Yesterday, when I headed off to karate in our Subaru Impreza, the CHECK ENGINE idiot light was on.
Hrm.
Being a Lawful sort of guy, I find these sort of OMG THE SKY IS FALLING idiot lights to be compelling. So when I got home, I consulted the owner’s manual.
Which basically said:
- If the light is on steadily, the car may be about to self-destruct. Take it in for service immediately.
- Or, the gas cap may be loose. Re-tighten it. The light may stay on for a while. Don’t worry, be happy.
- If the light is blinking, the car may be about to self-destruct, but maybe not as soon as if the light is on steady.
Hrm.
What made this particularly vexing is:
a. I recalled from a while back this happening, and that it turned out to be the emissions system needing a tweak, no harm no foul no emergency.
b. I am driving to Pueblo tomorrow (see next post). And either I take a car that was about to blow up (a bad thing), or leave a car about to blow up for Margie and Katherine to use (a worse thing).
(Note that the car is not about to blow up. Just experience severe damage to the emissions system, or perhaps the engine itself.)
So I worked from home this morning (for additional reasons) and Margie called the Subaru dealership we go to. The bottom line was that if the light was blinking, yeah, that was bad, but if the light was steady, it probably wasn’t a huge problem — but why don’t we bring it in anyway.
Which we did.
They did their diagnostic magic and Judy called me up. The “tumble generators” were foobar.
Oooooh. “Tumble Generators.” That sounds like something on a trans-light hyperdrive. “Spin up the Tumble Generators, Mr. Morgan — we’re taking this ship through the Phantom Nebula, Krell Taskforce or no Krell Taskforce!”
Actually, it turns out the Tumble Generator Valves are involved in the turbo system on our Impreza WRX. While you can look them up and come up with all sorts of engine-savvy people talking about how you can ignore the error or frammis the grommet aglet, I was willing to let the Subaru folks replace them for a $50 deductible on our extended warrentee (rather than the $1500 they said it would cost me otherwise).
Problem: said valves weren’t at the dealership, but had to be brought in from the warehouse. ETA on the car … maybe as late as Friday. And I couldn’t strand Margie and Katherine without a car. But I didn’t want to (as Judy said we could) bring the car home and bring it in again next week.
So they offered me a loaner.
It turns out the loaner was a new Subaru Forester, also nice turbo (though with automatic transmission). We’ve had loaner/renter Foresters before this, and I am once more impressed and seriously considering this as an option when (soon, I suspect) we replace the Toyota Sienna mini-van (which is holding together okay for a 10-year-old nigh-100K vehicle, but is beginning to suffer from peripheral failures in things like the power windows and doors).
To that end, in fact, I decided to let Margie hold onto the Forester over the weekend, and I’ll take the van down to Pueblo. Give her a chance to enjoy it.
(Notes: The 2-1- Forester is $20-28K, gets 24mpg (a scosh better than the van) — and, most importantly, 14 inches shorter and 3 inches narrower than the van; granted, it can only seat 5, rather than 7, but I think that’s okay. But I digress.)
“Check engine” lights really annoy me because they can be trivial or disastrous. MrsDoF went on a trip a couple years ago, got as far as Indiana, and the light came on. Panicked phone call to Husband in Illinois, whose ability to interstate-teleport seems to be on the fritz. Husband calls mechanic, who says (basically what you said above), and with a prayer she sets off towards Ohio. Eventually it righted itself and it’s been two years now.
With all that technology they couldn’t just put a little LCD readout on the dash that would give a bit more information?
I sometimes think of them more as “Pay Money Now!” lights.
Maybe it was on the Sienna (or even my old Saturn) that the analogous light translated into, “Oh, your catalytic converter needs its chrome polished, come in at your earliest convenience.” It wasn’t even detecting an actual failure; it was triggered by X miles traveled.
(To be fair, I wouldn’t mind a “it’s time for your next tune-up” idiot light, sometimes.)
We LOVE our 2000 Forester and when it (sometime a long time from now, hopefully!) finally kicks the bucket we will replace it with another. We do still have a van as our second vehicle, but that’s mostly because my wife uses it for Art Shows in the summer and with the seats out it holds all her art stuff (displays, tent, art, luggage, etc.). I think when the van dies, though, it’ll probably get replaced with another Forester and an investment in a trailer.
I’d note that our (eeek!) 10 year old non-turbo Forester averages about 26 MPG with a LOT of in-city driving. Woot!