Stadium Automotive

If your check-engine light is, something is wrong. This is a no brainer. But it can be easy to forget what a benefit it is to have your vehicle's electronic control unit (ECU) always scanning input from sensors to make sure the engine and related systems are up to par. Yes, the check-engine light "knows" when something is amiss. The problem is that some people choose to ignore it, saying the cause is just "pollution-related stuff" or, worse, they hear from someone at a shop that "it's not important". When I hear that, I know that particular shop didn't have the expertise to fix the problem. One of the problems of driving with a check-engine light on is that the light doesn't get any brighter, or start blinking to alert you that something very bad is going to happen. It only has one communication mode: light on. And as long as it is on, the ECU can be storing many fault codes, some of which can indicate a very big problem. Of all the ... read more

Just about every day, we get asked if the “check engine” light or the ABS (anti-lock brake light) is really important. We have customers that come in and are not concerned about those lights. The “check engine” light tells so much, it just amazes me. Where else can you have something so complex as a vehicle tell you that something is malfunctioning or about to breakdown. We had a customer who came in this week for other repairs and said not to worry about the check engine light, he knew that he needed an oxygen sensor but didn’t feel it was important. I spent the time to point out many concerns that I had about this. First, the “check engine” light comes on when something is malfunctioning or about to breakdown. I could be one of about 100-200 different problems, not to be known until a scanner is hooked up. If more than one problem is present, the light doesn’t light brighter or ... read more

Just about every day, we get asked if the “check-engine” light and ABS (anti-lock brake system) lights in a vehicle are really important. We have many customers who come in and are not overly concerned about those lights. The “check engine” light tells so much, it just amazes me. Where else can you have something as complex as a vehicle warn you that something is malfunctioning or about to break down? Recently we had a customer who came in for other repairs and said not to worry about the check-engine light, that he knew he needed an oxygen sensor but didn’t think it was important. I spent the time to point out many concerns that I had about this. First, the check-engine light comes on when something is malfunctioning or about to break down. It could be one of some 200 different problems, which will not be specifically located until a scanner is hooked up to the vehicle. If more than one problem is present, the light doesn’t light brighter or blink to let you know. It just comes on ... read more