gmorat

I recently swapped the battery on my car cos the old one died over the weekend. The car sat for day maybe with a completely dead battery. I just had the carpet replaced. These are the only things that have changed in the last few months. I was driving along and the car felt good when the check engine light came on. I wasn't driving hard. It just turned on. It turned itself off again when off the gas but would light up when power was applied at anything more than a tickle.

I was fortunate that my specialists place is close to where I was going anyway so I just drove it there instead and left it with them.

My car is a 95 with 80k on the clock.

Gbos1

SAI Cleaning in your future ..... . . . . .. . scan will tell all

gmorat

It's a ODB1 95, I thought they didn't throw SAI codes?

P-daddy

No SAI CELs for 95s.

Gbos1

Ah my bad! That's right

993Brendan

The one time this happened in my 95 I didn't tighten the gas cap enough. Took it off, make sure it clicked a few times and the light went off. Worth checking- easy and free

gmorat

This one I can handle!

G

gw911nine97

re-check battery connection, maybe give the wire terminal insides a quick clean before reconnecting them to their battery terminals.
Also check fluid level of new battery & top up if necessary.

SpeedyC2

^ Worth a check. I had a loose connection at the battery cause some odd symptoms once.

nine9six

All of what I read above is guessing...
Hook up even a generic OBD1 scan tool and see what code(s) are thrown, and now you can move forward with some real information rather than a guess.

A check engine light can be thrown for any myriad of reasons.

evilfij

Check and replace (if needed) the seal on the gas cap. They go bad. And yes, they are available separately from the $130 gas cap, which I found out after the fact ....
I never got a code, but it failed emissions as the cap would not seal.

coreseller

This one fits, already replaced mine about a month back:

Volkswagen OEM 191201557 WASHER

woohoosocal

O2 Sensor - easy to change. Mine would come on for a minute and then go off never to be seen again. Until, maybe, I drove it again, but not every time.

P-daddy

Railmaster.

If the fluid level in the battery is so low that it causes a CEL it is most likely too late to save it by topping up the battery!

And apart from that the correlation between low battery fluid level and CEL is a real longshot! But I have seen stranger things passing!