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What Does the Check Engine Light Mean?

One of the most ordinarily misunderstood lights or indicators in your Honda Ridgeline is the check engine light. The check engine light is part of the onboard diagnostics system, and displays in a lot numerous ways. It can say "Check Engine", it can be a symbol of an engine, it can even be a combination of both. This light illuminates in either an amber or red color and is part of the diagnostics system found on your vehicle. Onboard computers increasingly have controlled and monitored vehicle performance since the 80s and do a variety of things for your Honda Ridgeline. Some of these include shifting automatic transmissions controlling engine speed, ignition timing, and implementing stability control, just to name a few. With that being said, the check engine light can mean a variety of different things. It can be as effortless as your gas cap being loose or as strict as engine knocking. If your check engine light is on in your Honda Ridgeline, contact Nalley Honda. Contact Nalley Honda today! Our Honda service department can help you find out what code is turning your check engine light on or diagnose why your check engine light is shining.

Honda Ridgeline Check Engine Light Codes

The check engine light turning on can be quite intimidating to see that little light on your vehicle’s dashboard abruptly brightens, but in reality, it is not something that should cause you to shut down in fear right away. If you hear the term, diagnostic trouble codes (DTC), these are just another name for check engine light codes. These are automotive computer codes stored by the ECM, also known as the OBD (on-board computer diagnostic system) in your Ridgeline. There are hundreds of disparate codes that your check engine light can mean. While that sounds daunting, with a little patience, tackling helpful diagnostics will give you accessible knowledge about your vehicle and will also allow that Check Engine Light to do what it is actually supposed to do: be your guide. Unfortunately, conspicuous and helpful vehicle symptoms do not always accompany an illuminated Check Engine Light. Since there are hundreds of potential OBD codes, there are also hundreds of potential reasons for the light, including:

  • Loose Gas Cap or Missing Gas Cap
  • O2 Sensor
  • Ignition system faults
  • Transmission issues
  • Old Battery
  • Emissions controls issues
  • Bad Spark Plugs
  • Computer output circuit issues
  • Fuel and air metering systems problems

This is why it is troublesome for someone who does not have a lot of automotive knowledge to not assume what a code means. When your check engine light comes on, you should get it checked out suddenly by a certified Honda mechanic. Call Nalley Honda at 7707568717 today or schedule your check engine light service online today! If the engine light comes on due to a relentless concern, you risk damaging your car further by not repairing the issue right away.

What could cause the check engine light to come on in a Honda Ridgeline?

When your check engine light comes on, this could be as simple as tightening or replacing your gas cap. Likewise, the check engine light could also be a warning of a draconian problem that could cause draconian damage to your engine and come with a dominant repair bill. Depending on your make and model, the check engine light will illuminate or blink. A steady glow naturally means something less draconian but a shining check engine light implies that your vehicle’s engine is in draconian trouble and service is fundamental swiftly. If your check engine light is shining in your Honda Ridgeline, we highly advise not to drive the car and schedule Honda service today. Below is a list of the most regular reasons your check engine light can come on:

