Where Should I Be Looking?

Yesterday I mentioned that my truck recently went over 100,000 miles. What I neglected to mention is that shortly before reaching this milestone my "Check Engine" light came on. I hate the "Check Engine" light, even if it isn't on in my car. This is because no matter the brand, year or model of the vehicle, the "Check Engine" light is pretty much universally useless. I have been a passenger in cars that are in the midst of major internal problems without the "Check Engine" light so much as flickering. I mean, my last truck was pretty much dead before the "Check Engine" light ever made its first appearance. Also, I hate how vague it is. An engine is a complicated piece of machinery - at the very least give me an area to check. You mean to tell me that for all the advances that have been made in automobiles over the last twenty years, there is no way we could come up with a more specific warning light? How about a "Check Plugs" light if it's time to change the spark plugs? In fact, I don't even need it to be that specific, but at least point me in a direction. Plus, you never know what you should expect from the simple, yellow "Check Engine" light. It could be that you just need to replace a fuse... or the entire engine could be shot. We need some type of color-coded system to tell me just how quickly I should get around to checking my engine.

Now, there is a chance that this light came on simply because I was approaching a large, round number and the on-board diagnostic system wants me to do some regularly scheduled maintenance. (I'm told that this can happen with cars, where the on-board computer requests the driver check everything over simply because of the odometer hitting a certain mileage and not because there is anything wrong with the car. However, this probably only happens in cars that have been made in the last five years and have really advanced internal computers, neither of which applies to my truck.) But, hoping that this was the case and pretending I knew what I was doing, I opened the hood and checked all the fluid levels, which all seem fine. After that I was pretty much out of ideas. Still trying to convince myself that this was simply a matter of the truck's electronics perking up, I opened up the owner's manual and checked for other reasons the "Check Engine" light could possibly come on. (Or, if they couldn't tell me how to fix what was wrong, at least tell me how to turn the light off.) Here's where I began to lose faith in the writers in charge of the Mercury Mountaineer's owner's manual.

The first reason they gave was that the vehicle could be out of fuel. Now, I've said repeatedly that I am not a 'car guy' but even I know when my car is out of gas. I don't know of a person alive who would need to go to the owner's manual to see that the gas gauge is below E. Not to mention, the gas gauge has its own special light that comes on when the fuel level gets too low - a passive-aggressive little red message that says 'Check Gage.' The next reason the "Check Engine" light may be on according to the book is that the gas cap could be loose. Now, I do not know where your gas cap is located, but as I do not put gas directly into the engine, mine is nowhere near there. In fact, it couldn't be much further away and still be on the same car. By telling me to check the engine when you mean the gas cap, you have effectively sent me in the opposite direction. You would think that the people writing the owner's manual would be aware of something like that. Lastly, they suggest that there could be either water or cheap gas in the tank. Again, not sure how I'm supposed to find out something like that by looking under the hood. Anyway, along with that last possible problem came a recommendation to start putting in better gas and driving the car around for a while, hoping to work the water out of the fuel system. So, I'm going to try that and hope in the mean time the engine doesn't fall out. Though, if it did I'm willing to bet that would be the time the "Check Engine" light would finally turn off.