'97 Camry - Way to Reset CEL without Scanner?

[Turk]

Washed the engine compartment on the Wife's '97 Camry 4 banger, started up sputtering and then went away after 5 minutes of driving.

Anyway, the Check Engine Light came on and is still on.

Is there a procedure to reset it (and how) or do I need to borrow a scanner??

Thanks!

 

[Trav]

Easiest is pop the fuse marked ECM or PCM for a couple of minutes.
You can pop the battery cable but then radio and clock settings may be gone and may even need a security code punched in.

 

[mikered30]

Assuming the problem is cleared, pull the EFI relay. I believe it is under the hood.

 

[The motor guy]

Just keep driving it. Is should go out after 3-4 drive cycles. IT probably just detected a misfire from the water.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Disconnect the negative connection on the battery.

 

[MrCritical]

You may get the light out, but you didn't clear the fail code.

 

[mattd]

Disconnect battery for 15 min. It will reset everything.

 

[ARB1977]

The light may go out but it still may show a stored code. Once the light goes out take it to autozone so they can read it. Maybe a good time to get a cheap code reader.

 

[lexus114]

"The light may go out but it still may show a stored code."

Best,surest,safest way is to use a scanner.

 

[mattd]

On a 97 camry, a battery disconnect will harm nothing. If it was a newer vehicle that was more sensitive of these things, then yes.

And if you disconnect the battery for 15 minutes, it will erase the PCM's memory and reset all monitors. If there truly is an issue, it will illuminate the MIL once the monitors run their tests.

 

[MrCritical]

On OBD2 cars, disconnecting the battery does not erase memory.

 

[lexus114]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
On OBD2 cars, disconnecting the battery does not erase memory.



He will eventually figure that out.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
On OBD2 cars, disconnecting the battery does not erase memory.


It does reset all of the monitors (to NOT READY) and erase all of the stored codes on the two cars I've checked..'97 Crown Vic and '06 Saab 93.

 

[lexus114]

Scanner completely clears everything,and properly. That disconnecting the battery stuff is not the right way to do it.

 

[Turk]

Guys, I knew disconnecting the battery would do it, was just wondering if there was something like a reset button or a PCM-B fuse like my Saturn...

I took off the battery cables and cleaned everything while I was at it...

 

[mattd]

Originally Posted By: MrCritical
On OBD2 cars, disconnecting the battery does not erase memory.


It absolutely does.

 

[MrCritical]

It absolutely does not. That was one of the mandates for OBD2, that pulling fuses or disconnecting battery not clear the memory.

It may move the code from "current" to "history" but be assured the code is still there.

 

[mattd]

Well, then explain to me why the 6000$ scanner i use shows no current, pending, history, "fail since clear" codes, and all monitors are reset to "Not Ready", with the exception of the 3 that run immediately on KOEO?

Every vehicle that i have disconnected the battery from will erase its temporary memory. It will not, however, erase ALL parts of the PCM's memory. But it WILL lose of all its learned parameters, monitors status and MIL codes.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: mattd
Well, then explain to me why the 6000$ scanner i use shows no current, pending, history, "fail since clear" codes, and all monitors are reset to "Not Ready", with the exception of the 3 that run immediately on KOEO?


My scanner doesn't cost anywhere near that much but I have observed the same behavior after disconnecting the battery.

 

[MrCritical]

Perhaps it depends on the scanner. The one the OEM's use will see codes after everything on the car is disconnected, including the PCM, unless you manually delete the code with the scanner.