Has anyone has an incicent where they have left their car sitting for several days, and then had the check engine light come on?

I recently left the car at a valet parking lot near JFK airport. When I picked the car up the engine was reving itself, the car stalled and the Engine light came on. After putting it in drive the car ran fine and still runs like a top. It runs so smooth I don't even know the car is on when I'm idling, but the Engine light is still on. I think the gas cap was not put on properly when I gassed up 3 days prior to the trip. My integra had done that to me a couple of times when I had it, but the light used to go off a few days later.

I did go right to the gas cap to find it came off easily & did not appear to be as tight as it should have been. I did see in the owner's manual that it can take up to 3 trips for the light to go off. What is "3" trips?? I only drive 5 miles or less at a time. I filled up the tank again thinking maybe the fumes built up from sitting and the heat we had while I was away, but who knows.

This morning my husband took my car to work since he has a long drive, I noticed some exhaust fumes coming out of the tail pipes, but again that may be because I only drove 1 mile in the past 3 days. K- I've gone on long enough....I did see another thread from 6/15 about the engine light but my circumstance was a little different.

Thanks for any input!!

 

May have been a random cyl misfire. My car had thrown that code and the CEL stayed on. I read the codes with a diagnostic tool and just cleared them. Your friendly Autozone or Checker will usually pull the code for you for free. Hope that helps.

 

Stop by AutoZone and have them scan the code for you. The OBDII dataport is located underneath the steering column if it's an '03, or it's located behind the storage space underneath the coin tray. Grab onto the top of the cover and pull it toward you. You should see the dataport in there, if it's an '02 and before.

Let us know the code and we'll point you in the right direction.

 

how many miles on the car?.
mine came on and it was the EGR valve.
covered by warranty