OT: You Can Be Too Nice

Is the car a Miata by any chance? My wife's has the intermittent check engine syndrome. Probably nothing more than time to change plugs and check the HV leads.

Don

G6ednUv1MYQY9o3ZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@web-ster.com,

My 15-year-old Jeep gets a Check Engine light whenever it is cold or wet enough to use the defroster and I come to a stop, such as at a traffic light. My theory is that the intermittent load of the air conditioner is enough to drop the idle speed down below the check limit.

My wife's 10-year-old Mercedes, on the other hand, always has a check engine light.

My 1996 F350 gas pickup turns on the CE light every time I'm on the interstate for more than 45 minutes. Been doing that for years

Tim, do you have a code reader? It is highly beneficial to own one.

My wife's car (Honda CR/V) developed a CE light at some point. A check with a code reader reveraled that the gas tank sensor was malfulctioning. I searched google and found out that it was due to, drumroll, poorly tightened gas tank cap (no kidding). Resetting the code and re-tightening the cap solved the problem.

Without it, it would be a wasted evening, a service charge, and depending on the degree of dishonesty of car mechanics, multiple "repairs" too.

Well, ya! It's a Ford. It was never expected to run for over 45 minutes at a time! :)

My '03 Civic has a placard in the gas cap well that says something to the effect of "not tightening the cap three clicks may cause the check engine light to appear."

Regards, Marv

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at 11 mpg that's pretty close to the truth!

During the cross-Arizona gas pipe line failure a few years ago, fearing thievery, I went looking for a locking gas cap for my Frontier PU.

The Nissan parts department didn't have a locking cap that wouldn't screw up the CE light, but they pointed me to a website that made after-market locking caps that were the proper vent.

...Jim Thompson

I see people make jokes about Fords like that all the time, but I've owned a perfectly even number of Ford and GM products, and the GM products were nothing but trouble.

The Fords weren't perfect either. The O2 sensor died on my Ranger PU at 10000 miles and the thermostat died on my Explorer at somewhere around 35000 miles, but that's nothing compared to the trouble I had with the GM vehicles.

But I guess the small number of vehicles I have owned doesn't constitute a significant sample size.

I've owned two '86 Fieros in the last few years, and both have had a constant "check engine" light. I've heard that it's almost legendary amongst repair folks - nothing they do can fix it. )-;

Thanks, Rich

For some reason, I've always had really good luck with Fords - basically, if you remember to keep oil in them, they'll run practically indefinitely. But I did have a surprisingly good experience with a '76 Plymouth Gran Fury - it just kept running and running - I think it was a one-owner car, who had died - it looked like it had been out in the weather for about a year, and it had that green plastic thing across the top of the windshield, and a bunch of "VFW"-type stickers on it. I got rear-ended once by some little Mazda or Toyota or something and it did about $1200.00 worth of damage to her car, but my Gran Fury had a little paint mark on the bumper. :-)

Cheers! Rich [and yes, "Gran Fury" is not a typo - that was actually the car's model name.]

Similar results here. I've driven 2 GM products to well over 200K miles with no major calamities. My current 1996 F350 has 209K miles and runs like new. In fact, I just changed out the original thermostat last weekend. New one didn't change much. Still hasn't used a drop of oil.

Cars are way too complex these years. I was jus talking wit a neighbor with a 64 buick rivera. Pretty clean and so simple. Style out the wall. I have a 91 honda and I hope it never croaks. The manual for the thing is like the yellow pages.

Have you told them how you feel about this? Like, "Hey, the service is great, but please QUIT PESTERING ME!!!!" Something like that?

Good Luck! Rich

That's the one where you hire the neighbor kid to sit on the hood with a gerry can full of gas, pouring it down the carb...

;-)

I'd rather he just handed me a $10 bill every few miles :)

I'm spending about $70/week on gas. I may be shopping for a roller skate soon.

My 1999 Dodge RAM is pretty understandable. I did a few things, everything was accessible and easy to find.

- replace a rotten water temp sensor

- replace sparkplugs

- change oil

- replace some rod, whatever, that got bent when I decided to drive over a snow pile

- replace speed sensor in transmission

- change rear gear oil

Much like my '82 Mazda 626 - Tough as nails.

Although it did puke a countershaft bearing in the tranny a couple months ago. (at roughly 183K miles) Since I had a spare tranny on hand from the previous one (which died of being clobbered by a PT Cruiser) it wasn't any big deal, though :)

That's 'cause it's a Fiero -- they should just have the "check engine light" connected from 12V to ground to save on computer resources.