exhaust emmissions light on. Serious or not? 1 garage says leave it,another says lots of money?

Answer 1

you dont give us the make and model of car, however if i asume that your driving a modern car it could be a number of faults but definatley can cause damage your catylic converter so i would have it in to the dealer depending on the vehicle

Answer 2

Let's assume that you actually mean "Check Engine Light is on, and the garage says that the 'code' indicates an emissions fault." The rest of this answer is based on that assumption.

First, not all codes thrown by your engine are permanent; that is, on occasion a bad batch of gas, water getting into a sensor, a loose gas cap, or some other random occurance can cause you to throw a code. For a non-critical code like this, I would reset the code and see if it recurs. If it never comes back, terrific!

Now, let's say you reset the code, and the light (and same code) happen again. This suggests you have a real problem. The question is, how serious is that problem? You could have a sensor throwing an occasional bad reading, and the cause is a catalytic convertor that's getting old -- but that won't leave you stranded somewhere. You could have a sensor picking up something going awry within the engine that's mucking with the exhaust gases -- say, burning oil -- that indicates a major engine problem looming. Or, the sensor itself might be what's going bad, and so you don't have a problem (other than the sensor.)

Without more details, I can't say which of these scenarios is the correct one, so here's some more troubleshooting info:

1. Is the car running well, or is performance and/or gas mileage getting worse? Also, is there smoke of any kind coming out of the tailpipe? If your car's performance is being impacted, you should probably get it fixed; if not, you're likely looking at something that you can safely ignore in the short term (or at least until your next smog inspection.)

2. How old is your car? Emissions-related warranties run far longer than the warranty on the rest of your car -- 10 years or 100,000 miles on the catalytic convertor is not unusual -- so you might want to find out if it's a warranty repair.

3. Have you given your car regular oil changes, and kept it in tune? A well-maintained engine of reasonable age and miles is less likely to have either a catastrophic failure looming or an age-related failure (such as the catalytic convertor); the likelihood that it's a bad sensor or some other inexpensive item is more likely.

Good luck, and remember this: if you fail your smog test, you get a pass to go have the problem fixed and get a re-test. For this reason, never have smog repairs done right away at a testing facility if you fail, no matter how much they pressure you -- you have plenty of time to get estimates for the work at other garages.

Answer 3

This could be serious!
probalbly youe engine management system is having problems...

first get the vehicle serviced properly (clean injectors and replace TDC/ EGT /Lambda sensos). is normally goes if not then either your catalyst has been damaged or the engine management system is mucked up

Answer 4

Guess it depends upon your car!

It could be that your catalytic convertor needs replacing, mine (Ford Focus 2000 model) cost around £150 (except I was lucky it was under warranty)

Answer 5

Is it a jeep? Just ignore it. Usually its something stupid like an oil change (for some reason) or the computer is screwy and needs reset.