Engine light at 100k

[Diomedes]

I know this is asking alot but maybe someone might know or give me some ideas before the repair/service place i bring it to tells me what's up:

Mazda3 hatch, manual, at 100k now, bought it about a month ago. Light came on last night as i came home from work. I was pushing the engine a little more than usual, basically messing around with what is a new car to me still. But that can't possible be the cause, so anyone can think of anything, why that engine light came one suddenly? I mean, the car, engine and all sound just fine, there are no symptoms.

 

[vladjan]

it is reallllyyy hard to say what it is unless you can hook up the computer to the car BUT i have a mazda 3 with 120k on i drove from SD to LA (about 100 mile distance) and i was messing around (accelerating really fast.. basically gunning it.. i was enjoying the lack of traffic :] ) i got to LA turned of the car. then 10 mins later turned it on and the engine check light came on. Car drove perfectly fine with the light on. in 10 mins i turned of andback on the car and the light went off. I still don't know what caused it but it went away. My guess, the car was really hot and once it reaches certain temperature the light comes on. But again, im no mechanic and have no clue what actually caused the light to come on. Is your light still on?

 

[thejeans]

well if you have advanced auto or autozone's up there most of them will hook up to your odb2 and scan to tell you what the code is for free....

 

[Diomedes]

it is reallllyyy hard to say what it is unless you can hook up the computer to the car BUT i have a mazda 3 with 120k on i drove from SD to LA (about 100 mile distance) and i was messing around (accelerating really fast.. basically gunning it.. i was enjoying the lack of traffic :] ) i got to LA turned of the car. then 10 mins later turned it on and the engine check light came on. Car drove perfectly fine with the light on. in 10 mins i turned of andback on the car and the light went off.

We have this 2004 Corolla, and it also had this incredibly stupid engine light thing too. The repair place offered to fix it for 2, 000$ cause of various complication, but essentially they said it was not critical. About 3 months later, turned on the heat and the light went away.

It's strange, you said you drove it, turned it back on 10 minutes after and *then* it appeared. Did you read my mind, cause that's exactly what happened. I stopped somewhere, walked around for about 10 min and got in and swore as the engine light came on. Now, that was last night, today it's still on though.

well if you have advanced auto or autozone's up there most of them will hook up to your odb2 and scan to tell you what the code is for free....

I assume that's what they will do tommorrow, I'll wait till then.

Of course, i drove the car a couple times today, drives perfectly.

 

[vladjan]

well if it still stays on, i would check it out and not wait on it even if it drives fine. You said you have 100k so you are out of warranty, don't be like me and wait till something breaks Once they hook it up to the computer it will show automatically what the problem is even though the light might be on. It stays in the computer's memory for certain time.

 

[Guest20182]

Have you gotten gas recently? First thing I do with a CEL is check the gas cap. Otherwise take it to AutoZone.

 

[mjstew]

yup if the obd comes back with an evap code, could be as simple as gas cap not turned tightly....best thing to do is get the diagnostic code so you have an idea of what the issue is...

 

[Diomedes]

So they had the computer scan it. It related to fuel leaks, so they looked and the looked but found nothing at all. My guess it is the gas cap. So they had that light turn off and now i've been driving it for a few days and no light returns. I'll post up if anything surfaces.

 

[mjstew]

typically obd runs diagnostics and is not ready for the first 10-15 times you start the car, after that if there is still an issue the light will come back on

 

[Diomedes]

In case anyone is wondering, everything is fine with it. Possibly a gas tank lid triggered the light, everything is running well.

 

[vladjan]

Niceee, congrats. Glad it wasnt anything major