Hey Guys. I just picked up a 1998 C1500 with the 5.0l, 150K+ miles on her. She seems to drive great. No hesitations, shudders, surges, etc... and starts up fine. No smoke from tailpipe and the engine looks clean. IIRC all my previous cars had their Check Engine Light come on pre-starting the engine and would shut off after starting if there were no problems/codes. I wanna make sure it's working OK. Should my CEL be coming on before starting the engine on this truck? Thanks.

 

Yes...if it isn't coming on pre-start, likely the PO pulled the bulb or somehow eliminated the light. California smog tests require that the light comes on or it fails the test.

 

Thanks. The bulb was bad. I replaced it and it works as expected. FWIW, I bought an OBD2 scanner and found no error codes. So far, so good. Thanks.