The Code

I woke up this morning on September 23rd 2017 and the world hasn't ended, no surprise. the prophecies were wrong again. I would say that I have stayed away waiting for the inevitable but the reality is, I've been busy.
We sold the house in North Dakota, moved the family back to Tennessee and towed the tired Jeep on a trailer behind the U-haul. The Jeep had a check engine light.
The Subaru I owned a few years before did as well. It was a '99 and you could do the secret handshake to find out what was wrong. I vaguely remember the handshake and I know some are actually wondering what I am talking about.
Before the addition of a computer link to the car for diagnosis, you could do one of two things: go to a shop, pay the hundred bucks to find out the code OR do a series of seemingly random actions while behind the wheel to get the light to flash a certain way thus getting the number of the code for the check engine light and possible fix it yourself. It was a way for your car to communicate with you.
Full stop. Start the car. Drive 1/10th of a mile in 1st gear. Full stop. right turn signal. Reverse with foot on brake. Neutral. Drive. Then Park. (or something close to that) Then the check engine light would begin a series of flashing to indicate a specific number and give you the code and look it up to find out the issue. Code 77 on a '99 Subaru Impreza is a lockout solenoid. Never fixed it. Why?
Because I manage restaurants. What happened with the car was simple to make work properly once it started to fail. The lockout solenoid would cause it to go into an override mode only working in 1st and 3rd gear but if you shifted into neutral while driving, shut the key off and then turned it back on, it would reset to normal operation mode for 50 miles or so.
Being a part of a corporation, they will give you a code to fix the car and most managers will listen. A good manager knows how to keep his/her vehicle running in a forward direction, their goal.
Why not just correct the code?
The Jeep
With a limited amount of time, I took the Jeep to an auto parts store. It has the jack to hook up the computer and find out exactly what is wrong. No handshake required. Miss-fire cylinder 3.
When the powers that be tell you what is wrong and you don't have faith in your own abilities, you listen. You change the #3 plug. Only to find out that 2 other plugs are cracked after you believed the code because you now have a new one. And worse, let someone else climb under the hood, who doesn't care, and loosen a vacuum line and create new problems. (true story)
I drive the car (my restaurant) everyday. I know the shimmies and shakes that it has. When it runs rough and how it sounds when all the cylinders fire. I know there is a light flashing somewhere in an office, desperately trying to get my attention but I also know, if I shift to neutral, turn the key off and then on again, then it will perform like I need it to until I can fix it correctly.