I was out and about today driving for a couple of hours. Pretty hot day (in the high 80s) but I
hadn't noticed anything strange. No lights on as you can see here:



Then I stopped to go into a store, and when I came out, I saw the engine light
stayed on instead of going out like it's meant to:



I wasn't far from home so I took it easy (low revs) and nursed it home. After I turned it off,
I tried turning it back on to see if the light would go out this time. It didn't, it stayed on. So I
pressed the Check button and got the OK on the OBD screen and on the idrive screen as
seen below. Anyone know what it might be?

 

i had that same light come on it's the increased emissions light. it didn't show up in the i-drive but stayed on until the dealership looked at the car. they ended up replacing the tank venting valve and it hasn't came back since.

 

Thanks for that. Strange it doesn't tell us in the iDrive. So would opening the fuel filler cap for a second have helped then? Was it on a hot day that it happened to you? I would expect those in Cali, Florida and Texas would get this more often.

 

Does anyone know if increased emissions is the only reason that light would come on along with no check control message?

 

I think a loose gas cap can also do that.

 

Just don't panic and immediately take it in to the dealer like many do, you could be wasting your money. Wait for at least 10 start up, drive and turn off cycles. The drive cycle must meet certain criteria such as engine temp, speed and duration. In my case, most of the time the light will reset in 3 or 4 days and stay off, indicating that it was a glitch. If the light stays on then you have actual condition that might require the dealer. If the light stays on, before taking it to the dealer you might want to find a friend with an OBDII reset tool to read the code and see if it can be reset.
My light came on last Tuesday and went out Friday. Good luck.
Bill

 

Loose gas cap? Open it and close it again then you have to drive around for like 20 miles and it will go away

 

My car has thrown an occasional code only to reset itself. The emission monitoring is very sensitive, bad gas, a misfire or an O2 sensor reading a bit out of tolerance among other things can give you a hiccup.

 

Thanks for the warnings not to panic. The lack of a CC message makes me think it's nothing serious. It only came on yesterday so I'll give it a few days to see if it goes off by itself. I tried the gas cap earlier today, it wasn't that.

 

Well, good news and bad news. The good news is that the light went out today. I started the car this morning and it stayed on. I stopped after about 10 minutes and was away from the car for 5 minutes. When I got back and re-started it, the light went out. I was so pleased I punched my hand up in the air and shouted yeaaah as my hand went through the sunroof breaking it's glass. OK I made that bit up but wouldn't it have been funny.

I drove around for an hour after the light went out and it stayed out all that time. The bad news is that it came back on while driving an hour after it had gone out. I made a couple of stops and both times after re-starting the engine the light stayed on again.

So I might have a loose gas cap. I currently have half a tank of gas. I wonder if filling it up to the brim (and therefore leaving no room for vapour) might make a difference.