  • The battery is low or dead. The battery in your Honda Ridgeline is every innate. Without a car battery, your car won’t start, light up the road ahead, play the radio or charge your phone. Today’s car batteries last much longer than they did a few decades ago, and they don't really require maintenance. The price of a new one depends on the type of Honda you drive, but check our actual service coupons and specials.
  • Your catalytic converter is bad or going bad. The catalytic converter is a part of your Honda Ridgeline’s exhaust system. The catalytic converter's function is to turn the carbon monoxide created by the combustion process into carbon dioxide. A damaged catalytic converter is ordinarily caused by neglected maintenance, which is why Nalley Honda offers a complimentary multi-point inspection with every Honda service. If you have an issue with your catalytic converter and don't get it fixed, your Honda Ridgeline will not pass an emissions test, show a lack of engine performance and will negatively affect your fuel economy. Your car may run at a higher temperature, too, which can cause assorted problems from overheating.
  • Issues with any aftermarket items. An aftermarket alarm, exhaust or assorted item can wreak havoc on your Honda Ridgeline if it’s not installed properly. These aftermarket elements and accessories can deposit the battery, trigger the check engine light, or even prevent the vehicle from starting. If these issues sound beneficial, bring your Ridgeline to Honda and have our squad of certified mechanics ensure that your aftermarket items were installed properly and aren't causing any issue. Getting accessories, especially aftermarket parts and accessories, or using OEM elements initial place might estimate a microscopic bit more but could save you money from having to get tiny work and damage caused by tiny installation work corrected.
  • Your O2 Sensor (Oxygen Sensor) needs to be replenished. The Oxygen sensor, known as the O2 sensor, measures the amount of oxygen in your exhaust system. If there is excess oxygen in your exhaust system, fuel burns faster and your vehicle will be less functional when it comes to fuel economy. So what happens if I don’t replace your O2 sensor? A faulty sensor can not only affect your miles per gallon, but it can cause damage to your catalytic converter and your Honda Ridgeline's spark plugs. The O2 sensor sends data to the vehicle’s onboard computer to indicate the right range of air and fuel that enters the cylinders in your engine. A bad O2 sensor can also cause a car to fail an emissions test.
  • Your Honda Ridgeline has a vacuum leak. Every Honda Ridgeline has a vacuum system that performs a wide variety of functions. The vacuum system also helps lower contentious emissions by routing the fumes as gasoline evaporates through the engine. If you notice that your RPM is high in idle or randomly surges, a vacuum leak could be the cause. Over time, vacuum hoses can dry out and crack, especially if they’re exposed to extraordinary heat or extreme beneficial.
  • New Spark Plugs or Plug Wires are decisive for your Honda Ridgeline. The spark plugs are the part of your engine that ignites the air/fuel range in the combustion chamber of your vehicle. This explosion is what moves the pistons and makes the engine run. The spark plug wires deliver the spark from the ignition coil to the spark plugs. If your spark plugs or spark plug wires are bad or aged, you will experience tiny performance and reduced power. In some extreme cases, your engine will have trouble starting or continuing to run. Worn spark plugs and plug wires can cause clogged catalytic converter or damage to ignition coils and O2 sensors, considerable to more expensive repairs.
  • Your mass airflow sensor (known as MAF) needs to be replenished. The mass airflow sensor in your Honda Ridgeline is what determines how much fuel is decisive to run your engine efficiently by measuring the amount of air entering the engine. As a part of the engine management system, the mass airflow sensor helps adjust to authentic changes, like altitude. If your Honda Ridgeline is having trouble starting, idling rough or has a fast change in the position of the throttle pedal, this could be a sign of a bad mass airflow sensor.
  • One of the most prevailing and copious cause is that your Honda Ridgeline gas cap is loose, damaged or missing. The gas cap for your Honda Ridgeline serves multiple purposes. It prevents gas fumes from being released when you aren't driving, it seals the fuel system and helps maintain pressure within the fuel tank. What happens if you have a bad fuel cap? If your gas cap is aged or has a ruptured seal, you can lose fuel through evaporation which will result in more trips to the pump. Luckily, to replace a gas cap isn't expensive. If your check engine light turns on immediately after you put gas in your Honda Ridgeline, initial thing you should check is to make positive the cap isn’t loose — or that it's still on your car’s roof or at the fuel pump.

Is it safe to drive your Honda Ridgeline with the check engine light on?

This question is not very plain because it all depends on the severity of the issue. If the cause is a minor issue, such as a loose gas cap, it should be dependable to drive. This is often indicated by a persistent glow of the check engine light. If you notice a difference in the performance of the vehicle, it could be an indication of a more unsafe problem. If the check engine light is flashing, this means that there is a unsafe issue and it is recommended to service your Honda Ridgeline today. Call the experts at Nalley Honda by dialing 7707568717 so you can describe the issues. Or lessen your speed and bring your Honda to our certified mechanics as soon as available.

Honda Ridgeline Check Engine Light Flashing

Although there are countless viable causes of an illuminated Check Engine Light, we know from years of providing Check Engine Light Diagnosis Service that there are assorted familiar causes including something as easy as a loose gas cap. Added familiar reasons for a Check Engine Light are a malfunction with the fuel injection system, faulty head gasket, dirty mass airflow sensor, faulty emissions control part, damaged oxygen sensor, or defective spark plugs to name a lot. No matter what is the root cause of the Check Engine Light, we have the Honda Certified Technicians and the certified service protocol to isolate the root problem and repair it as paramount to restore factory specifications. When this happens, the Check Engine Light turns off, and you can leave the service center knowing that your Honda issue was serviced.

