That one Friday in September when my check engine light went off on its own

I was driving home from work and the light had been on for three months. I was saving up for the repair, figured it would be like $400 at least. Then it just turned off while I was stopped at a red light on Main Street. I still took it to my guy Carl and he said it was probably just a loose gas cap that finally sealed right. Saved me a bundle and felt like winning the lottery.

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly_craig3d ago

Wait but isn't it sketchy when a car just fixes itself like that? I mean my buddy had the exact same thing happen and his transmission blew up two weeks later because he ignored it. A loose gas cap is the best case scenario for sure but what if the sensor just broke or got clogged and now you're driving around with a real problem that's just getting worse? Carl might be a good mechanic but he's not looking at the wiring or the computer system that threw the code in the first place. I'd be paranoid it was a phantom issue that's gonna come back at the worst time, like on the highway or something lol.

sean_torres713d ago

oh man the phantom issue thing is real lol. i had a VW that threw a check engine light three times in a month, cleared it each time thinking it was nothing. turned out the O2 sensor was going bad but not completely dead yet, so it would trip the code then go back to normal when the car warmed up. finally got a proper scan from a guy who actually read the live data and saw the voltage was all over the place. cost me $150 for a new sensor instead of waiting for it to kill my catalytic converter which would have been way worse. so yeah if the lights gone but you're still paranoid, get that code scanned for like $20 at autozone and see what it actually was. peace of mind is cheap.