code readers are so cheap and I like any excuse for buying another tool. Our P5 threw a couple check engine lights; one at around 80,000 miles for misfire, ended up being bad coil pack. Then around 110,000 miles for a bad pre-cat, which may or may not have been contributed to by the misfire. Both were pretty easy to diagnose by checking this forum and both were at pretty high miles. And both times I did basically as MMike said and the shops tend to also do, cleared the light to see if it came back on.
I was commenting to my wife the other day as I started the car that it has a ton of indicator lights on the dash. It would seem to me that they could do like a green, yellow or red warning light depending on the severity of the problem and then have the description of the 'problem' on one of the displays. Even if it were just the super basic "check engine" that showed up. But in reality I'd gladly pay $100 extra to have it show a colored light and then on the display "code ####, misfire on cylinder one"
I was commenting to my wife the other day as I started the car that it has a ton of indicator lights on the dash. It would seem to me that they could do like a green, yellow or red warning light depending on the severity of the problem and then have the description of the 'problem' on one of the displays. Even if it were just the super basic "check engine" that showed up. But in reality I'd gladly pay $100 extra to have it show a colored light and then on the display "code ####, misfire on cylinder one"
