I have a 99 Mustang. About a year or so ago, my check engine light (hereby known as the CEL) went on. I took it to my local shop, who charged my $75 and said they fixed it. 2 days later, it comes back on, I take it back, and they say it's not what they thought it was, and after looking it up, it turned out to be the A.I.R. pump. Unfortunately for me, they said it was a calibrated part, and as such needed to be installed by a dealer. So, a trip to the dealer and $450 later, all is right again. Until last week. My CEL goes on again. My friend at work has an ODBC 2 reader, plugs it in and gives me the code. I look it up. Guess what it is? The lovely A.I.R. pump again. Now, apparently, all this pump does is blow extra air into the exhasut during startup, so it can pass CA emissions. That's it. It's not required for the car to operate properly, it's purely a CA emissions part. After more research, it seems that the thing is such a piece of crap, and breaks so often, that on the very next year model of Mustang, Ford didn't even put it on anymore. Lucky me has he only model year they used the damn POS. Well, I don't live in CA. And I don't want to pay another $450. Is there ayway to just remove the sensor for that thing, or wire it so it never trips, or sets off the CEL? Like I said, the pump does nothing but lower initial emissions for CA requirmenets. The car still runs just fine.
I have the same exact problem with my car, a 99 also. Heard it was about a 400 dollar trip to the dealer so I havent fixed it for the past year and a half. I figured when I put my O/R x-pipe on, if I dont get MIL eliminators, the light will be on anyway.
