Rep Power: 0

ok, so yesterday my CEL light came on. I had gotten gas earlier in the day, but had driven a good 45 miles since then. Making the assumption that i just didnt tighten my gas-cap, i did so, then pulled the ECU fuse for a couple of minutes when i got home.

This morning, started the car and no CEL, drive for about 5 minutes, and it came back on Ive been driving all day today *a good 55-65 miles* and its still on. So i took it to Autozone to have them do a code-scan on it.

They go out to my car, the guy hooksup the scanner,..and nothing...he said it wouldnt read it or anything....wtf? I took an engine performance analysis class last semester, and my teacher talked about how then new thing will be CAN *i dont remember what it stands for* and that some manufacturers have intigrated it into some of there cars, but all cars will have it in 06.

so my question is, do our 04 civic use CAN?
and does this mean ill have to take it to a higher-up shop and pay them $80 JUST to tell me what it is

 
Rep Power: 303

no no and no. your car is OBDII and they guy is a moron and his scanner doesnt work. take it to a smarter better mechanic to scan. if its something that you need them to fix they shouldnt charge you a dime. if they dont fix it they might charge you a few bucks. but it shoudl only take them 5-10 minutes to check

 
Rep Power: 453

CAN stands for controller area network. I have no idea if the newer civics use it, but it doesnt take the place of OBDII. CAN and OBDII are 2 seperate things. the can network basically uses a 2 wires which are both redundant signals and it allows all control modules in the vehicle to communicate with each other and to share the same sensors. For instance if the transmission control module and the ECU both need a coolant temp input, instead of each module having a seperate coolant sensor, one coolant sensor will send its signal on the CAN network to each control module. this reduces added wiring in the vehicle and weight.

Now OBDII is required by law in every car. Even cars that cost $500,000 have to have OBDII, You should have a 16 pin connector in the botom of the drivers side area. Now I have also seen this on some lexus and what not where a generic scanner wont read the vehicles codes. It may be that only the dealership can read them. that I am not completely sure about.

 
Rep Power: 0

at this point im trying to avoid going to the dealership cause im running cat-less - but at the same time, i dont want to pay goodyear/firestone/lambs $80 JUST to tell me what the problem is

ill try a different autozone
hey - my best friend lives in sugarland i was down there a few weeks ago

 
Rep Power: 0

so to a shop that knows what their doing, people at those places dont know anything, i tried to work at one once and they wouldnt hire me cause they told me i knew to much about cars and they would have to pay me to much, i would of worked for for what they offered me just for discount, anyway, they only hire people they think will learn from them, and they are all OBDII