What does it mean when the car’s Check
Engine light comes on? One of our cars is an aging Subaru, so this is a
commonly asked question in our house. Even the skilled mechanics at our garage
seem uncertain about the cause. “It could be about 300 different things,” they
tell me as they hook up their diagnostics. After running the car through their
scanner, sometimes they still can’t identify the cause. If nothing shows up as
a problem, they simply turn off the light. Maybe it will stay off for a while,
but there’s also a chance that it’ll come back on before I pull into our
driveway.