It Puts Millions of Dollars in the pockets of dishonest people!
It is sometimes frustrating and at least annoying to find that our "CHECK ENGINE" light shows up in our car. This light bulb has been the source of literally billions of dollars going to the pockets of mechanics and car dealers. They will sometimes change sensors and other items, or at least will tell you that they did.
The good news is:
You can fix yourself more than 98% of these "Check Engine" occurrences.
The Simple procedure to fix the Check Engine Light
Just park your car in a safe place. Disconnect one terminal (any) of the battery for about three to five minutes. Reconnect securely. Most of the time the problem will go away for months or even years!.
What Causes this Problem?
It is caused by just a transitory situation that creates some unbalance in the fuel mix or any other momentary situation. This problem is quite frequent in cold weather. When I lived in Green Bay, it would happen almost every month in the winter. Computers in the cars are designed to keep all the parameters aligned to keep the economy and performance of the engine. They probably should have a reset system that would discharge the messages each time you park the car for an hour or more, but this would represent a big loss for many dishonest dealers and shops, even if scarce, there may be some near you ;)
If the problem persists, (usually less than 2% of cases), then try to find an honest but well equipped shop to take care of it. Good luck with that. In my lifetime after owning hundreds of cars (I owned a Car Rental business), and driving form almost 60 years, I can remember only a very few (3 or 4) of those.
Don't let the "Check Engine" light fool you. Most of the time it does people a total disservice. It is, as I said before, a beloved item for Dealers and shops that will charge you for the diagnosis and "Repair" up to more than a Hundred Dollars! It is outrageous, but that procedure shown above is the only thing that they will usually do.
TPMonLine will welcome any additional comments and publish those that may help our readers.
