The check engine light started coming on a month or two after I purchased the car from someone else. At the time of the purchase, the car ran very nicely, no power problems or even any minor issues (except paint, but it's not bad).
When the check engine light came on, there was no noticeable performance problems. After reading newsgroups and the manual, it seems like the Oxygen Sensor is to blame... so I waited. After a month or two with the check engine light on, problems began to grow with the engine... specifically loss of power when climbing hills and when accelerating. It feels like a compression problem.
Right now it's in the shop, and they want to charge me $70 just to have their computer talk to the car's computer. I'll update after I find out more, but I'm curious if anyone else had similar problems?
Note: I know it was dumb of me not to take the car in when the check engine light came on -- so comments to that end are pointless.
Maybe it is just a sensor.
The same thing happened to me after I bought mine from someone else, I had the oxygen sensor replaced right away, if you get it replaced use one that will work for all cars, not the special made part, it costs twice what the regular part does.
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