Don’t panic and feel the need to pull off the side of the road and call a tow truck, unless you are feeling some changes in the way your car drives it’s probably something that can be resolved easily. The check engine light has been merged with the OBD and OBD 2 since the early 1980s The light can come on if you have a loose gas cap or if you are getting an engine misfire, it was designed instead of the warning lights and is used in conjunction with all the smart sensors on your car.

How should you react, well considering that the light on means that you have a loss of engine efficiency. This means that you could possibly be using more gas or emitting more carbon that the vehicle is suppose to. The computer monitors the throttle, temp timing, fuel mixture to name a few things as well as more crucial sensors.

OBD2 system

When it finds a problem with the programming it comes on to let you know that it needs to be looked at, kinda like a baby that makes alot of noise when they have a wet diaper. Lucky the check engine light is only works on the actual drivetrain of the vehicle. In 1996 they changed to the OBD2 system and that’s when vehicles got a lot more sophisticated and harder for the average mechanic to work on.

With the new OBD2 regulations the system will normally wait and see if the problem corrects itself and just leave a code. But once that code has been tripped it’s probably going to happen again, so get the vehicle scanned and get the code to find out what the problem is. Remember that your vehicle will not be running at 100% until the problem is resolved.

If your check engine light comes on

Like “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” Don’t Panic! If your car has not lost power and all your gauges like temp, oil, transmission are in the normal you have a little time. Read your owner’s manual and see if it has any information on the check engine light. Just give us a call or bring it in and let us pull the codes and tell you what the actual problem is.

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