Also called Check Engine Light,
Service Soon Light, Maintenance Required Light......
May look something like one of
these three....
Contrary to popular belief, this
light has absolutely NOTHING to do with the oil, water, oil pressure, or
engine temperature. It is an ELECTRONIC ISSUE!
It takes a skilled, experienced
technician to ACCURATELY diagnose and repair the root cause of these
problems.
Do not listen to ANY advise about your service engine light or ANY area of your
vehicle given to you by an employee at ANY parts store!
They are qualified to advise you on a few LIMITED topics concerning
PARTS but NOT anything that has to do with your vehicle, they have no experience
in the REAL world of automobile repair, they may have done some light repairs on
their own vehicle at best.
If they REALLY knew what they were talking about they would be WORKING as a
TECHNICIAN somewhere making a lot more money...And
NEVER fall for that old line about how he WAS a technician but he hurt his back
or his knees gave out so he couldn't do it anymore so he had to take a job
selling parts...He may have had a job working on cars somewhere in the past but
here are the cold hard facts folks...
Technicians that were truly GOOD at what they did move UP to management
positions, open their OWN SHOP, or go to work teaching ...They do NOT sell parts!
As
you may or may not be aware, there are parts supply stores that will plug a
device into your car and read your computer's fault code and this will tell you
exactly what part needs to be replaced, which will save you a ton of money
versus taking it to a shop....and they will be happy to sell you the
part....imagine that huh?
Do not fall victim to this...These are NOT experienced technicians...often...VERY OFTEN, the
part they sell you is not the real problem and is NOT NEEDED.
IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
There is more to the story...
Picture this...your service
engine soon light is coming on...or your vehicle is just not running right so
you whip on into one of the parts stores that offers this service...the dude
walks out to your car, plugs in this little gismo and tells you nonchalantly
that all you need is an oxygen sensor. Ten minutes later you are on your way
with your oxygen sensor...this dude is your hero....he diagnosed your car for
free....the shops all wanted anywhere from $60 on up to do it....and he sold you
the sensor for a lot less than ANY shop you called! KEEYAAW life is good.....
Well you finally found the time
to change that oxygen sensor, or have your buddy or relative do it for
you....you saved a hunk of money on the part and it only cost you a six pack of
beer and that one little part he accidentally broke for the labor....man it just
doesn't get any better than this right.....
Well here you are a few days
later driving down the street and your service engine soon light comes back
on...or your vehicle starts running bad again...so you whip on in to see your
hero again....he walks out there with his gizmo, plugs it in and proudly
announces you need an oxygen sensor...hmmmm....you just did that....hmmmm....you
tell him you just did that and ask him what could be the problem...he tells you
he has no clue...he's not a mechanic...you need to bring it to a shop! OR
WORSE! He may try to sell you ANOTHER part you do not need!
Now you have dropped your vehicle off at.....let's use Mid-City
Auto Service for example....A while later you get the phone call that you have
been waiting for....they say they have good news and bad news....here it comes
you think....they are gonna try to yank my eyeballs out.....they inform you the
good news is they can fix your car for about $65.00 including diagnostic time,
parts and labor.....COOL, what is the bad news you ask.....well the bad news is
that your problem is a vacuum leak in a deteriorated hose, that is causing the
oxygen sensor code....you did not even NEED a new oxygen sensor....the news gets
worse.....even if the oxygen sensor would have been the problem, YOU CHANGED
THE WRONG ONE ANYWAY.....the one the code pertains to is on the other side
of the engine!!!!
Guy at the parts store still
your hero????
This is not a
once-in-a-while occurrence...This happens VERY, VERY OFTEN!!!!
Well boys and girls, here is the
real deal....the code reader is exactly that...it reads the code. It cannot let
the user look at the data of the many sensors in the system and even if it
did show this info like a full fledged scan tool, it takes much training
and years of experience to interpret this info correctly.
A common misconception is that the fault code displayed by the code reader or
scan tool tells you the problem with the car...WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!...this
is just the first piece of the puzzle.
For example if the code was bank 1 oxygen sensor 1 lean...you must first know
which oxygen sensor is bank 1 sensor 1....some vehicles have as many as 6
oxygen sensors! The next step is to pull up the diagnostic procedure in the
service manual for this particular code. This procedure can be as long as 5
pages or MORE of small print, involving 50 or MORE steps to confirm
the needed repair. You see it is not as simple as plugging in a magic gizmo and
it telling you the problem. Case in point...in the above scenario the oxygen
sensor fault code can be caused by something as simple as a vacuum hose that has
split and fallen off causing a small vacuum leak.
A defective spark plug wire can even cause an oxygen sensor code! The
sensor is just that...it senses oxygen in the exhaust stream...if there is a
defective spark plug wire causing one cylinder to misfire, the fuel is not
burning in this cylinder...if the fuel is not burning then neither
is the oxygen, causing an over abundance of oxygen...therefore
setting a FALSE oxygen sensor lean code!
