Check Engine Light Came On

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

Have you checked the oil level? If it's too low the check engine light will come on but if the level is OK then the problem isn't the oil.

A year and 8 months is too long to go w/o an oil change.

Yes, conventional wisdom has always been 3,000 miles or 3 months, whichever comes first. Now there are endless arguments that you can go much longer, especially when talking about synthetics. I think that Hyundai recommends 7,500 miles with dino oil.

Still, 6 months is the longest that I would consider between changes, regardless of miles driven.

I watched my mechanic do an oil change on a Chevy van one time. He had checked the oil and it was full but very dirty. When he took the drain plug out, nothing happened. He actually had to punch through a solidified piece of sludge that had formed at the bottom of the oil pan to get the oil that was still fluid dripping, and it dripped out thick and slow. The owner had never replaced the oil in over 5 years, he just topped it off as it seeped from bad seals. Still, with a new filter and oil, the van drove away with no strange sounds or smoke.

Pat

There is no CEL for oil level or oil pressure. Apparently Auto-Zone will read, for free, the stored code relvent to the CEL.

Thanks for the responses. I have a feeling that once the oil and filter are changed the check engine light will go off.

Patricia

Patricia,

I have been driving several miatas for about seven years now and have had many check engine lights go on, both with my cars and with my friend's vehicles.

In almost every single case, removing the gas cap and putting it back on until it clicks at least 3 times turned the light off.

Have you tried this yet? I did have to replace one gas cap that had quit holding pressure, but it was the same common problem causing the CEL to show up.

Good luck!

Pat

pws wrote in news:9srBg.53322$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.texas.rr.com:

To Patricia:

If the above fixes the check engine light you still need to change the oil and filter.

Nonsense, your lowest grade dino oil is good for at least 10 years or

100,000 miles, whichever comes first. As far as oil filters, I got tired of paying for those and deciding which one to use, so I just plugged off the hole.

The lack of an oil filter makes those once a decade oil changes much faster. At least I think it would, the engines seem to keep burning up long before then, but I doubt if the problem is lubrication based.

Now quit trying to get people to waste an ever-decreasing and ever more-costly resource. ;-)

Pat

pws wrote in news:OgtBg.53345$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.texas.rr.com:

I'm sorry, should have thought of the environment! Once had a lady come into the shop with a Dodge van, 318 V8 (5.2 liters for you european types, 5.2 litres for you Brits) and wanted to know how often she should change oil. She'd had the van for a couple of years, many many thousands of miles and had NEVER changed it, I told her she was due and suggested the conventional 3 months or 3,000 miles.

We changed it, when we pulled the drain plug a quart or so of thick sludge came out. With new oil and filter it started, ran normal compression, normal oil pressure and ran fine.

My girlfriend once had a 1973 Ford LTD that got an oil change only when the oil light came on, same deal, it didn't seem to hurt it?

Engines take an amazing amount of abuse.

OTOH, a young girl brought in a Pontiac Grand AM (GMs attempt to build something even cheaper and crappier than the Vega) with the oil light flashing, she was coming from LA on her way to Colorado. We drained about a cup of oil, refilled it and the engine disintegrated as she reached Albuquerque. Of course she tried to sue us and GM for using a defective oil filter....

So when I said engines take an amazing amount of abuse I didn't mean GMs 2.4 liter 4 banger....

Absolutely. It's already 60 million years old; what's another 10? :-)

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: >

My '99 does that when I don't turn the gas cap until it clicks. The check engine light stays on for a few days after I tighten it. If your gas cap was loose but you've tightened it now, and you really don't want to look at that unnerving yellow light, and you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty you can reset your "MIL" (malfunction indicator light) right away. Get in the trunk and disconnect one of the battery cables. Next press on the brake pedal for about thirty seconds. Reconnect the battery cable and you're good to go. WARNING! This deletes all your preset stations on your radio and resets the clock to

1:00. If you have the anti-theft code enabled on your radio you will have to reset that as well; there are instructions for doing this at Or you can just wait a couple days and see if it goes out on its own.

And hey, get that oil changed! If you can afford another $40, get your spark plug wires replaced - go to a Mazda dealership and insist on the blue NGK plug wires. Miata plug wires are shot after 30-40K miles, and if it's been that long since they were changed you'll notice the difference immediately. Your car will be much, much happier, and happy cars make happy drivers. My wife and son and I drove up to North Georgia in her xB last month; boy oh boy have they ever got some roads up in those hills that look like they were custom-made for driving a Miata. Funny though; the whole time I was in N. Ga. I saw not one Miata, only SUVs and pickup trucks.

