Hello All,

Got 05 Equinox LT and sometimes the maintenance light comes on and will go off, never flashes. I'm pretty sure I have reset the oil light as well. I have diagnostic tester and there are no codes that I can find.

So can some tell me what this light is really for. I've google this on the web and really cant get a good answer on why this happens. Car runs great. I just replaced the head gasket on this car. Any advise would be great.

Thanks,
Eric

 

it will say in the owners manual.

 

I did take a look at that and it refers me to go to the dealership to find out more. So just seeing if anyone has going through this and if there is a common problem with it or if someone has a remedy to fix this.

 

does it come on at startup then go off?

 

The light does not come on at start up, the light will come on halfway through my drive to work. then when I get back in my car it wont light up until like maybe a week later, but it lights up same way every time.

 

Is the light you're referring to like the one pictured below?



If so, that is not a maintenance light. As you can see, that is the Service Vehicle Soon light. It should temporarily come on every time the key is turned to the RUN position during the warning light self-test. You need a more advanced code scanner to retrieve codes related to this light. Most cheap code scanners are only able to retrieve powertrain codes which only trigger your Check Engine Light.

 

Correct thats the light that I am getting. So at this point I need to take this to a shop to get that code from the cars main board and if I take this to any auto parts store they probably wont have a scanner that could pull that or any code its retained.

 

Ok the light came back on and I put on my meter to pull a code and what I think I see is $7e8:engine any idea? I goggle it and I'm not getting a clear answer.

 

What device are you using to retrieve the DTCs (Diagnostic Trouble Codes)? You're not finding much info because "$7e8:engine" is not a DTC. "$7e8" by itself would be a CAN bus address which does you no good unless you're making your own code scanner from scratch. There are four types of OBD II DTCs: Powertrain (Pxxxx - i.e. P0172), Chassis (Cxxxx), Body (Bxxxx), and Network (Uxxxx). As I said earlier, most inexpensive code scanners can only retrieve Powertrain codes.

 

the hexi decimal format your are getting is the code in raw form. You must either go to dealer website for the data to convert it or find a scan tool that automatically does this for you.