Check engine light

I bought brand new a '99 Chrysler Concorde with a 3.2 engine and have faithfully had it serviced as required, oil changes between 3000-4000 miles etc. Around 90,000 the check engine light came on for no apparent reason. My dealer knew me and said it was probably an over sensitive emission sensor and just to unhook the battery to reset it. Iit came back on a few times then it finally stayed off. Car ran fine before, during, and after.

Today the car has 205,000 miles and has continued to be serviced as needed. I can still get 31 mpg. The check engine light came on this week for no apparent reason. Car is running fine with no indication of any problem, fluid levels are fine etc. Resetting it as before.

Does anyone have a past experience to share? It's been a great running low maintenance car straight off the dealers lot.

Thx

 

Bring this vehicle to a Autozone type store and have them hook up their OBD II scanner to it for free. This scanner will give you a trouble code, i.e. P0151, etc. Get this code and report back here for further troubleshooting. It may just be a faulty O2 sensor, but let's wait and see.

 

Thanks for the quick response HOT.

Just got back from AutoZone and have the printout slip from their analyzer. It says PO432. What might that mean?

 

Main Bank 2 below threshold. Basically sounds like a bad O2 sensor on bank 2. I think this sensor is aft of the catalytic coverter. If your engine is running fine, you should be ok, but, if you have state inspections, you might want to replace this O2 sensor.

 

Gotcha.

Thanks Hot.

 

My thoughts are this even if you do not have a state inspection and drive around with the light for the O2 sensor, What would happen if some more serious problem should happen? You would be used to seeing the Check engine light and a real problem might turn ugly with no way to tell it is there because the light is already on.

 

Thanks for your thoughts Michael Van.

As per the original post this vehicle has always had service as needed. Again, resetting the indicator allows normal operation with no indicator on. If it would continue to come on I would take it in for the next step of maintenance-as has been my practice. Until then I would hardly use the vehicle with the indicator light on chancing it masked another problem. I know some may do this but in our case we identify there is precious cargo behind the wheel.