Well, went and put gas in the 99 Impreza Outback Sport today and the price of gas shocked me so much, I drove off without putting the gas cap back on!!!

 

Funny thing was, the 'check engine' lite didn't come on until I went about a 100 miles...

 

Picked up new gas cap and I'm sure that's what the problem is but how do you go about clearing that 'check engine' light?

 

Thanks,

 

UMT

hey whats up! sorry to burst your bubble but you said a 99 suby right? anyway you should post this on the new generation of subarus forum.

you will probably have to have the code cleared by the dealer unless you have a code reader kit. I think Autozone also does it now, too. Probably cheaper.

You should be able to just disconnect the battery for a few minutes... turn on the headlights or something AFTER the battery is disconnected to drain any latent energy... this should reset your ecu and make the CEL go away.. if it comes back it's probably not the gas cap.

Might want to have that looked at. If you drove 100 miles and then it set the light, then there is prolly something wrong with the system. In my experience teh computer will notice a missing fuel cap within a few minutes/miles of start up. The computer should have run an EVAP monitor several times over that milieage, and set the light a lot sooner, either that or it's not the EVAP code that got set. Unless of course you happent to drive a specific routine every day, that stays outside the conditions that the computer will run the EVAP monitor, and then suddenly at the end of that hundred miles you did something different (went in the hills, long trip ect). Either way, should prolly go down to Schucks/Checker/Kragen or Autozone, and have them pull the codes out for you, just to make sure that it's not something a little more important (O2, knock sensor, cranks sensor, ect...)

The newer systems cannot be reset if the cause is still present. They will reset on their own after a certain number of on off ignition cycles with no problems present.

as I have not had a gas cap problem, but my BMW resets just as mentioned above. It takes about six hot cold cycles, which seems to take a few days. My fuel cap gasket failed on the BMW so I found out.

as I have not had a gas cap problem, but my BMW resets just as mentioned above. It takes about six hot cold cycles, which seems to take a few days. My fuel cap gasket failed on the BMW so I found out.

 

I'm with Cookie,

 

Check the manual, if I remember right it will take a while to reset it's self.

 

I had the same thing happen but it came on a lot quicker than 100 miles.

 

The manual kinda down plays the problem which seem kind of ironic.

 

After all the light says check engine!!! ...not ignore light for a while!!!