Answer My Searches

So I’ve owned a 97 Ford Ranger for about 4 years now and for the past 3 years the check engine light has been on consistently.


Sure it was annoying, but everything seemed to be running fine, gas milage was fine, so I learned how to ignore it over the years. And besides it made an interesting conversation starter for guests in the truck.
That is starting conversations about how little I care about my truck and how one time I parked between two cars one of which was in between two spaces and then climbed out my window to get out … you wouldn’t do that with a new car! .. ah I love telling that story, I’m sure the double space parked guy learned his lesson!

Well, the curiousity of what that little light was telling me finally got the better of me and I decided to figure out what was going on.

So I set off on an internet searching quest to solve my problem. I wanted to figure out what my check engine light was telling me and hopefully find a cheap way to fix it, or at the very least, get the light to turn off.

The Three Possible Solutions I Found:
1. Disconnect battery and turn on headlights (to fully drain the battery).
Sounds like a good thing to try but it wouldn’t work for me because my battery terminals have turned into some kind of white powder and I’d never get the battery back connected again if I disconnected them. And besides, I wouldn’t have any knowledge of what the problem was from this method.
2. Go to AutoZone and they will read your diagnostic codes for free (and presumably reset them?).
Sounds fun, perhaps I should have tried this.
3. Buy one of the diagnostic tools advertised all over the internet and use that to read the codes and turn off the light.
This is what I decided to do. Read on for my story:

I bought the cheapest one of these diagnostic tools I could find which sold for $24.88:
OBD II CHECK ENGINE SCANNER & ERROR CODE READER
Yes, the website looked very sketchy, but the next cheapest one I could find was around $50.00. So I decided to take a chance and ordered it.
…
One Week Later:
It finally arrives!

So I rushed out to my truck to try it out. Following the instructions: I started my truck, plugged in the scanner and low and behold it flashed its name, then the error code 401, and then the check engine light on my truck was off! Amazingly everything worked just as advertised.

(By the way, the place to plug it in must be located within 3 feet of the steering wheel by law. For a 97 Ford Ranger it is about 1 foot under the steering wheel. There is a little piece of plastic that pops off.)

I looked up the error code in the instructions packet and it said it was 0401: Exhaust Gas Recirculation Flow Insufficient Detected. See my next post for more information that I looked up on that error code:
What is OBD-II Trouble CodeP0401 Exhaust Gas Recirculation Flow Insufficient Detected (EGR).

I also restarted my truck a few times and the check engine light stayed off. I’m not sure how long it will stay off.

Looks like this fellow had the exact same experience with the exact same vehicle but spent a lot more than me

[tags]check engine light, Ford Ranger, 1997 Ford Ranger, OBD II, Turn off check engine light, Emissions, EGR, 0401[/tags]