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Buy an OBD reader from China. They’re cheap and allow you to read what is wrong with your car. Afterwards you can decide if you fix the issue yourself or let an expensive garage do it.
Nooooooooooo!
Goddamn I hate that light. My last car it was on constantly and the shop I went to was useless at fixing it (under warranty). Then it went off, and I was happy.
Until The car lost the ability to go above 20km/h - and I was on a highway going 100km/h (and 100km from anywhere) when things cut out.
The car lost the ability to go above 20km/h
When my car did that it turned out to be a very minor electrical fault that the car computer was just freaking out about, and wasn’t actually anything really serious. I think it turned out to be something really dumb like the tyre pressure sensor that had failed.
crying in 1st gen hybrid
I drive a Toyota,
I drive an EV. I have no engine.
I only have a bike. Completely immune.
I cast: Electrical tape over the fucking light 🖕🏻
Bro casted counterspell and won the duel (until next long rest)
I bypassed part of the vacuum system on my 25 y.o. audi and intentionally gave it a check engine light so it runs better. checkmate
My state won’t let you register a car that has a check engine light on. So, yeah, checkmate.
Fuck you … I got a misfire on cylinder 8 this morning … I’m hoping it was just shitty fuel cause I can NOT afford a head job right now.
I’ve been driving with a P302 code for almost 3 years now, miss fire on piston 2. Mechanic scoped it and the valve was off by less then a hairs width. Him and another mechanic agreed not worth fixing.
me: wow some money left over, finally.
the steed:
My dog cast that today.
She had bloody poop and couldn’t stand.
So I’m here.
Waiting on a phone call from the emergency vet.That sucks big time, emergency vet visits are always rough. Best of luck to you and your pup. Hope you can get in and get things figured out safe and quick.
Thank you. It looks like she’s going to be okay.
Ate one of those plastic cups that you put on chair legs to prevent it from scraping the floor. And a cat toy. But they could pull it out endoscopically.
She’s 15, and a big girl that’s already survived a softball sized tumor that caused her spleen to burst about 5 years ago. She’s a tough girl.
Glad to hear they could pull it out. We had a cat that had diabetes, and we had to use a pill shooter to administer one of her meds. Unfortunately, my wife did it one time and didn’t notice that, in addition to the pill, the rubber tip came off and my cat swallowed it. I see it the next day, and by then she (cat, not wife) was ill, and it had moved into and lodged itself in her intestines. It was an incredibly rapid decline, so make sure we all get extra hugs in, you never know with these pets.
Oh, that’s so rough. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Scary pumpkins
The oil pressure light is by far the scariest one.
100%. Check engine light can mean a bunch of pretty minor things. Oil pressure? Stop the car. Stop the car NOW. You’re gonna have to pay for a tow and repair, but if you don’t stop RIGHT NOW you’re going to need a new car. Or at least a new engine.
Literally opened this thread only to say this. Check engine light means the engine is doing something to increase emissions, up to and including misfires and such. Can be harmful but over a somewhat longer period of time than being out of oil.
My check engine light came on and freaked me out. Found out the code was P0171: Bank running lean. I currently have a mix of gas and E85 in the tank and the computer doesn’t like it. Nothing is actually wrong.
Mine was a loose gas cap. I’m not paying $300 to a dealer to turn that light off.
You can buy a cheap Bluetooth OBDII scanner online and use a free phone app like Torque to read and clear codes.
I think most chain auto part stores will also let you use their scanners for free.
I did get a cheap one but I work on my own cars so I now bought a much nicer one that has dealer level access.
MOST of my cars are too old to have OBDII. 35 years and older…NO CUP HOLDERS.
Something as serious as a misfire can also cause the check engine light to flash.
Why yes, I did once lose a whole-ass cylinder in a 4-cylinder, manual transmission car. While a couple hours from home! It broke a freaking exhaust valve while we were just cruising along, and the light started flashing immediately with a code for cylinder X misfire.
Funny enough, other than the loss of power it drove alright while in motion, including on the highway. It would immediately stall if left to idle at a stop light, though. I think I ended up using the hand brake to hold still while keeping my foot on the gas to keep the revs up. Fun.
Laugh as I drive 100,000 more miles with the check engine light on.
Yeah wouldn’t fly here. Instant failure on the annual safety and emissions check
But if it’s an intermittent code you can just clear it and hope it doesn’t come back lol
I have cleared my own check engine lights for long enough that I usually don’t worry when I see it come on, unless it is flashing.
With a cheap Bluetooth OBD reader and your phone in a mount, in addition to clearing codes you can do fun things like add gauges and graphs of values you are curious about.
This is me with Torque. I know I have a blown head gasket (yay wrx owner problems), but I don’t care about cylinder bank two rich conditions because it’s one hundred and ten plus fucking degrees here, which makes one of my injectors become an overachiever.
“Fuckin’ oxygen sensors…”
Decades of training have rendered me immune to this rune.
my 330000 mile tacoma has had that on since the first of the year. investigation with my scantool says its a failed transmission temp sensor #2. it is a known issue that the a340 transmission in the truck has a corrosion problem with two pins on the harness connector for the tranny to the ecu. so rather than open it up to replace a maybe bad sensor, i just clear the code and let it pop back on once the truck is up to operating temp. winters keep it cool enough most times not to throw the code at all
This is the way. You open it up and you’re introducing more chaos. Guess you’ll just need to be a little vigilant when the light comes on to make sure you’re not running into any other issues.
That being said, you can usually feel if there’s a problem. Or smell, but if you smell the problem it’s usually too late.
yeah when it first popped up i hooked in my scantool, reset/cleared and went on to work. came on again halfway home, so jacked in, reset/cleared, then drove around with live data active to see at what temp the tranny was running when the code popped. 158° f to code on, so continued to watch it live as i was driving for the next couple days and it never exceeded 178°. optimal temp for the a340 is specced to 175°, so im assuming the cooler is working ok and just got a bad sensor/harness. aisin states that the usefull life cycle of the tranny is 400000, and mine sits at 330 right now, so am not gonna dink around with it until rebuild time