my story - how I resolved check engine light on my 05 Vibe

[j1yuan]

Just want to share my first experience with check engine light (05 Vibe). The moral of the story is that you should buy a code reader and it's quite easy to do it yourself.When I saw the check engine light, I came to this forum and read some articles. I decided that I will drive to a local AutoZone and have the code read. It's P0171. The guy printed some info on a sales slip and told me that my O2 sensor needs replacement. The price of a Bosch O2 sensor is about $130. I said thanks and I wasn't ready to buy it.Then, I read some more at this forum and Googled some more about P0171. It became clearer and clearer that this isn't a problem with O2 sensor. It's most likely the MAF sensor. As soon as I saw videos on how to clean the MAF sensor, I realized that this is exactly the problem because I remember the engine air filter compartment cover was not seated properly when I bought the car in May. I secured it right away, and I thought the exposure to dirty air had probably caused some emission or performance problems. Now I just feel stupid that I didn't know anything about MAF sensor at that time.I cleaned the MAF. Still the light wouldn't go away. I decided to search for a cheap code reader because I didn't want to go back to the AutoZone every time I have such a problem. At Amazon, I found a cheap one (Autel MaxiScan MS300, $29.95). So, I ordered one.After I got the tool, I read the code. It's still the same. Then, I erased it. Now, I don't have the check engine light and the engine works really much more smoothly than before. I am very happy! If you have P0171 code, you might want to check the repairpal.com site for more info. I really like their web page --> http://repairpal.com/OBD-II-Code-P0171-and-P0174

[Cougar Vibe]

I'm glad that worked out for you. I had a similar problem w/a '97 Grand Caravan: Kept getting an intermittent "Service Engine Soon" light, went to AutoZone & was told it was an upstream O2 sensor. And even though the Bosch O2 sensors for Dodge vans are cheap ($35/Amazon), I'm even cheaper...so I started w/the least expensive fix: New gas cap. Well the CEL reset itself and I haven't had another dash light in three months.BTW: How many miles on your Vibe when this happened?

[Salsa Guy]

Yea I went throught that with another car. It turned out to be intake mainfold gasket leaking. Yea I paid the $60 for the O2 first but it is was 12 y/o car with 165K miles.

[j1yuan]

My 05 Vibe has about 97k miles when this happened.Keep in mind that the previous owner caused this problem by not closing the air filter compartment completely. The MAF was exposed to unfiltered air (become dirty, very dirty indeed) for a while before I bought the car. The root cause of this problem is not really related to the mileage.