I'm heart broken

So earlier this year, I found a great 2000 Subaru 2.5rs. It wasn't perfect, but it was rust free, which is hard to find in New England. Obvious crash damage, but fixed well enough for me. Drives straight. Used a LOT of oil. Did the head gaskets, and replaced every damn oil seal on the car. Heads were really bad, as in they were machined poorly by the previous owner, causing the their gasket job to fail miserably. I could cycle in a 4 quarts oil in the normal 3000 mile oil change interval. The soot on the tail pipe was diesel esque. 135,000 miles on it. No real surprise through this mess that the CEL was on for Cat efficiency. After all that work, its obviously using less oil, however the check engine light would return if you cleared it. I just decided to live with it for now. On my commute into work today, the CEL turned off. Awesome!!!! So, I continue my drive, thinking about, pretty proud that it cleaned itself out, and now the light is out. Perfect. .....you know where this is going right?.......so as I get closer to work, I have my doubts about the light, it certainly could have cleaned itself out. However, I'm eager to turn the car off and back on again to see if it stays out. I arrive at work, turn the car off, and then re-start. NO light at all during the process....damn it, that must mean the bulb has burned out.

Sadly I had just had the instrument cluster out replacing the lighting bulbs in the cluster.

Jeepers just a light bulb? I was waiting for the semi to back over it while you were parked getting a coffee or something.

dean1484 wrote: Jeepers just a light bulb? I was waiting for the semi to back over it while you were parked getting a coffee or something.

Anyone that owns and old subie knows that it takes a minor miracle to clear the CEL for cat efficiency.

Yep. The wife's Outback has a cel as does my '97 Impreza. You know that's the first time I've heard of a burned out cel bulb.

Buy ELM327 off Amazon. Enjoy not having a CEL in your face.

I think I'm owning a Subaru wrong. My check engine light has never been on in four years

Well except that time at the rallycross I hit a mud puddle wide open in second at full boost and from the missing snorkel bit it sucked some ( a lot ) water into the air box and got mud on the maf sensor. But that was my fault.

Tyler H wrote: Buy ELM327 off Amazon. Enjoy not having a CEL in your face.

Have one. I can turn it off at will. Can also reprogram the ecu to change the threshold.

ouchx100 wrote: I think I'm owning a Subaru wrong. My check engine light has never been on in four years Well except that time at the rallycross I hit a mud puddle wide open in second at full boost and from the missing snorkel bit it sucked some ( a lot ) water into the air box and got mud on the maf sensor. But that was my fault.

No, you are doing it right, you have a turbo'd one. That don't seem get the same cat efficiency issue as the N/A ones. My turbo legacy has 280K miles on it and no CEL. My 02 wrx race car doesn't either.

My old 97 Outback never popped on the CEL, even after I drove it home with the entire exhaust, downstream of the first cat off, due to ripping it off on a bad whoop at a rally-X.

Enjoy your time with no CEL. Maybe a good long drive cleared it?

In reply to NGTD: Nope, it's not cleared, bulb is just out. It has to illuminate as you start the car. Technically, it is an automatic fail on inspection as is.

my '95 Impreza would throw the CEL for the cat every so often … it didn't have to pass emissions test, so I would just clear it … sometimes it would return within a couple of hours, sometimes it would stay off for several months .. a new cat on a hail and wreck damaged 250,000 mi Impreza wasn't smart economically … so all I ever did was clear and go … I think the cat was just old .. the car used ~ 1 qt of oil per change (twice a yr interval)