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You know what Dodge A100s don’t have?
Faced with a big pumpkin harvest from my garden, I did what I had to do.
24 Comments on “Jack-O-Lanterns Should Be Scary, No?...”
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That made my night.
Here’s a vote for more gauges and less idiot lights.
He checked the coils, he checked the plugs. Everything looked fine. But little did he know, it was the SECONDARY AIR INJECTION SYSTEM!!
(children scream and scatter)
Not having a warning light did not mean failure did not happen. You just won’t know about it until it caused a catastrophic failure. Great idea for the lantern, though!
Most of the time, the CEL is triggered by a problem with some sort of non-essential emission-control device. Now, a CEL that could detect when the head gasket was about to blow on my Civic…
It was called “overheat” light probably.
That’s the best pumkin I’ve seen, ever.
I checked, and my engine was still there.
That’s hilarious!
And so true about Volkswagens: my 2008 R32 had a check engine light that couldn’t be fixed despite seven trips to the dealer, a recall of all 5000 R32s in the US, replaced fuel tank, replaced evaporator tank and purge valve (three times). I just gave up and dumped it.
I had an ’88 Prelude Si with a maddeningly undiagnosable Check Engine light. I used the black-tape approach until my biannual California smog check came due, at which point I had to invest an entire precious weekend into testing every smog sensor and solenoid under the hood until I could find the edge-case EGR-related device that needed replacing. Things got easier with OBD and scanner codes (as I recall, my Prelude featured a useless morse-code-style code output that flashed the CEL incomprehensibly).
I’m pretty sure Tony Swann and Csaba Csere are now racing my old Prelude in LeMons. Wish I had some record of the VIN- Swann bought it at the right place and time.
You might not have a record of your VIN – but your insurance agent should. Coverage files are usually maintained seven years out; you can run a LexisNexis CLUE report (for free!) to get a copy of the VIN if you ever had a claim, or call up your agent or insurer’s home office. Takes five minues, if you care that much.
That sure is scary!
Now, does anyone know the exact origin of the “check engine”/”service engine soon” light? How did it become standardized?
Everyone associates it with OBD-II – but it seems to have come around long before then.
For what it’s worth, my father’s 1989 Volvo 740 had a “check engine” light, or at least it did according to the owner’s manual I found online. 1988 740’s had them, too, but earlier models did not!
And apparently, the 1989-1992 Nissan 240SX (not sure about 1993) only had a “check engine” light in California! Strange!
Chryslers with the lean-burn system didn’t have one either. Dad’s 87 Dakota never had one, and we never knew that it needed a new coolant temp sensor, and an O2 sensor till the guy running the emissions test put it on the computer to see what was screwing with it and why it was failing the test.
Not even a callout for one on it.
All of my OBD0 Civics have a check engine light (MY91)
Can you imagine not having a temp gauge on your dash and just having an overheating light, it could easily destroy one of these new alum engines.
The rumour that I’ve been hearing, and am happy to propagate, is that most/all of our current temp gauges are little more than glorified warning lights now.
If my car is any example, the coolant temp gauge seems to hit 1/2 remarkable quickly – even on cool days, then never moves. For all I can tell, it is either cold or 1/2 only. I’ve never seen it go beyond 1/2.
Anyone else have similar or differing experiences with theirs? My car is a 2002.
They guy who sits across the aisle from me used to work at Ford and he says Ford oil pressure gauges have been this way for some time. Apparently a lot of customers have preconceived notions about what acceptable oil pressure is and Ford was able to reduce warranty expense with the “binary” type gauges.
It’s the senders that do that. The gauge is a normal one, filled with grease so the needle moves slowly. If you clean out the grease and get a proper sender, you can have a “real” gauge again.
The geeks over at TDIClub certainly think that gauges in modern cars are glorified idiot lights.
I certainly can’t confirm it for you, but I CAN confirm that the oil temp and oil press gauges in light aircraft move around a whole lot more than ones in a modern car when you use different throttle settings, etc.
It’s probably working correctly then.
My 1995 Explorer does the same thing, although extended running of the engine over 3,000 rpm at low speeds will lead it to move above the middle towards the H. I have seen it pegged completely out once.
The oil pressure gauge on mine, was converted to a real gauge for a while, but I got tired of replacing sending units yearly. and converted it back to what is normal for it, turns out I got flaky wiring to the gauge.
Been there, done that, $3,300 later (dealer paid, not me!) my Beetle 1.8T had a new engine. One more week and forty more dollars led to a bud-vase-mounted gauge.
Maybe the “710 fluid” needs peeked at.
As unreliable s=as the MPG readings on your car computer?
That’s the biggest CEL I’ve ever seen. But still, some drivers would never notice it.