Car maintenance

There has been several things I’ve learned through the years mostly from mechanics-my own or that of my family-things we should be doing to help our vehicles last longer.

My nineteen year old daughter has learned that when the engine light goes on, the owner should get that checked out right away.

When the light is on, your mechanic can put a computer onto a specific place on your car (I don’t happen to know where that is) and the computer will specify what is wrong with the car.

One thing we have learned is that if the light is on for a while and off for a while, there is no point in taking it in if the light is off, for the computer will not read what is wrong-for it can’t-until the light is on again. Depending on what the problem might be, it could be days before the light goes on again.

Why is it that it goes on, or something goes wrong with the vehicles when there is not much time to get it fixed, or the money is tight? It doesn’t seem to have problems when you take a day off to get the car worked on.

Currently we have a situation going on with our car where the light has been on for months, but what needs to be fixed is a speed sensor and it isn’t causing any problems yet. The problem is there are other things affecting the car and it’s hard to tell whether it’s something that would show up on the computer since the engine light is on already.

I’m about ready to say let’s just fix the sensor, the only thing is that it’s not affecting the car adversely yet and it could cost between one hundred and three hundred dollars depending on how easily the wiring comes out of the steering column. Also we need to do something with our muffler which is getting louder every week, don’t need a ticket for something like that.

So when the engine light goes on, make an appointment as quickly as you can with your mechanic. If at all possible drive the car right over to their shop so they can check to see what the problem is; from there is can be determined whether it should be fixed immediately or not.