howiedoit

iTrader: (9)

What exactly does the check engine light indicate? Anyone know?

My check engine light turns on sometimes when I come home from work. But then it turns off after a while...What's up?

Camshaft

Mine does as well. Comes on after about 1500 miles after an oil change. I check everything that I can check, and its gone. Nothing is low, and nothing that I can see without a diagnosis machine is wrong. Glitch? O2 sensors going out? I think they need to be changed, I average around 250-290 miles a tank, but that is tight city driving, LOTS of stop and go, as well as short city blocks.

VQT

The problem is stored in the computer. To check it use a paper clip stick in the E1 and TE1 (I think) of the ALDL. Its the round thing above your left knee. Open the cap and you'll see the port for E1 and TE1.
Check the engine section. I already post how to check the code for the engine check light many times there.

Red93sc400

Check Engine Light can come on due to low oil level in the sump, also for many various sensor feedbacks. The Repair Manuals have an exhaustive flowchart for problem determination. I do not have the manuals here with me as I am on the road setting up for the Superbowl.

black sc

It is a engine diagnostic and it will stay lighted if the problem occurs more than once otherwise, it will light up intermittently if it trips the engine diagnostic only once. Anyhow, do what VQT suggested and it will give a trouble code. You guys really ought to buy the factory repair manuals, you know.

VQT

Read the post paging Ikon from me, VQT
It will stay on top for a while.

Camshaft

Yeah, I bought books. $600 worth, a week ago. It is a college town's legal way to launder money. Buy the book for $120, sell it back for 40. They sell it used for $100. Buy it back for 35, and so on. I swear, the mob has their hands in this racket. If you find a class book, by all means, sell that honey.

Lex Luthor

Man o' man, am I feelin' you on that one, cam. In college we used to call the few days everyone went to buy books 'extorsion week,' but the campus was right next to Oak Street, a well-known NY spot, quarter mile marked off right across the street with spray paint, cops kept removing it, guys kept painting it back on. A good night on Oak street, and i'd have an entire semester's books paid for, so you could technically say that Hofstra University was part of a criminal enterprise, the more they raised book prices, the more I was forced to race. Jack McCoy could argue that one.

P.S. - You'll roll when you hear this, they used to do unscheduled dorm inspections, I would come back from classes or work and find that they had stumbled upon my spare nitrous bottle, confiscated it, and charged me a juicy fine for 'improper chemicals.'
Happened a couple times, I went down to Campus Public Safety and tried to explain to them that there was no danger, since I had emptied the bottle the night before, but they didn't see the humor in that.

Lex Luthor

Oh, sorry for going off on a tangent, back to the diagnostic link and trouble codes.........