Gentlemen, Check Your Engines

My vehicle, like most on the road these days, has an array of lights and symbols that tell me something’s wrong or about to go wrong. The old lights that tell me the oil pressure’s too low or that the engine is heating up to the melting point are still there but I also have lights that tell me I didn’t close a door or the hatch all the way. The vehicle assumes that I, and apparently anyone else, can’t decipher the intricacies of the gas gauge so it tells me when I’m low on fuel. It also tells me when the anti-lock brakes aren’t working, when the turn signals are fritzed and when I’m low on window washer bug juice. There are a couple of lights that are trying to tell me something’s wrong but I don’t know what they mean and it really hasn’t seemed to matter. All of these lights come on with an electronic ‘ding’ sound to ensure I take my eyes off the road, ignore traffic and get blood pressure up. Good things to do in 60 mph rush hour.

The most annoying light is the one that says ‘Check Engine.’ The first time this one came on I pulled over, popped the hood and looked. The engine was still there, still running, still sounding normal. It turns out I wasn’t the one who was supposed to check the engine. When the light comes on I’m supposed to take the van to a garage and pay the mechanic about a hundred dollars to hook my vehicle’s computer up to his computer and tell me every thing’s fine, the sensor just has to be reset. For $100 I could have reset the sensor myself with a hefty wrench.

The vehicle has a computer. It doesn’t seem that it would take much to put a scrolling display in (my telephone and fax machine have that) to tell me specifically what’s wrong with the engine. The vehicle already knows. It could say things like ‘Your Fuel Injector is about ready to crap out’ or 'Piston #3 is slapping around like a Rumba Band’ or ‘The last curb you drove over ripped off your oil pan and you’ve got about a hundred yards to go before the engine seizes up.’ For the cost of a vehicle these days, it doesn’t seem too much to ask. Until then I’m keeping a hefty wrench handy. I may have to re-set a sensor.