So I was driving home from my parents house today (about 300km's away) and my check engine light went off for no apparent reason. The truck runs as perfect as it did when it was brand new (not over heating...runs and idles perfectly etc....). Is this a common problem for Rangers ? I had a 97 Cavalier Z24 and the check engine would light up all the time and everytime I brought it in all they'd do is reset it and tell me if it happened again to bring it back in untill the 4th time it happened I said "fu**it". Should I really be concerned about it or is there something Im missing ? Is there anyway I can reset the light on my own. Ive heard from some people to disconnect the battery and let it sit for about 10-15 mins. Is this true ?

 

By disconnecting the negative for 10-15mins, that will only clear the computer of trouble codes, so if it really is a problem, the light will come back on. You might try going up to autozone and getting the CEL code read(its a free service). It could be what I had, mine came on after driving through a good sized puddle, water got in that connector under the drivers seat, i just cleaned it and put some dilectric grease on the connector pins, solved the problem. Good luck!

 

^ just disconnected mine after i cleand out my dsfe and its off now...

check your gas cap first, then if it doesnt go off take it to auto zone and get it read....

 

Makes sence .. we had a hueg rainstorm last week and I drove through a few puddles that were about 1 - 1.5 feet deep ... I'll try that


I thought it might be the gas cap but I noticed when I started it up that theres actually a "check fuel cap" light there too ... and its not lit up so there goes that theory.

 

Oh and thanks for the advice guys but we dont have Autozone's in Canada at least nowhere around here

 

yea, that's true. Maybe Canadian tire can do it? Napa? CarQuest? I dunno if they can do it and do it for free like autozone does.

 

carquest isnt cheap, they wanted to charge me 80$ to do it because they supposedly could only do a full diognostic...


just call up some car places and see what they say, if not, get a obII or w/e reader off the internet and look up the code online... theyre maybe 20-30$ so not to bad....

 

well I dont have to worry about any of that anymore cuz the light turned itself off. Is it supposed to turn on when the oil is low? I happened to check my oil and it was a little low so I added about a quarter of a quart of oil and the next morning my check engine light turned off ... do you think that might have been it ? Seems just liek a weird coincidence to me

 

a 1/4 of a quart shouldnt cause that.. but who knows, hopefully it'll stay off!

 

the CEL is usually an emission problem (need new sensors, bad maf etc). but it can be something serious too (like a spark plug not firing). Get it to a car shop and have them run a code, or go buy the scanner yourself. You dont need the big fancy ones unless you work on cars all day, a small one will do just fine

 

well the truck ran perfectly so I dont see it being a plug that wasnt firing .. Im really not sure but whatever it was seems to have fixed itself .. hopefully it stays off but if it lights back up I'll definitly look further into it

 

The CEL can be a range of problems. From gas tank problems, engine problems, and fuses that are blown. So if the truck runs just fine, and no different from before I wouldn't worry about it too much. But you will need to get it checked out eventually.

 

my check engine light tends to come on every now and then at random. i went to autozone, checked it out, and it was the o2 sensor. its likely that this is whats going on with yours. its about $50-$60 for a replacement sensor i think.