The dreaded check engine light turns on. And, it came with other flashing lights and the traction control on your vehicle (we’ll use a Toyota Prado 2012 for this purpose. When these lights come up, they don’t give complete information about what’s wrong with your car. Your engine may still be running even.
What do you do now? What does this warning mean?
Follow these steps if your Check Engine Light is On
- Find your OBD2 port. It should be below the steering wheel and above the pedals most of the time. This port will look like a trapezoid (or a rectangle with slopes on the side) with 16 pin ports on its face.
- Plug your Bluetooth OBD2 scan tool into the OBD2 port.
- Pair the OBD2 scan tool to the device via Bluetooth.
- Make sure you downloaded an OBD2 app into your mobile phone or device (ex. Car Scanner ELM OBD2).
- Open the app and connect to your scan tool. Go to SETTINGS, then CONNECTION, click on OBD AUS, and return to the home screen and tick the CONNECT button.
It will say “Successful Connection!” if connected properly. If not, make sure you plugged in the scan tool properly and made a successful pairing. Then repeat the connection process in the app. - Click on DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODES, tick OBD2, and press READ.
- If you see a diagnostic trouble code (DTC), best thing to do is go to Google (or any search engine) and enter the DTC with the model and year of your vehicle (ex. “Toyota Prado 2012 P0102”). 80% of the time, the results should further explain the error and show you how to fix it.
- Time to fix the actual issue on your car.
- Once you’ve fixed the problem in the vehicle, go back to the app and clear the error code.
To do this, press CLEAR on the bottom of the DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODES page. Click on “Clear only found DTC” and then “OK” on the next message. You will know that the process is complete when the DTC CLEARING COMPLETED prompt appears. Press “OK”. - You’re done. The flashing warning lights on your dash should disappear. Start the engine to see if the Check Engine Light is really turned from on to off. You can also perform another DTC scan using the app just to be sure.
You’re all done and dusted!
But if you still have your check engine light still on or have trouble with your DTCs, feel free to contact our support team here.