"check engine" light

[TabascoElvis]

my car tells me when to change the oil, and the other day it suggested running over a squirrel. its getting bossier.

lol.

Mine tells me when to change the oil as well, but I haven't seen the hit the squirrel light come on yet.

My wifes does the oil thing too, which is actually pretty handy. The other day she took the squirrel mashing into her own hands without any prompting from her vehicle, although she substituted a rabbit. I got home to find her in tears.

[jim]

my car tells me when to change the oil, and the other day it suggested running over a squirrel. its getting bossier.

lol.

Mine tells me when to change the oil as well, but I haven't seen the hit the squirrel light come on yet.

My wifes does the oil thing too, which is actually pretty handy. The other day she took the squirrel mashing into her own hands without any prompting from her vehicle, although she substituted a rabbit. I got home to find her in tears.

Good. Rabbits look cute but can be quite the pest if you are overrun with them, which we are. The only good of it is that I got to see a Red Tailed Hawk go into attack mode once no more than 50 feet from me. Very cool.

[omaha_red]

9 times out of 10, it's nothing. It's an O2 sensor or something that's bad. It can even be as simple as your fuel cap not being tightened all the way, or moisture getting into a sensor someplace.

You can take it to an AutoZone and they'll run a quick diagnostic for you to see what the issue is.

Or wait a day or two and see if it goes off. If it doesn't, and your car appears to be running fine, I'm guessing it's probably the O2 sensor.

ding ding ding.. you win popeye.. after lunch i went out and tightened my fuel cap and
nothing happened.. then i took the car into jiffy lube and they did that little test and
he told me to fully remove the fuel cap and put it back on.. and that was it..
"check engine" light gone..

thanks

[cardinalkarp]

9 times out of 10, it's nothing. It's an O2 sensor or something that's bad. It can even be as simple as your fuel cap not being tightened all the way, or moisture getting into a sensor someplace.

You can take it to an AutoZone and they'll run a quick diagnostic for you to see what the issue is.

Or wait a day or two and see if it goes off. If it doesn't, and your car appears to be running fine, I'm guessing it's probably the O2 sensor.

ding ding ding.. you win popeye.. after lunch i went out and tightened my fuel cap and
nothing happened.. then i took the car into jiffy lube and they did that little test and
he told me to fully remove the fuel cap and put it back on.. and that was it..
"check engine" light gone..

thanks

That's the first thing to check is the gas cap.

[omaha_red]

9 times out of 10, it's nothing. It's an O2 sensor or something that's bad. It can even be as simple as your fuel cap not being tightened all the way, or moisture getting into a sensor someplace.

You can take it to an AutoZone and they'll run a quick diagnostic for you to see what the issue is.

Or wait a day or two and see if it goes off. If it doesn't, and your car appears to be running fine, I'm guessing it's probably the O2 sensor.

ding ding ding.. you win popeye.. after lunch i went out and tightened my fuel cap and
nothing happened.. then i took the car into jiffy lube and they did that little test and
he told me to fully remove the fuel cap and put it back on.. and that was it..
"check engine" light gone..

thanks

That's the first thing to check is the gas cap.

yeah.. it's weird.. like i said.. i did it at lunch but i just tightened..
i guess i should have taken it all the way off..

[tscards]

Outside of an engine cap or anything else simple, these are also programmed to light up when it is 'scheduled' service time, according to the recommended servicing (ie - 15,000 checkup....). Everytime this has happened to me, this has been the case & there's supposedly something in the car manual that tells you how to turn this light off.

[Spider John]

I once had a car that had a light come on saying " Check ERG Valve". I asked a mechanic about it, and he reached up under the dash and pulll out a simple slide switch, pushed the button from one side to the other, and the light went off. He said it was programmed to come on when the mileage came up at a certain number.