This might be the wrong place for me tonight. I feel less than enthusiastic about the car that went in with a bad O2 sensor around Thanksgiving, has since been in and out of the shop for a new starter motor, and had a glowing, asymptomatic check engine light today. I assume that means one or both of the remaining, original sensors died. My mechanic and I are against doing anything preemptive to a college student's car. It is also coming up on needing an oil change and a couple of tires. I will be in sections of the forum dealing with repairs in the morning. Tomorrow, the sun will shine on its wide, sleek hood. I will love it again, though it turns like a battle ship and runs grudgingly on cold mornings.

The vehicle is a LeSabre, 1998 body, 1999 engine, just over 65 k. This is a beauty shop car that sat after its first owner died. It is burgundy, inside and out. Its main use is getting my instruments and me around town. More than anywhere else, the car is home base. It makes suitably grand entrances wherever I go and looks great on white wall tires.

 

There are many reasons for a check engine lite to come on. Many auto stores will check the vehicle for you with no charge. I believe Autozone is one of them. Good idea to at least get the code numbers and post them here. We should be able to confirm what the auto supply store submitted as the possible cause for the light coming on. What do you think ?

 

It turned itself off. I can check codes if it comes back on, but I heard some horror stories about checking codes at Autozone and ending up with many unneeded products. All the electrical stuff on this car is weird, so it might have been a fluke. I think its original owner may have been hard on it as evidenced by the replaced engine and door edges scraped bare when I got it. I just touched them up to keep rust off. The big stuff seems fine, but I expect it to need little things replaced in the first year or two. It just gets obnoxious when things fail back-to-back. I think the socket set I wanted for Christmas will see plenty of use.

 

Since you have a code reader, you can check the computer for a history code. That will give you a clue as to which system had the problem. When the lite goes out by itself the problem no longer exists. It would still be nice to know what is going on don't you agree?
If I misunderstood about the code reader. let them get the code anyway. You don't have to buy anything.