I've heard in some cities that
some parts stores that used to provide this free service are no longer doing so due
to lawsuits stemming from selling expensive parts that were not needed.
JUST LIKE in the example I gave above!!
The story goes this way...You see If the EGR valve passages are clogged with carbon
there will be an EGR insufficient flow code set....the parts stores were not experienced
enough to know this and were telling customers they needed an EGR valve....some
of these valves are VERY expensive and naturally after spending all this money
the car was NOT fixed....Then after taking the car to an experienced technician
they would find out the expensive EGR valve was not even needed!!
If you do not know all of this
and you simply change the part the fault code refers to you WILL still have the
same problem 99% of the time....
So you see the dude at the parts store with the code reader gizmo is no
hero...he is just one of the many pawns in the parts selling game!
Many inexperienced shops are
doing this type of work as well and are replacing many parts that do not need to
be replaced before finally stumbling upon the REAL problem!
Problems in these systems can cause other "false" problems that will
correct themselves when the ROOT CAUSE of the problem is fixed!
There have been many times
we have had cars come in and the customer has spent a lot of money
on his own or even at another shop and their vehicle is still not fixed, only to find had the other
shop been experienced enough, the problem could have been fixed for a lot less
money.
This happens VERY OFTEN...I'd say three or four times a month!
Let me tell you a little story
that took place about 14 or 15 years ago when I was still prone to showing off...
I was asked by Danny, a counterman at one of the parts stores I dealt with if I
would mind helping another shop diagnose a Ford pick-up they were having trouble
with...You see this was a shop that had moved to a new bigger location not
long before and did not have much experience in this...they mostly
did light maintenance, tires, front end stuff, brakes etc. but were trying to
expand on the repairs they did. I said sure, no problem. Well the manager of
this place called me and explained what was going on and went on to tell me that they had replaced
the ignition module, distributor pick up, ignition coil, ECM, ECM power relay and fuel pump
relay...all in attempt to get this truck to start. Well I asked him a few
questions and he put his tech on the phone and I told him to make sure the
ground wire leaving the negative battery terminal was good, explaining that the
connector about 6 inches down in the wire was bad about building up corrosion
and that this was the ground for the ECM. I tried to explain to him how to do a
voltage-drop test on this ground circuit, but he had no meter and couldn't grasp
what I was saying anyway so I finally just told him how to use a test light hooked to battery positive to test this ground. Well later that day Danny
called back and asked if I would mind going to look at the truck at this other
shop as they had not had any luck getting it to run...naturally I said yes even
though this place was on the other side of town from me and I already had all I
could do that day, cause like I said, back
then I liked nothing better than to show off ...
Well anyway, back to the story...I get to this shop and walk over to the truck
and ask the guy working on it if he checked the ground I asked him to...he said
yes it is good. I then asked him to try to start it as I watched for spark and
fuel pressure...There was neither, so I asked him for some wire cutters, and I
proceeded to cut the connector out of the wire I had mentioned and then tied the
two wires together...I told him to try it then and poof, the truck
started....well that manager of that shop jumped a foot high and started
screaming and hollering how they
had spent 800-900 dollars on this truck and had worked on it for three days, and
it could have been fixed in 15 minutes for just a few bucks!
Well later on I was talking to a good friend of mine telling him how it was a
low down dirty shame that this customer was going to have well over a thousand dollar bill for something
that would have only cost them a few bucks at my shop, when all of a sudden my friend
looks at me and says "yea...the guy had a huge bill, but all he knows is
that he took his truck there and it cost a lot of money but they fixed the
problem...He will probably go back to that shop too, because all he knows is
they fixed his truck, but guess what Tony...You fixed it for FREE and they got
all his money"
Well right then is when I decided that was the end of my showing off!
This same shop took many of their
customer's vehicles to Mid-City Auto for us to repair for them after that,
but they always wanted me to drop what I was doing to work on their stuff...All
the while they were telling their customers they fixed the car and THEY were getting
the credit for OUR good work and we were running behind on our OWN customer's
cars...Finally I wised up and just started telling them that we didn't have time
to fix their cars for them any longer...
At one time there were 3
different shops taking their customer's vehicles to us when it was something
they couldn't figure out....That means Mid-City Auto Service may have worked
on YOUR car before and you NEVER EVEN KNEW IT!!!!!
Just to give you an example of
how difficult it is for you the customer to find a quality shop, the place
in the above story is STILL in business
all these years later and is very well known.
I get new customers that come in all the time
complaining about something that happened at this place or a SIMILAR place...
You see every one of these customers say they chose this place because it is
bigger, more convenient and has more advertisements of various types than other
shops so they figured it must be staffed with better techs. This is a VERY
COMMON misconception that has cost many folks A LOT of money! All this means is
they spend a lot more money, which means they have to pay their techs less money
or get more work out faster, or both, and lower tech pay and faster work and
more volume means LOWER quality repairs NOT better!
By the way, Mid-City Auto Service specializes
in these electrical/electronic issues.
![[Company Logo Image]](_borders/Logo_-__Logo_18.jpg){kind=logo}
