Never a good time when you start your car and get a Check Engine light. Right? I saw a TikTok in the past few days where someone was arguing that every time they feel good about their situation, bam!, car trouble. I would believe it except I haven’t felt good about my situation for quite a while now. Things are dire, y’all. Nobody’s hiring for my skill set. If it weren’t for the help of family I would probably be half way to homelessness. True facts.
But, damn, Check Engine. Do I have to check the engine right now? Listen, my car is old enough to rent a car (1996 Honda Accord) and I thought that thing would run forever as long as I keep the fluids topped up. OK, OK, I haven’t been keeping the fluids quite as topped up as I’d like to. That one’s on me.
Even more shamefully, though, my dad was in the car. As mentioned previously, he’s been staying with me while his living space is remodeled, and since he doesn’t drive, he asked me to run him up to the 7-11 for some cigarettes. Not a problem! He’s commented in amazement that my car continues to run at all and I’ve laughed it off, knowing that it’s probably on its last legs, and hiding how nervous I am about driving it. Don’t worry, everything safety-wise and legal-wise works and is paid for, and I’m not a danger to anyone else. I just always drive with the secret fear that it’s going to leave me stranded.
Like this morning. The engine sounded fine. But there was that angry orange light on my dashboard. Check. Engine. Could be worse, it could be flashing. Flashing Check Engine lights are the highest level of alert.
Dad said to check the oil and of course, it was low. I had a quart handy but that barely brought it up to the level of the bottom of the dipstick, so I walked to the nearest car parts store and bought some more. Sadly that didn’t make that stupid light go out, so now we needed more diagnostic info. The car parts store plugged in to my car’s ODB II port and said: Oxygen Sensor issue.
We paid too much for an O2 sensor, rented the stupid special socket wrench needed to get it out, along with some WD-40 and wiper blades (it was due) and just over an hour later, a brand-new O2 sensor was installed. We only lost one bolt in the process, an unnecessary bolt for a shroud over the exhaust manifold (it only needed the two bolts to hold it in place, honestly.) The car parts guy said that I needed to drive it for a full cycle of about 25 miles or so, so I asked dad if he needed to go anywhere else. I ran him around town for his errands, we stopped at Kay’s for happy hour and burgers, and got back home.
Again, let me stress: the engine is running fine. No stalling or racing, no weird sounds or smells. Just normal engine running. Hopefully nothing is catastrophically breaking under the hood. But that orange Check Engine light is still on.
Tomorrow morning we’re gonna try replacing the air filter (that’s another potential cause of the error code we got) and if that fails, unplug the battery to reset the computer and clear the code.
I’m sure it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just as fine today as it was yesterday before that dumb light came on. I’m almost positive.