by Tricia
Well, as I’ve posted before, my car’s check engine light came on and it went to the mechanic today. He said it could take a couple hours to diagnose. Understandable. But here’s the problem…
I trust this mechanic with all of my heart, but he hasn’t worked with my car model other than mine and he’s been quite frank with me about that. I have used his services before when my car had problems and sometimes it has been fixed. But, there was one problem that he couldn’t fix and it sort of went away (but then came back again).
Do I spend the money for him to diagnose it, and then find that he just doesn’t know what’s wrong and can’t fix it like before?
It is so hard because I have been taken by mechanics before and it’s not a good feeling. I just trust him so much – but I think my car is just out of his expertise.
I could go to a dealer, but the nearest one is hours away. I don’t know if I should drive that far with something wrong with my car.
Deep down, I knew that perhaps the check engine light wouldn’t be very specific. But I guess I was just really hoping that the problem would be very straight-forward and there wouldn’t be a question as to what is wrong.
With everything else going on, I just feel like shutting down for a while. I think I better so I can recoup myself.
Have a great weekend everyone 🙂
Sorry to hear about your car troubles. I am very lucky to have married a gear head. My hubby knows everything there is to know about almost every car. He is actaully a manager of Kauffman Tire. They sell tires do services to your car and what not.
I don’t know what to tell you about your check engine light. It could be somethigng simple like a wire or soemthing needs to be change or it could be something serious. I don’t know if I would take it to a dealership. They will charge you more than a regular mechanic would. Maybe you could ask for another mechanic to look at it. Two heads are better then one. Although I will say this sometimes taking it to the dealer is the best thing b/c they should know those cars inside and out. Something happened to my Corvette a few months ago. we didn’t take any chances and we took it up to the dealer. Thankfully it wasn’t anything bad. I just ran over something and it knock the tranmission out of gear and it scared the crap out of me. But we walked out of there paying $365.
I’ve been taken for a loop by a dealer before. Just to get an oil change, recall work and to look at a noise (not fixing, just looking) cost me $356.00. I was quite upset and vowed never to go back there.
I sometimes wish my hubby was a grease monkey, but he’s not. I’ve tried to learn some, but lack the time to really learn.
I’m still thinking about what to do, but I think I will take it back to the mechanic I trust and give him a shot. I just don’t know where else to go and well, I like him alot.
Was there actually a sound that was made when it happened? Did you hit a magic number for taking your car in for servicing, like 10K miles or 60K miles? Sometimes that light comes on to remind you to go to the dealer, even when nothing is wrong.
Good luck. I hate going to any other mechanic than my dad and now that he’s retired, I neglect my car to my frequent chagrin.
mapgirl makes a good point. Sometime if you need a mileage service that light will come on.
My car has around 63K on it, and I’d say it’s probably taken us the past six months to put 3K on it. So, it’s probably not due to that.
My husband was the one who talked to our mechanic and he had some ideas of what could be wrong – but my husband forgot almost all of the details. He did remember that there were three error codes and that’s about it.
Well, it’s going in Wednesday so I guess we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to keep thinking good thoughts 🙂
A check engine light means an emissions system fault. All 1996 and later cars have standardized systems & are pretty much very similar. It doesn’t matter if you have Ford, Chevy, Honda… Although, Mercedes & BMW have a few more bells & whistles, but they’re the same too. Diagnosis shouldn’t take more than an hour & a half. This should cost you some where around $90-$120. Try to give your mechanic as many details about the situation the where the problem occured. ie. it was raining, climbing a hill, it was cold out… sometimes leaving your purse on the passenger seat will affect the airbag system. Hope this helps.