After hitting a decent size puddle of water the other day, my check gauges light started to flicker on and off. All of my gauges read normal and the light is on steady now. Where is the ground for this light? Thanks

 

are your oil pressure, temp and oltage readings normal?

 

Yep, they are normal. When the light first started to come on it was flickering as if a wire was loose. Now it is on steady.

 

Could have gotten your opti wet, it wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened. Go get the codes pulled.

- Z28Wannab

 

You could try reseting your pcm to see if the codes clear.

Z

 

The "check gauges" light has nothing to do with the PCM and isn't related to codes, so checking for codes or resetting the PCM isn't going to solve the problem.

Are you sure the serpentine belt isn't slipping?

 

Fred is right ....It has been happening on my car , and it seems that if the Volt gauge even flickers on my car the check gauges light will come on......

 

I think that my belt slipping was a very good possibility when I was driving in the rain and hit that puddle. But I have put a couple of hundred miles on the car since then, all in sunny weather and the check gauges light is still on. I haven't had time to tinker with it for the last few days. The car has just been sitting in the garage. I was thinking of just disconnecting the battery for S&G's and then checking and cleaning the couple of grounding points under the hood. At first I was going to hook up my brick of a computer and see if any codes were tripped but I did a search. Injuneer, I wouldn't think that it would be a slipping belt because the light is on now all the time. I have some belt dressing I could spray on it. Thank for all the help everyone! Hopefully I can get this thing narrowed down.

 

Not exactly. The check gages light can come on for a coolant temperature problem, a charging system problem or an oil pressure problem. So, if one of those systems has a problem, the PCM could throw a code. Therefore the first thing to check is a DTC from one of those systems.

If all the systems are ok, check the circuit that connects the small red wire from the alternator to the instrument cluster through C220. If this wire is bad, the voltage at the battery will be less than 14 volts when the engine is running and the light will be on.

If all is good and the battery is charging and the other systems are fine, the cluster is bad. But I seriously doubt a cluster problem for a "check gages" light.

 

You kinda lost me on the logic on that one.... the PCM has no interface to oil pressure. The PCM reads system voltage, but there are no codes for system voltage. And the codes for the coolant temp are related to the sensor circuit, which has nothing to do with the gauge.

Maybe you could explain what I'm missing?

 

don't worry, your not missing a thing

I think that people tend to put a little too much faith in on bored diagnostics sometimes. The check gauges light is a warning for just that. Check the gauges, one of the 3 is showing a fault. It's not an interaction with the PCM. If the PCM and SES had anything to do with the gauge cluster there would be no check gauges light. The SES would simply set a code for low voltage, oil pressure ect ect

 

Well it seems that the guide book that lists things to look at only says to look for DTC's first in those systems. BUT they don't tell you there are only codes for low or high system voltage.

The other systems (coolant) are only sensor issues.

At that point if the system voltage was low, you would visually see all types of weird things going on.

Sorry if I repeated what the last guy said. I can't read his posts.

 

Could be Idler pulley too.....Allowing too much slack in the belt....Lifted mine up while running and the Idler pulley was not really holding the belt tight....Something else to check.....