My son's 2000 Civic is due for an emissions sticker but one of the engine warning lights has been on for some time. He took it by the dealership and it's showing as the fuel temp sensor. But the guy there said there is NO fuel temp sensor on a 2000 Civic. He said it will not pass for the emissions with this light on.
Has anyone had this problem before?
Why would this code show up if the car does not even have a sensor?
A little background, the cat. converter, muffler, headers, air intake and pully, amoug other things have all been changed out with aftermarket stuff.
Thanks

 

I didn't know there was a fuel temp sensor on any car. Maybe he meant oil temp.

 

Since its a 2000, its prolly not under warranty anymore so the dealer isn't gonna fix it for free. Take the car to an auto parts store that will give you codes. Post the code and some1 on the forum will prolly be able to help.

 

What was the exact trouble code? Normally they come as a P0100 or something like that. I don't think our cars have a fuel temp sensor. You can try to disconnect the battery(or ECU fuse) to clear the code and see if it comes back. I would drive it for more than 200 miles before you decided if it will come back. Also make sure you let the ECU relearn the settings for about 300 miles after clearing the codes before you take it in for emissions test.

 

The code is P0181. And we have tried disconnecting the battery but the code comes back after about 100 miles.

 

Ok this is the only thing I can think of. Either the wrong code is being read by the diagnostics reader, or the ECU has an issue. There is no such fuel temp sensor on civics. Have you have any work done to the car lately? Anywhere in the car? I have heard of false codes coming up when the ECU, or related sensors, has a bad ground or connection. They could be anywhere from right on the ECU to those on the engine block. I have also read somewhere that false codes come up with certain readers. I know you mentioned you took it to the dealer, but have you had it read elswhere? One would think the dealership has all the right readers, but you never know. Get it read somehwere else and see what they come up with. Let us know what happens.

 

I'll get someone to check the ECU. We did take the car to Jiffy Lube a couple of weeks before the dealership and they got the same code.
As far as recent repairs, nope. The last thing was back during the summer when my son put new headers on.

 

I tried to look this up in my Haynes manual, but there is no code P0181 listed!

 

Like 97CivicEX said it could just simply be a bad connection, i know in my old corolla i had the CEL come on and it turned out to be that the O2 sensor connection came loose, my mechanic plugged it back in and then reset the ecu, and it went away, but it would come back on about every 50-100kilometers, we ran the code and it said that it was running rich and lean at the same time. So one day i checked the connection and it turned out they connected it backwards lol, reset teh ecu again, the problem never came back again.