The Service Engine Light: Your Mechanics Dirty Little Secret
Troubleshoot the Check Engine Light for Free
If you’re like me you shiver at the thought of paying hundreds of dollars for major vehicle repairs. Well, the dreaded ’service engine’ or ‘check engine’ light came on in our Pontiac Grand Am this past week. Even more, you dread paying $100 just to have your mechanic take a peek at your vehicle to tell you that nothing is wrong with it – but that’s what you get for being a responsible auto-owner. Or is it?
There is an alternative to those annoying ‘take a peek at it’ vehicle labor expenses. And it costs nothing. The service engine light comes on in your vehicle because the computer has diagnosed that something ain’t quite right. When the light comes on, a code is stored as the reason for triggering the light. When you take your car in to get it checked out, the mechanic hooks up a little diagnostic computer to your vehicle’s computer. They will then get a code and description that tells them what the issue is.
Check Engine Light: The Mechanics Dirty Little Secret
What your mechanic probably won’t tell you is that you really didn’t need to shell out $100 just for them to hook up their little machine to check on the service engine light. You can get that for free at most auto-parts stores. I’ve had this done at Napa and Advance Auto Parts. It costs nothing. The auto part stores carry these to cater to DIY’ers in hopes that they, in turn, buy the auto parts at their store to make the fix on their own. It takes them 1 minute to do this.
I was relieved to find out that the cause for the light to go on in my car was a possible vapor leak coming from my gas cap, caused by a weak spring in the cap. The gas cap costs $10. The store can also reset the computer so that if the problem persists, the light will come on again. If it doesn’t, problem fixed.
There probably are some honest mechanics out there who won’t charge you for this. But good luck finding one.
Check Engine Light Discussion:
- What clever techniques have you used to avoid vehicle service fees?
- How much were you charged to have your car ‘looked at’?
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Great piece of advice, thanks for sharing!
How uncanny to read this article considering i just came back from the Toyota dealership that gave me an estimate of $94 to run diagnostics on my car to figure out why the check engine light was on. To my luck i had gone to Sears Auto first that gave me the error code by running the quick diagnostic as your article lists, free of charge, which i then took to Toyota and didn’t pay a dime because it turned out to be a warranty issue!:) How often does that happen?!
But the good thing about getting the error code was that i googled it before going to the dealer and had a pretty good idea of what the problem was and how much it would cost so that i could level head with the dealership instead of them taking advantage of me not knowing anything about cars and charging me a ridiculous amount.
Coming from a family of mechanics, while this could be a good place to start, I wouldn’t rely on those stores to have the most up to date diagnostic equipment. The only places that have those are car dealerships as they are quite expensive and they have to pay all update patches. Just keep in mind there are many reasons why things pay more. I think SJ had a good strategy.
Great idea! I did not know this. I’ll have to pass this information along, and I’ll probably go check it out next time I go to fix something myself at AutoZone or Advanced.
Luckily, I’ve actually found one of those “one in a million” honest mechanics. Last year, the air conditioning went out in my 1994 Mustang. I took it in fully expecting a $400-$500 repair bill…
The final cost?
$8.
A vacuum tube in the switch broke. The mechanic charged $8 for the part and $0 for the labor.
Now that’s a smart mechanic! (Of course, he’s local and not part of a major chain)
Because he does things like this on a regular basis, I always take my car to him first. When something is expensive, I trust he’s telling me the truth…
Great tip! I hate all the fancy computer diagnostics that cost a fortune to get checked.
My car recently has its service engine light go on and I could tell something was wrong with the car, but didn’t want to take it in and spend hundreds. I waited a few days and the light went off and things were smooth. Still prob should get it looked at, like your advice, will def help.
Sometimes you can diagnose it on your own, with no special equipment needed. Back in the day, my ‘94 Toyota Paseo’s CHECK ENGINE light came on. I did a little research and found out that there was an alternate way to get the diagnostic code (not sure how widespread this is)…
I simply had to short together two pins of the OBD connector with a paper clip, and turn my car on. When these two pins are shorted, the CHECK ENGINE light flashes with a certain pattern that will tell you the code.
I used to have a 92 Ford Escort, and the check engine light came on any time we drove the car over about 50 miles per hour. We learned to ignore it. I now have an 02 Ford Escort and the check engine light has been on for about 3 years. I’ve had the car serviced multiple times in the past few years, and they’ve never mentioned any problems with my car that would cause the service engine light to be on. My car runs beautifully. I wouldn’t worry about a service engine light unless there’s some indication (other than just the light) that something is wrong with the car, especially if you get your car serviced regularly anyway.
Also, I’ve discovered that a lot of times places that do 15 minutes oil changes will check out other stuff for free if there’s something you’re concerned about.
Thanks for sharing! I know nothing about cars, but it’s interesting that the car computer records these errors. Cars should come equipped with their own diagnostic tools to let people know what’s wrong with them. This has to be a car industry secret type thing.
@Phinance
There are actually some consumer products you can buy to read the ODB codes/information. For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Check-Engine-Scanner-Trouble-Reader/dp/B000LEPT5G
The $100.00 dollar code-read is a monster rip-off. I seem to ALWAYS have an engine light on in my truck so I finally bought a little OBD-II reader (costs half of a single “diagnostic” at the Ford Stealership) and its easier to use than a cell phone. Takes about 10 seconds from the driver seat.
