My wife's stratus has a check engine light and I am trying to figure out what it sees wrong.

Is it possible to retrieve the code without a reader?

The car has been hesitating at low idle and take off, so i am assuming MAP, TPS, or fuel flow related, but want to verify before randomly buying parts.

thanks!

 

Head over to Advance Auto Parts or AutoZone, they will read the code for free. I dont believe there is a trick to get the code to flash to read it, you need the scanner. Its probably a misfire on one of the cylinders. Most likely its the coil packs. If the spark plugs are old, replace them with copper plugs, not platinum.

 

You could head over to those places and get the code pulled for free but you could use cycle the key five times from the off position to run and ending on run (run, off, run, off, run) one thing to remember is not to start the engine otherwise you'll have start all over again. Once this is complete you should see any codes put up on the odometer. Hope this helps