Do I or don't I?

[Mooch]

I'm in a quandry here and need some advise.

I have a 2005 Toyota Matrix XR. About a week and a half ago, I noticed the check engine light came on. I was a little taken aback being that Toyotas are known for their reliability, plus my car only has 11,000 miles on it thus far.

I called the dealership and she asked if the oil had been changed lately. She explained that a lot of time taking a Toyota elsewhere, there is a vaccuum hose that they disconnect accidentally. Well, I checked it out. It was fine. HOWEVER, when checking the air filter and lifting it up, I discovered 2 acorns! I took them out but the light stayed on. I called the dealership back and she suspects that a squirell used my Matrix to store his winter feast, and that it might have chewed up some wires. So we scheduled an appointment for this Tuesday.

In the mean time I called my insurance company to see if this would be covered if indeed it was a squirell causing the problem. Luckily it is covered. They are sending out a claims adjuster to look at the car Monday. (What they plan to look at is beyond me)

Well, all of a sudden the light went off. This was about 5 days after making the appointment.

So, I don't know if I should keep the appointment or not. Because if it wasn't the squirell causing this then I'll have to pay for the visit. But in the mean time I still question why the light came on in the first place.

The only other thing that could even remotley be connected with the light coming on was using an octane booster in the fuel tank on the last fill up. Since that fill up, I filled up once more after nearing empty and I am now just about half way done with this tank. So that would almost seem like the stuff I put in the tank may have caused it and it's just getting it out of its system? I tried this stuff because the mileage has been a bit less than usual the past few times. But I had noticed with the weather getting cooler the exhaust seemed a bit much and the engine idled a bit more roughly than usual. This was while the tank still had the booster in it.

I have never had issues with these boosters before. Could it possibly be because of that? Should I keep the appointment and bite the bullet on the cost?

Help!!

[mistamatrix]

A squirrel couldn't possibly get all the way in the airbox.

The CEL also seems to get fussy if your gas cap isn't on properly and the CEL will go away.

[monkeyracing]

Keep the appointment. The trouble codes will be stored, and the service dept. will be able to pull them. At they very least you'll have an idea of what happened.

Good point about the gas cap, mistamatrix.

As for octane boosters...don't bother. They are garbage. The boost in octane they provide is so minimal, that it's inconsequential.

EG: If a can of octane boost claims a "10 point gain in octance ratings" what that translates to is that if you have 10 gallons of 91 octane fuel, and you dump in this $6.99 can of stuff, you will then have an octane rating of 92. Wow! One whole ACTUAL octane point!

What they don't tell you is that they measure BASE points for octane, rather than whole points, and their "research" is badly skewed.

BTW: there's a good article on "octane boosters" in this months Car Craft magazine.

Jim

[joemaniaci]

For future reference though, if squirrels do get in your car again and screw something up, dump a bunch of food in there and let them make your car their home. If they chew wires itll cost a lot to fix, however, if they make your car their home and go crap everywhere your insurance company will claim your car as totaled. Before I left for iraq the first time, I accidentally left some chipotle leftovers in my car and right before I left, gophers got in my car and chewed my wiring harness' to my ecu. I knew it could be covered as a natural disaster type coverage. So I just threw more food in their and let them make my car their home. Thankfully by the time I got back, they had to total it because they couldn't allow anyone near my car since they had to consider it a biological hazard because of the hantavirus and I got an extra 3000 dollars to put in my matrix downpayment.