How many times has your service engine soon light come on while you are driving down the road? As soon as the light comes on you began to panic! Especially if your right in the middle of traffic. Whets happening and what do you do about it.
Well first of all if your car is still running and no noticeable black smoke is coming out of your tail pipe you should be fine for now.
Your onboard computer is telling you, either it picked up a glitch or you have a failed sensor. Its hard to tell how many sensors you have located through out your car. Usually when it comes on, your computers control system goes into a default mode. (limp home mode) It gives you enough time to get home or to your local auto repair shop for testing. One other thing while your light is on and in default mode your gas mileage will drop until its fixed.
On the newer cars they are covered under your warranty. As I explained in my earlier blog, you can also research to see if you qualify for free repairs pertaining to your check engine light. What you can do is, check with your local auto repair supply store and see if they offer a free scan to find out which sensor is the culprit. That’s about as far as they can go. I believe from there they will try to sell you the sensor which may not be the problem. Most auto parts stores will not let you return the electrical item if its out of the package. So you may be stuck with a part. The best thing to do in that situation is to have the autoparts guy write the code down and then have him erase the code to turn off the light. So if it comes on again with the same code then you know the problemm is just not a glitch and needs to be fixed.
The proper procedure is to take your car to a reputable auto repair shop and let them diagnose the problem and fix it. They will charge you a fee to go in and diagnose the problem. Sometimes it would be a quick fix or I have seen times where it took days to track down your wiring system just to find a small break in the wire. Its up to the shop from what they want to charge you from then on. If it took them 9 hours to diagnose and fix @ $90.00 per hour it could be expensive! They may cut you a small break!
