Engine Warning Light And Battery

[zoom jones]

Hi,

The engine warning light in our Rav came on today. Now the previous owner said that this had happened before and he took it to a garage to turn it off stating nothing was wrong. I know the warning light is a fickle thing so I wasn't too worried about it exploding.

Realise I need to get an ODBII hooked up to actually see if there is a problem but thought I would try disconnecting the Battery for a while first. So I disconnected the Battery, intended to leave it disconnected for 10mins or so and things started beeping. I can only assume it was the alarm about to go off. Re-connected the Battery, jumped in the car and everything is A'ok. No warning light.

So, questions are.. for future reference is their a way/sequence of changing the battery without deafening the neighbours. I'm thinking ahead here for when changing the stereo over etc. Secondly, I'm guessing the engine warning light is going to re-appear at some point so is it worth buying an ODBII device to check the error code? I'd love the Scangauge but think something cheaper will suffice for now.

[bothwell_buyer]

Were you standing in a bucket of water at the time of disconnection to avoid static charge damaging the PCB?

[zoom jones]

Anti-static wristband on. Don't want a Battery explosion.

[bothwell_buyer]

Anti-static wristband on. Don't want a battery explosion.

Well done - a chap in the know!

You're lucky you have OBD capability - when I looked at the electrics on my landrover, the dashboard fell off!!! And keeping the glowplugs on for more than 4 seconds results in the dashboard smoking?!?!

[anchorman]

Don't worry about the bleeping it stops after a few seconds - without the alarm going off.

I have one of these which comes for less than £30 but your vehicle is right on the changeover date so it is a bit of a gamble;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LATEST-UNIVERSAL-CAR...id=p3286.c0.m14

You can get the codes by manual means so bear with me and I will do a maintenance tip as it keeps coming up.

Your DTC code is probably a Lambda sensor warning (please add VVTi or D4D to your profile) as they tend to stray out of range from time to time. Don't worry too much unless it does it regularly.

Cheers

[Hoovie]

Looking at Zooms avatar, I am guessing a VVT-i, which also means he should have a OBDII standard connector available I believe