Stupid Check Engine Lights

DECEMBER 9, 2006

ROANOKE, VA-    The “CHECK ENGINE” light in my car came on the other night while driving home from Virginia.

It’s funny how worried you get when the engine light first comes on. You start praying to the freeway Gods to make your engine light go back off. “Please don’t let me be stranded on the side of Interstate-81 at 2 a.m.” you say to yourself.

You cut the radio down to listen to the engine. You try to see if anything feels different about the way the car is handling.

You might even slow down a little. Rather than risk a late night break down on the side of the freeway I did the usual, which is head to a ‘Flying J’ Truck Stop to sleep for the night.  If I’m having engine problems the first goal is to get the car home, but only by driving during the day. This way if the car breaks down it’s during the day when a repair shop is open and the roadside rapists have gone to sleep.

Well on the way to the truck stop something even scarier happened…the light cut off.

   The only thing scarier than a “CHECK ENGINE” light coming on is for it to come on and then go off an hour later. Because now you’re STILL wondering what the hell caused the light to come on in the first place. Now I was even MORE scared to drive home even though my prayers to the freeway gods had actually been answered.

It’s kind of like when you KNOW that a woman is pissed at you about something.
You don’t know exactly what it is she’s mad about but the “CHECK RELATIONSHIP” light is clearly on and then the next morning she says “Oh that was nothing”,  “I thought I was mad at you but never mind”, or “I was mad at you but I got over it.”  

She never tells you what got her light to come on in the first place. And you spend the next 2 days paranoid trying to “hook your relationship up to a computer” to make sure everything is running smoothly.

One of my married friends is going through that right now. He can’t come to my “Celebration of the C-Section”  on Monday because his wife is acting all weird on him about something. She’s giving him the silent treatment and he doesn’t know what the issue is about. He keeps asking, and all she’ll say is “nothing”.

But in this case I’m sure that nothing translates to “You know what you did”  or “You know why I’m mad.”  Why do women do this?  I find it hilarious that women collectively think that we men are stupid and the inferior gender but the moment ya’ll get mad at us we’re expected to be psychics.

    If that’s what every day of marriage is like then count me out. I suck at playing “Guess why I’m mad at you” and it’s a game that I never want to get good at.

 And the car is no different than a pissed off woman, it wont tell you EXACTLY what’s wrong. It’ll only tell you that something isn’t right.  Look at the light on my dash, it’s a little orange engine. That doesn’t tell me anything specific.

According to my owner’s manual this light could mean, Engine problems, transmission problems, timing belt, air in the fuel line, or Exhaust issues.

That doesn’t exactly narrow things down now does it? This week same thing. I’m renting a Nissan Murano. Nice little SUV. Less than 20 minutes into the car a light comes on...

An exclamation point. What part of the car does an exclamation point represent? The car’s feelings? Is the Nissan mad at me? Look at how nice the dash is in this car, look at all this high tech touch screen crap...

Well surely with this nice ass dash board screen this Nissan should be able to tell me what the exclamation point means right? Wrong.

This car can tell me my fuel economy up to the minute. Miles per gallon, miles until empty, Inside temperature of the car, outside temperature, dual climate control, it even has sensors that measure the viscosity of the motor oil to tell me when its time for an oil change but this flat panel screen can’t tell me what the hell that exclamation point means?

And don’t tell me that car manufactuers can’t do this because I rented a Chevy Impala and this is the display that came up…

 You see the beauty of that. The car told me EXACTLY what’s wrong. No pictures of an engine, no exclamation points, just short simple and to the point.. “CHECK TRANSMISSION”. At least with this amount of data I can now decide whether or not to continue driving the car. Having a car tell me what the specific problem is far better than a car that just shows me a symbol.

What if cars did that? What if cars did the same thing women do….

 

You’d be pissed and you’d write Chevrolet some hate mail.

 I took a cab to the airport while in Vegas and I saw something even MORE scary. There’s only one thing worse than having one engine light on…two. 

 If you’ll notice this man has TWO Engine Lights on. Also not pictured is the jumpy engine temp needle as well as the broken fuel gauge.

People talk about the definition of trust, well true trust is riding with someone  that has a broken fuel gauge. You’re trusting that they have a mental “Nissan fuel economy screen” in the back of their head.

And then when you inquire about their fuel situation they have the nerve to be offended that you don't trust them.  

That Nissan 'Fuel Economy' screen could come in handy right about now.

 The difference between your personal vehicle and a rental car is that when the engine light comes on in the rental is that you don’t give a damn.  I drove that Chevy Impala with the “Check Transmission light” on for a week straight. And I’m going to push this Nissan with the exclamation point all weekend as if nothing is wrong. It’s easy to do this because I don’t have a long term commitment to this car.

 I guess the relationship equivalent to this would be your wife getting mad at you about something vs. a booty call getting mad at you about something. Whose concerns are you going to take more seriously? The wife of course. Not the girl you're having sex with on the side.

So I guess the fact that my buddy cares enough about his 'CHECK RELATIONSHIP' light to not come 'Celebrate the C-Section' with me means that he cares about his wife.

Wood, Jr.