Our Winter Home and a Check Engine Light…

A few more hours driving the RV south, we were at the very bottom of Texas. We took the bridge over to South Padre Island and as we were crossing it we could see the “smile” from the bridge our friend Doris had told us about. That smile and the beautiful blue water was indeed a welcoming sign that our choice of winter stay would be just fine.

On the last leg of our drive I had a check engine light come on and go off. It did this several times over the two hours it took us to get to our campsite. I wasn’t too worried about it since water pressure and oil gauges seemed fine. However I knew it was something I would need to have checked out.

After settling in at our winter site I did a little online research on my check engine light. I came across a really neat product, the ScanGaugeD for diesel rigs. They make them for other vehicles as well. This device hooks up to the plug that repair shops plug into the engine analyzer to read engine’s fault codes.

The reviews were awesome so I ordered one and couldn’t believe how easy it was to install. I turned on the ignition of the RV after I hooked it all up to read my fault codes  my check engine light would have created .Alas, I had no Fault Codes saved in my ECM. With more research I discovered that the ECM won’t store a Fault Code for many minor items such as a fuel filter starting to struggle with clogging.

I am pretty sure that is what my problem probably is since I am way overdue for filter changes. I would have changed them last spring but due to Covid we haven’t been to a shop for the needed service. I am going to love my new scan gauge however because it also allows me to use it to monitor anything that my ECM records such as gas mileage. And the next time I have a real Fault Code I won’t have to pay a shop to tell me what my problem is. I can find out right away and then just have to deal with whatever the issue is.

Enough of that… It didn’t take us too long to settle into a winter routine here in South Padre Island. We generally have breakfast while reading and watching the news. Then we head out for a long walk on the beach since it is practically in our backyard. We usually leave our campsite which is a couple blocks from the beach where we first walk along the rock jetties to see what the fishermen are catching, then along the beach to see what shells rolled in on the tide and then finally back to the rig.

In the afternoons, Sharon does her workout while I catch up on what's happening in the stock market and soon thereafter it is time for happy hour!

Yep, we think we are really going to enjoy our long winter stay in south Texas this season   And gazing up at the large Jesus statue on the beach it’s not hard to believe that perhaps we were guided here…

NOTE:  We are currently in Port Isabel in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas for the winter…