Check Engine Light Reset?

I have a 2002 Elantra GT and the check engine light has come on a couple of
times. Both times were because the gas cap was supposedly not screwed on
tight enough. The problem is that if you go tighten it the light will take
a few days before it goes out. Is there some way of getting the light to
reset immediately?

 

Simple. Disconnect the car battery for a minute or so.

 

Bad idea. When you disconnect battery you'll wipe-out computer memory. So
when you plug it in again, your car will run like crap, until ECU re-learns
all over again.

AD

 

Put a few cents worth of gas into the vehicle. Make certain the engine is off,
and than tighten the gas cap a few clicks. light should go out in a day or
two.

Geo

 

Well now I don't know what to believe ? ! ?
My auto electrician told me 3 months ago the memory does NOT get erased if
the battery
gets disconnected.
After he allegedly fixed my car (for $100 more than another quote I had) it
was running like crap.
I found the timing was way out and went back to him for adjustment(which I
had to explain how to do).
After that the idle was all over the place when you put the trans in Park.
Disconnected battery out for a 14 hour charge.
Put it back in fully charged and now the erratic idle speed is fixed and all
is now purrrfect.
To me it seems like the memory has been reset.

Who do we believe ?? He is a fully qualified auto electrician and has a 5
star rating from
the Auto Association as an approved repairer.

Boozo.

 

The computer gets to "learn" new idle and other data after disconnecting the
battery. Best thing is to allow it to idle for a minute in neutral and then
in drive before driving off. If you don't do that it will just take a
little longer to self-adjust. Your mechanic is either too young or too old
to know that, it seems.

 

Husband filled up car & thunderstorm hit so he didn't tighten the cap.
Sure enough the check engine light came on. Next day I stopped at a
gas station & put $1.91 of gas in it, tightened the cap 10 clicks,
started the car & the light was OUT!

 

I have to do at least 10 clicks and Elantra caps make a noise well
above most. My dealer's service dept., must be flawed, I went for a
few weeks with the problem after explaining it to them. They said
bring it in. One dude worked on the car for service that could barely
speak English let alone read anything. I'm not impressed at all with
Hyundai's service departments and I used 2 different dealers for
unsolved problems. From now on it's only private service centers
unless it's warranty related.