I have a question concerning car dealerships?

Question

I have went to my second dealership in as many days and both of the cars that I looked at had check engine lights. When I told the salesman of the matter, both times, the salesman seemed not to know that there ever was a check engine light. As if its not a big deal.

Actually im happy that they left it and didnt reset it only for it to come back later after I potentially would have purchased it.

My question is are check engine lights that serious? I know it can be a loose gas cap, clogged filter, etc, but a lot of cars seem to have this check engine light.

And can a mechanic inspecting a car tell if a check eninge light has been reset prior to sell?

And why dont dealerships know alot about their cars like when timing belt was changed etc.

Sorry to bother yall, but I didnt know anything about cars until 3 months ago and now I know a lot and may be a little too paranoid when it comes to buying a car

Answer 1

Check engine lights are rarely serious.  You can have a mechanic do the diagnostic if you want to see why the car thinks the light should be on.  Most used car dealerships can only go on the word of the person that brought the car in and so just check it everything looks ok.  There's no reason to worry and most dealers will allow you to take the car to a mechanic to get checked out before you buy it.

Answer 2

One Sidebar that you need to know. On most modern cars, once you insert the key, the Check Engine Light does comes on and stays on till the Microprocessor does its Diagnostic check.

   Hence the light can stay on for as little as 5 seconds to almost full minute on older cars maybe even more. Also its a common misconception among the Sales folks that if the light is on that means you need to do Oil change.

Answer 3

Welcome to the real world.  When it comes to owning a car, you are really lucky if you can find one repair person in a million that knows what he/she is doing; and is also honest.

Answer 4

Check engine light could be ANYTHING.

Check engine light should be rename "please have the engine code scanned" light.  It by itself means nothing (other than something is wrong).  It could be loose gas cap or bad cat converter.

And if they were to reset it, the emission would fail, because the ODBii system would not read - ready.  It takes about 1 hour driving or 50 miles for the ODBii to be ready for scanning.

It used to be that check engine light meant tons $$$ for repair.  But most of the modern cars - the diagnostics is pretty straight forward for educated mechanic.   The real problem is that the repair can be few dollars or few hundred dollars.

If I was you I would get a ODBii scanner - as then can be used on many cars and it will make your life easier.

===

One of the reason why they dealers don't know when timing belt was changed is because that knowledge rarely helps in the sales.  They only try to know stuff that helps.  The rest they leave it to your imagination.

Good Luck...