After witnessing a deadly car crash, I left my car in idle for about 45minutes after helping people and talking to police, while coming back I noticed that my service light turned on. No idea what caused it though. I was in idle for about 45minutes.. I did fiddle with the battery to reset ecu but the 10mm bolt was on too tight, didn't move at all, and I did move the Mass Air Flow Sensor wire a little, but that's it. I do have an intake on my car and I'm worried if this is serious what to do about warranty.. just remove the intake?

Also, how can I find out what this SERVICE ENGINE sign means without going to dealer first and without being charged an arm and leg? Would resetting the ecu by disconnecting battery fix anything? Thanks everyone.

 

Ricky, I've got a little device that reads the ecu and shows the trouble codes. It'll even reset the service engine soon light.

it's call scantool from scantool.net

it hooks up to the ecu, the a circuit board, then into the laptop rs232.

I think I paid like $60 for it.

I can let you use it if you wanna hook up one day. ( use at your own risk and blah blah blah )

Let me know.

 

One thing to try (the cheap solution, not necessarily the right solution) is to keep driving normally to see if the light goes away.

Typically, the the problem does not reoccur, the CEL will go away.

However, if there really is a problem, you could be making it worse.

Usually the check engine light comes on when there is a bad O2 sensor, since that is what usually fails in the ODBII system, but I don't think it would happen so soon, unless the long idling period had something to do with it.

The only other thing I can think of is that the CAT's cooled down after so much idling, and therefore didn't funtion fully, allowing the CEL to turn on.

If it were me, and if the car still functioned well (no shuttering, knocking, bad smells, etc.) I would probably just drive it easily for a week to see what happens.

Of course, I never go to the doctor either.

-D'oh!

 

could be serious, letting your car idle for 45 mins is no joke, very bad things can happen, and the system is not designed for this what so ever.

However, odds are something such as the O2 sensor was damaged, or another sensor overheated, any number of things.

Doubt they will be able to pin it on the fact that you let your car idle so long.

Though, if you were helping out in the situation you describe then "a car is just a car." You know.

U did a good deed, dont worry about your car it will be fine,
Eric

 

Thanks guys. What I ended up doing was fixing the gas cap, that didn't work, so I just disconnected battery (- terminal) overnight, and next morning it was gone. Guessing it was just picking up something dumb since after a reset it fixed .. Noah, where in VA are you?

 

We live just north of Fort Belvoir.
I work at home and in Gaithersburg.
My wife (and the Z) work off of M St in D.C.

Our real names are Steve and Christine.
If you've been to any of the z meets you've probably seen
my ugly mug...