Coworker swore the "check engine" light is just a scam to sell sensors, and he said it with his whole chest at lunch

Hugo Taylor · 2026-10-27T02:15:05.168251+00:00

So this guy at my shared studio space, Dale, spent a solid 15 minutes at lunch telling three of us that the check engine light is a made-up thing dealers use to scare people into buying sensors they don't need. He said it with total confidence, no hedge at all, which is exactly what put it in my head for this community. Fast forward two weeks and his Tacoma died on I-90 outside Spokane, and the shop pulled a code for a misfiring cylinder plus a bad cat, about $1,400 in work. He came in the next morning real quiet and said "turns out the light meant something." The part that gets me is he works in IT and troubleshoots logs all day, so the idea that a warning light is a conspiracy is wild to me. What's the worst confidently wrong mechanical take you've heard from somebody who should honestly know better?

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Coworker swore the "check engine" light is just a scam to sell sensors, and he said it with his whole chest at lunch | Bad Takes Hall of Fame - Vivisector