment, they should just rename it the "Pay your mechanic money" light.

err go to wal-mart they have a cheap tool (like $50) that will give you the code.

I had a 93 accord that the dumb light would come on every month. i would take my car in to the mechanic everytime and he could find NOTHING (well mechanicly) wrong with the car. we finally just ignored it figureng there was something wrong with the light or such heh.

 

TXHokie

Platinum Member
Nov 16, 1999
2,558
176
106
I have a 98 accord that has that stupid check engine light on and wouldn't pass inspection. The mechanic said I needed to change my ozone sensors but I thought about it and took it to autozone which turned out to be a loose gas cap code. I unplugged the battery overnight to reset the computer and drove it for 50 miles and the lights never came back. Took it back to inspection and it passed - although they had to do an extra test on my gas cap to make sure it was still good and the inspection guy said that they could detect that I reset the light by cutting off power. I guess there must be some kind of miles counter since the last computer reset since he mentioned that they're suppose to wait for 100 miles to clear. Whatever as long as inpection passed. Anyway I drive it for about 6 months and the damn light is back. Autozone report the same code again so I just didn't bother to fix it yet. I heard this was a real problem with Hondas as they have a fuel pressure gauge that has a low tolerance and tend to trip this a lot. In any case I guess it's gonna cost some $$$ to fix this for the next inspection.
 

Kelemvor

Lifer
May 23, 2002
16,928
8
81
Heh, I'm actually going to AutoZone on my way home because my light has been on for a while but now my plates need renewing so I have to get tested...
 

Wuffsunie

Platinum Member
May 4, 2002
2,808
0
0
Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
I wish car manufacturer's would just make it a USB interface or something so you could do it at home, but lord knows they won't because it'd cut into the tidy profit they make on the damned things. I agree with SketchMaster's sentiment, they should just rename it the "Pay your mechanic money" light.
They do have software to do that.
Yes, but how much does the plug cost? I still have to have some way to connect it to the car.
Originally posted by: waggy
err go to wal-mart they have a cheap tool (like $50) that will give you the code.
Hmm.... worth looking into. Especially if it'd allow me to reset the sensors to see if it was just a bad code.