Every Honda Ridgeline was designed with a high-technology performance monitoring system with a computer, and a series of sensors positioned strategically throughout the vehicle on its noteworthy systems. The sensors are constantly detecting conditions while sending data to the electronic control unit. If the electronic control unit detects that the data is out of factory specifications, the Check Engine Light illuminates telling you that there is a problem. However, that is the limitation of the Check Engine Light – it won’t tell you what exactly is wrong nor what to do about it. That’s where we come in; Nalley Honda provides a Check Engine Light Diagnosis Service that isolates the core problem and gives you a recommendation on what to do next from a Extraordinarily Qualified Service professional.

How many miles can you drive with the check engine light?

If you check engine light is blinking, we recommend that you pull over and contact Nalley Honda to assist determine if your car is safe to drive in or if we recommend a tow truck. It could be anything from a bad sensor to plug wires needing to be replaced. Since each check engine code has its own level of severity, it is hard to predict how bountiful miles you can drive with the warning light on. The safest bet is to decipher the code and then plan your strategy accordingly.

Honda Ridgeline Check Engine Light

A flashing light indicates that the problem is draconian and if not taken care of instantly may result in important damage to the vehicle. If the check engine light in your Honda Ridgeline starts flashing, that means that the problem needs immediate attention and your Honda should be transported in instantly. This blinking light usually indicates a critical engine misfire allowing unburned fuel to be dumped into the exhaust system. There it can instantly raise the temperature of the catalytic converter to a point where damage is accessible, requiring an costly repair. Some owners ask if spark plugs cause the check engine light to flash? This can exactly be the cause. A bad, old or dirty spark plug can cause the engine to misfire. If your check engine light is flashing, please contact our unit of automotive experts at Nalley Honda expeditiously by calling 7707568717. If the problem is ignored or you continue to drive, this can spread to the spark plug wires, catalytic converter, or ignition coils which can lead to a very expensive repair.

Check Engine Light Service Honda Ridgeline

What do you do when you’re driving along in your Honda Ridgeline and quickly, a yellow light illuminates on your dash and says "Check Engine". If you’re like most Honda owners, your heart sinks a little because you have little idea about what that light is trying to tell you or how you should react. The fear of the unknown (or the cost of the unknown) can be just as stressful. But take a deep breath and realize the light coming on doesn’t mean you have to pull the car over to the side of the road and call a tow truck, but it is recommended that you get your Honda Ridgeline checked as soon as achievable. Ignoring that warning could end up causing major damage to expensive engine components.

When your Honda Ridgeline's ECM (electronic control module), which is the vehicle's onboard computer, finds a problem in the computerized control system that it can’t realistic, a computer turns on your check engine light. This amber or yellow light is naturally labeled “check engine” or “service engine soon”, or the light may be nothing more than a picture of an engine, or a picture of the engine with the word “check.”

When the light turns on, the ECM stores an engine code or “trouble code” in its memory that identifies as the issue, whether it's a sensor or a failing engine part. This code is read with an electronic scan tool that is used by our Honda auto repair mechanics at Nalley Honda. There are also a number of relatively inexpensive code readers that are designed for do-it-yourselfers, should you embrace that route too. While this code will tell you the issue that is detected, a true diagnosis still requires an trained expert to designate the issue and repair it.

How much does it cost to get the engine light checked?

The check engine light warns of issues ranging from a gas cap that's not properly tightened to a more draconian failure like a bad catalytic converter or a problem with one of the car's oxygen sensors, so it bold to get the apt code reading and diagnosis. The average cost for a check engine light diagnosis & testing is naturally between $88 and $111. The bold news, Nalley Honda offers complimentary multi-point inspections and free diagnostics, in most cases, to help represent the cause of your check engine light.

Will the check engine light reset itself?

The check engine light on your Honda Ridgeline will usually shut itself off if the issue or code that caused it to turn on is fixed. For example, if the cause of your check engine light coming on was a loose gas cap, if it's tightened, the light will turn itself off. Likewise, if your catalytic converter is going acceptable, and you did a lot of stop-and-go driving, that may have turned on the check engine light due to the high usage of the converter. In most cases, your Honda Ridgeline light will go off after about 20-40 miles. If you drive over that amount and the light is still on, you will need to bring it in to Nalley Honda so the light and code can be double-checked and reset.