What do Check Engine Light Codes Mean?

What do check engine light codes mean? Welcome to Mercie J auto care where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, Master certified technician. First of all the check engine light is a federally mandated light that is supposed to come on anytime somethings wrong with the vehicle, that can cause emissions to be one and a half times the federal standard. So what are codes? Let me put it this way. If I was going to come to your house and I asked where you lived and you said well, I live in 85213. That would be your ZIP Code and that would give me an idea of where you live but I need a little more information than that to get to your house. So that’s kind of what check engine codes are. They give us a General idea but we need to find out a little more specific. This 2012 Dodge Caravan is a perfect example. It had a P0 302 misfire code. It was assumed that it was going to be a spark plug or a coil so they replace that, but that didn’t fix it. We ended up having a compression problem and we ended up replacing the cylinder head to do it. So the code told us number two was misfiring it, but it didn’t tell us why it was misfiring. I hope that helps you understand a little bit more about check engine light codes, and until next time safe travels and blessings to you.