I just have HAD IT with paying hundreds of dollars to get a good running vehicle thru state inspection. I’m going to learn a bit of mechanic-ing. But don’t kid yourself, there are hundreds of possible codes and its not always as simple as a gas cap.
Empower yourself and learn something about your car – it will pay off hugely in the long run.
Great advice. Also, for the $100 they would like to charge you to check, you could buy your own cheaper model of scanner. Thanks for sharing about the free diagnostic check at your local auto parts shop.
To be honest as much as I dislike the charge (about £100 not $100) to hook the diagnostics up and tell me weather it’s a minor thing or indeed not. MY SLK cost enough to put up with this to be frank.
Jay
Most likely your light isn’t on because of a “glitch.” The vehicle monitoring system is extremely reliable and stable.
I love this tip! What a good first place to start. Of course your auto manual tells you that the warning light is the first indication that something may be wrong and having it fixed now could save you money down the road – but that diagnostic fee has always made me hesitant. Will try it out the next time and hoping there is not a next time!
When a check engine light triggers in a car it is telling you that their is a fault in the operation of your vehicle. The ability one may have to scan a vehicle for codes does not mean that one has the ability to repair the vehicle. The code that you retrieve does not give you a slam dunk and tell you how to fix the car, the code allows you to digest faults associated with a particular code. It still requires a certain level of automotive skill to be able to repair the vehicle once you have determined what is actually wrong.In other words just because you have a little information about your car does not mean that you know what to do with it. Yes there are some codes that will trigger that are minor however this is not true for all check engine light problems. Todays cars are extremely complex, a wrong diagnosis can send you into a frenzy of parts purchasing that may or may not fix your problem while a correct diagnosis by a competent skilled technician will save you money in the long run. As a mechanic with 25 years in the service business I am here to tell you, it is not always as simple as buying some cheepo $50.00 tool from one of the local parts houses and even if you are able to retrieve the code the chances of anyone being able to provide you with the proper diagnosis from the parts house that you bought that cheepo code reader from is pretty rare. Good luck if thats how you want to go about repairing your car. Guessing is no substitute for experience, so do yourself a favor take your car to a trained technician and pay for the appropriate amount of time necessary to get a proper diagnosis and your car fixed right. You pay your doctor for his time and education why not your mechanic as well.
I have been doing this for years. It is sad because they don’t offer this any more. Now you go in and the tell you they cant any more. Used to be you just give them your id and they let you borrow the tool. Some told you what the problem is some just gave you a code. You write down the code and look it up online. Now they want you to buy the portable machine. which isn’t bad for 50 to 100 dollars if you are a DIYer
The first and best thing to do is disconnect the negative battery cable and leave it off for 30 seconds or so, while it is off tighten your gas cap, then reinstall the cable. This allows the on-board computer to reset and will make the check engine light go off. Then run your car normally, if the light comes back there is really a fault, otherwise it was probably a loose gas cap or phantom fault.
I agree with Rick above, to just start replacing sensors based on the codes can quickly get very expensive. It is better to go to a mechanic who will actually find and repair the problem at the outset.
I’m surprised that no one here mentioned that you have to have a car that is fairly recent (don’t ask me when) to be able to hook up one of those diagnostic readers.
I have an ‘88 and ‘90 vehicles, and they probably won’t work for this stuff.
1996-Present = ODBII System (You need a diagnostic computer to read codes)
Prior to 1996, you only needed to jump two connectors to send the car into diagnostic mode while turning the key to read the code on instrument panel.
The location of the connector varies from car to car. In the early Toyotas the connector was around the engine compartment. On the early Hondas, the connector was located under the passenger side dash.
If your shop is doing its job it will scan all modules for faults and softwear updates.This will give you the whole picture of your vehicles module network.We offer this for $80.00.We use oem scaners for most all car lines.
What can you do when the shop diagnose a check engine fault that is incorrect while charging you over $500.00 for work done and sensors replaced? Light returned following day.
Coming from personal experience, there are many ways a person can go wrong with these free check engine light tests. I took my car to a friend’s husband who supposedly has been fixing cars since he was small. He supposedly went to school too, though I found out later it was for Harley repairs and he quit when the instructor demanded he take out his piercings if he wanted to continue his education there. He decided to drop out.
Nevertheless, I took my truck to him, trusting he knew what he was doing, and watched him use one of these little hand hold code scanners that you plug into the car. He said I “probably” needed a new O2 Sensor. Well, he installed that cheaply enough and two days later the check engine light came back on.
Do you think I am going to go back to him so he can change out yet another part that might not be problem? I told him I could get one of these free check engine tests to save him the trouble, but he said all they do is try to tell you need this, that, and the other thing – that you may not need. Well guess what? I feel he did the same to me.
Rather than go back there, I called my regular mechanic and he said that is what happens you throw part after part at the problem and can waste money that way. Those smaller, less sophisticated diagnostics only spit out trouble codes and one trouble code could mean multiple problems.
Places like Pep Boys count on that. So I am going to get a proper diagnosis to know EXACTLY what the problem is and that it can be fixed. Check engine lights can mean serious things – too serious to leave to chance. I am not going back to this hack for anything other than minor, easy to fix problems.
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