Yours WDK - snipped-for-privacy@ij.net

On a similar note.... I *really* screwed up, now I'm right in the middle. I had the fuel-cap CEL thing on my '99 about two years ago, pulled main fuse long enough to reset ECU, but not lose radio presets, and light went out until a month or so ago. I did the 'backyard reset' a couple of times to no avail. Finally took it to a local indie shop where a good friend, and _great_ mechanic, works. They either reflashed ECU or pulled power- I got conflicting stories- but all was fixed. Until I got four miles down the road, and whoopie! here's the CEL. I took it back in less than good humor, only to find that it was my friend's last day there, he was going lobstering. All I found for sure was that the code it threw was a PO 7135 (or 1135? couldn' read his writing) which, I was told, was a general, generic, "Your engine has a problem." And now I'm wishing I'd driven the car a little further, and gotten a new gas cap although I think that I would have lost the 31 dollars they charged me in that case. (I.E. not applied to re-do after I take car, fiddle, and bring it back. Only fair, I guess.)

Any ideas/thoughts would be welcomed. I have extra keys, I suppose I could pick it up Sat afternoon or Sun and work on it. And this is the week I'd planned to sell it! TYIA to all for reading/thinking about this.

-Bill snipped-for-privacy@verizon.net

If it is

I only redo the gas cap if I get an of the following codes:

P0455 "Evaporative Emission Control System Leak Detected (Gross Leak)" P0456 "Evaporative Emission Control System Leak Detected (Very Small Leak)" P0457 "Evaporative Emission Control System Leak Detected (Fuel Cap Loose/Off)"

The codes you list may are not standard and are not generic. Standard codes only go to p0850 or so for ODB 2 systems.

Call your Mazda dealer and ask (they are >W. Kiernan wrote:

I had a girlfriend with an old 327 Impala that leaked oil. She understood that gas made the car go but the role of oil seemed more mysterious. So naturally she ran it dry and it threw a rod. That's when I realized there were people who were so ignorant about basic mechanics that if you told them their engines ran on little gerbils they'd probably believe you.

Carbon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.verizon.net:

I think everybody knows it's little hamsters....

I had a girlfriend who one nice summer day flooded her car, and so plugged the tank heater in because that's what you do when it won't start.

Actually overheard last week at Fleet Farm: "Honey, you can't put WD40 in a grease fitting, they don't work like that."

miker

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Thank you for the useable, "ask the mechanic *this*" type help, I'll be calling tomorrow. I'll let everybody know what happens, as this looks to be a widespread problem with no one solution...

-Bill

Patricia Go by your local Autozone and have them put a code reader on the OBD II connector and read out the code. With the code, you can then search the internet to give you an idea of what the problem is.

May be as minor as a loose gas cap, could be a plugged EGR bypass port, or could be major problems.

The code will give you an idea

Paul P

Thank you again, but my local Mazda dealer courteously told me to fork off, I'd have to come in with the car to tell me what OBD 1 code # 7135 (or 1135- writing was terrible) denotes. At, I assume, their minimum rate of 1/2 hr and 40 dollars. If anybody can tell me what those codes are, I'll send you something really nice if you like music. (If you don't, I'll think of something else!)

TYIA

-Bill

(Oh yeah, if anybody knows how much they are charging for the cruise control transister TSB they have out, I'd love to hear it. Hmm, wonder if that code is related?) Anyway, seems like it should be a recall, with the cruise control basically accelerating the car on its own. Sounds pretty dangerous. If it was my Rex Sty, you'd change radio stations, look back up, and be going 125mph fer chrissakes...Anyway, thanks again to anybody who can help me.

snipped-for-privacy@verizon.net

On my '98, the 1135 code means the front O2 sensor ~heater~ has gone open circuit. I had this happen, and replaced the sensor with a generic version (required splicing leads) as the dealer didn't feel this was covered under the emissions warranty. The generic was cheap enough and the install simple enough that it wasn't worth arguing.

Post mortem on the sensor showed that the connection to the heater element had broken off at the braze. I think it's a manufacturing defect...

What kind of music???