Check Engine Light / Service Soon Light

Are you driving with the Check Engine Light on? That means something is wrong.  Otherwise, the light would not be on!  It needs to be properly diagnosed and corrected.

Called a "Check Engine  Light", a "Service Engine Soon Light", a "Malfunction Indicator Light" or a picture that looks the the cartoon of an engine, all mean the same.  If fact, some vehicles will display similar words on the Driver's Information Display.  It all means the same.  If the Check Engine Light is on, the vehicle can't be running at it's best or most efficient.  And if you're driving with light on, how are you going to know when something else goes wrong?  The light doesn't get any brighter!

You may know that your vehicle is run by a computer.  The main purpose, not the only purpose of the computer is to figure out how much gasoline to feed the engine.  It does this by reading information from sensors and controlling motors and valves.

You probably have heard of an oxygen sensor.  That's just one of many sensors.  There's even a sensor that tells the computer how hard you're stepping on the gas!  I'm sure you've heard of a fuel injector.  That's just an electric valve that the computer opens to let the gas spray into the air being sucked into the engine.  It's not very much different from the valve that lets the water into a washing machine, just more accurate.

The computer is also programmed to tell when a sensor isn't talking, when a sensor is stuttering or when a sensor isn't making any sense.  It also knows when a motor or valve isn't responding correctly and when the results it gets from the engine are wrong.

Then the computer does two things.  First it stores a message in its memory telling the technician where the problem is, then it turns on the light.  It doesn't tell us what's wrong, it just says the problem is over here, not over there .  The light is like the flag on a mail box that says there is mail for the technician.

Here's what we do.  First we test drive it, do a visual inspection to look for obvious problems like loose connections and mouse-eaten wires, then hook up a computer to your vehicle's computer.  This allows us to see the information coming from the sensors, see what the computer is doing with that information and see what messages are stored in the computer.

From this we have about a 50% change of telling you exactly what's wrong and how much it will cost to fix.  The rest of the time, we have to get deeper into it.  We will stop and explain to you what we have found and what additional  testing has to be done and how much that will cost.

So, if you've been driving with the Check Engine Light, bring your vehicle to Clearview Tire & Auto Service for a correct diagnosis and professional guaranteed repairs which includes our Certified Auto Repair Nationwide Warranty.  We're in Hopkinsville, not far from Ft. Campbell and we've been here since 1952. Most repairs include one year FREE towing and roadside assistance, good 24/7 coast-to-coast.

See Computerized Engine Analysis for more information.