BrianES300

i just bought a 1998 es300 with 149,000 miles. i noticed that the check engine light does not come on. How do i replace the bulb?? is it easy cause i know i wont pass inspection with no check engine light

Parker Gen

It depends what you find easy. You have to take the cluster out of the dash, and than pull out the burnt out light and replace it with another one. There should be a thread here on how to pull out the cluster and replace backlights etc. I'll try and find it.

You can check out the DIY section at the top of the ES forums.

92ES5sp

Um it probably wont pass anyway cuz someone prolly hacked apart the cluster to remove the bulb cuz the pcm has a dozen codes present, and the light was on and they didnt want to fix it.

Take it back to whoever you got it from and make them fix the car or demand your money back. Have fun with that

BrianES300

yea i have it apart now. there is no bulb there. im picking one up from lexus tomorrow and like u said. ill rais hell if they dont fix my car. they told me it was mechanically perfect. i just noticed very small oil leak from behind the valve cover but im not worried about that.

Parker Gen

That oil leek i a comman problem... especially what you can smell coming through the vents of your air conditioning.

92ES5sp

Keep us posted on this and let us know how it turns out. Good luck

92ES5sp

Well looks like that didnt happen.

Choas

Yea idk sometimes I don't post back for a few days. A few of us may still have lives outside of the forum

92ES5sp

^^^Thats fine I just really wanted to know the outcome. We help people all the time with stuff and half the time we're left in the dark.

BrianES300

hey sorry i forgot all obout this issue. i havent been on this forum since i posted this. It worked out. they said they bought the car at auction with no check engine light in it. so anyway they took it back and fixed whatever it needed. 2 new o2 sensors and the problem is fixed. i just got it tinted 15% all around and got 18 inch chrome rims. now its looking hot

Lexucan

Hmm....well, not sure I would be too inclined to believe the story that they didn't know anything about the missing CEL

But the bottomline is they fixed the issue at no cost to you.

Was it a case of: "Oops...we got caught!...better make him happy!" ???

Probably never know, but I'm glad it worked out for you.

Toronto

Is there a way to make all the bulbs flash on in order to detect any burnt-out ones (ignoring for a moment the practical question of detecting things you don't know ought to be present or not)? My Subaru does this on start-up.

Haven't found a happy medium dash illumination level that works both as an LED-conserving brightness in the daytime and bright enough at night too. Always sad to find a feature which is imperfectly engineered.

Lexucan... many thanks for your exemplary posts on dashboard lights.

92ES5sp

All of the warning lights should come on when the key is turned to the ON position. The CE light should stay on until you start the engine.