check engine light

while driving my car all arond town today, my check engine lite came on and stayed on. i made three stops and each time i started the car the lite came on within 45 seconds and stayed on until i shut the car off. i went to work and when i started the car, no check engine lite at all and drove 30 minutes home with no problems. i forgot to mention, when the lite was on all afternoon, the car ran ok with no noticable problem other than the lite. has anyone experienced this or have any explaination as to what could have been the problem or lack of now? thanks for your responses to my posts. art

$25 and you'll know what's wrong

I have the 94SC 5sp...

When the light comes on and stays on, it could be any number of things. You need to get a code reader. Walmart has them for about $25 but you can get them at any auto parts store too. Look at the box to make sure it is compatable with your year, engine, etc.

maybe try some injector cleaner or give it a tune up colder heat range sparkplugs, wires, air filter ,fuel filter pcv valve pcv must be for sc they say, if light keeps coming on get a code reader or autozone may read them for you to see if theres a bad sensor

or if you want to be cheap like me you can use a voltmeter (old needle ones work bettter but digital ones also work) in your front left (passenger side) right behind the ARC (the black plastic coverint the top of the shock) there is a EEC test and an ARC test place - you have to make a wire that goes from one pin to the other, putting the computer in test mode - I don't have the pin #'s in front of me - if you have a shop manual it has them in there or someone I'm sure on here can tell you what pins or show you a diagram... then you put a wire from the positive on your engine then I think another one gets a ground and put your volt meter on 2 pins (sorry for the vague procedure its been awhile since I did it my mind's kinda hazy) and it will give you votage jumpsso if it would do one jump, pause, one jump, then pause for like 5 seconds then repeat the same thing that would be a code 11 wich means pass and everything's ok. Or you could put a resistor in with an LED and instead of the voltmeter, it will blink eact time voltage goes through the wires - that's essentally what a code reader does, but you have a connector on it so its alot less hassle... or like Rlong says autozone has one - and they do it for free - the autozoone where I live happens to have a bunch of idoits who work there (no offence to autozone workers) god I hate York...

I was cheap too until...

I was cheap like Bacondoggy too and used the voltmeter method for years. Then, I had a problem with my ABS system. The code reader I got from Walmart reads codes from both the engine and ABS computers. Also, it's easier to wipe out the codes in memory with the reader. It's a good investment....IMO.