JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for March 04, 2015

Wait until you meet someone who reads instruction manuals.

Check your gas cap. It should click at least three times to indicate it is shut properly. Unless it is your oxygen sensor in your catalytic converter going bad. (groans)

“What fresh hell” . . . I’ll have to remember that one.

I was told by my Toyota dealer that the Check Engine light is solely related to the emission control system, which is not something that is going to strand you anywhere.

I remember the teen-age ’50’s and the wrenching of vehicles of the age as I struggled to avoid the draft and keep my guitars in strings. I could get 21-25 mpg on such Fords and the like and if they got sick, a roadside fix was possible and a tow or tire was available from the next farmer up the road. Sixty years later, a 4-wheeled computer sits in my carport, daring me to take it for a ride among texting, sexting,distracted traffic, mixing it up with ‘inexperienced’ and ‘elderly’ drivers, who, in either group, have a problem with drugs, either prescribed or proscribed. And the 4-wheeled wonder gets the same ’50’s mileage after ‘They’ decided that it would run better on 15% corn-juice.

And they wonder why I hide at home and drink.

I’m a mechanic with 25 years experience, and I usually tell customers who are worried about driving their car that unless the engine is running differently it[s probably not a major concern. It’s usually related to evaporative emissions (which has no effect on the operation of the vehicle) or a bad O2 sensor (which will affect gas mileage), but if the vehicle is running differently it can cause expensive damage, especially if the light is flashing, which indicates a misfire that can damage the catalytic converter (which can cost upwards of $1500). It can also indicate problems that could strand you (a bad engine coolant temp. sender, for example, can make the car’s computer think the engine is really cold when it isn’t, which will cause it to dump so much fuel in that the car might not start), and can even indicate safety problems (a bad throttle position sensor or gas pedal position sensor could cause unintended acceleration or stalling).

My 99 Audi A6 Avant had a nasty habit of turning on the light. I pulled a code that said improper air flow in secondary air injection. I replaced pump once. I learned to ignore it and cleared codes the morning I took it in for annual safety and emission inspection (NC). Ran fine even with this problem light coming on about every month. Always passed and didn’t say a word about the recent code clearing.

My wife’s car has an intermittent check engine light. The code reads one of the oxygen sensors gone bad (there are more than one), but the sensors all read okay when tested. They clear it, it comes back, but goes away on its own.

I hope Marcy is better at reading hospital monitors than she is her car dash.