QuestionMy SERVICE NOW light keeps coming on. and sometimes stays on.
It cancels my cruise control when it does this. Sometimes it goes off, sometimes not. If not, I have to detach the battery terminal for 30 secs to make it disappear.
Could it be the oxygen sensor? If so, where is it?
AnswerHello,
You are dealing with a symptom and not the cause. Service soon means you can drive it until you have the opportunity to get the emission system diagnosed and repaired. Service now is much more important and means exactly what it says. It means something is seriously wrong with the system. A good example for service now would be an alternator problem, but there are many different reasons for the service now light to come on.
The O2 sensor is located in the exhaust before the catalytic converter, but as I aid, the service now light is just a symptom of possibly a hundred different things that can be wrong and you are wasting time and money working on a guess changing possibly a perfectly good O2 sensor.
This vehicle which you did not give me the year make or model needs to have a scanner hooked to the vehicles' on board diagnostic port just below the driver's side dash to determine the exact cause of the problem. Just getting the light out is not fixing the problem. Your cruise quits because it too is part of the computer system and when that light comes on, the computer is going out of loop meaning the engine is not running properly.
I would suggest never going to a dealer and finding a repair shop that can diagnose the problem with a scanner as soon as possible. With the service engine now light on, I would not count on the reliability of the engine and it could leave you stranded some place.
Good luck!
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