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Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

The check engine light doesn't send a notification directly to your phone with a diagnosis of what's wrong.

They still don't have a diagnosis of what's wrong with the car. They've been told about a whole bunch of things going wrong, including battery-related stuff (which is probably why the car was prevented from driving further!). At least it does seem to be an exceptional case, I'm pretty sure we would know if it wasn't.

So, yes, car manufacturers do exactly this right now. But if you want exact details, or if you have an older MY car you can plug in your own odb-ii reader and download one of the many apps to get those details.

My car just threw a CEL and it was because I put low octane gas in. I knew this but also found this by using the handy Forscan app

It also doesn't leave you stranded. Some cars have been driven for tens of thousands of miles with this light on.

I put 60,000 miles on a Jeep with a check engine light. Also spent thousands on trying to fix it at various shops which would replace all sorts of things, to no effect, including about 5 attempts to replace a costly computer board.

Eventually had a redneck guy working out of the back of his pickup truck have a go at it. After hearing about the history he spent hours unplugging, cleaning, and replugging every single wire connection and socket. And the light stayed off.

> And the light stayed off.

Are you sure he didn't just leave that particular light unplugged?

It's a good idea, but such a ruse would be easy to catch. A properly-wired check engine light illuminates whenever accessory power is on and the engine isn't running: i.e., right before you start the car, every time you start the car.

With the right OBDII reader it does.

It also doesn’t stop you from driving the car to a mechanic or service station.

No, it doesn't send your car location to the cloud and tells it to everyone involved, true.

The diagnosis however is available for retrieval via industry standard connector - OBD2.

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