1997 Subaru Legacy GT-check engine light

[FAuffant]

How do I clear, reset or get rid of a blinking check engine light?

 

[mulder]

How do I clear, reset or get rid of a blinking check engine light?

First off, you need to understand what that light means.
When the light comes on steadily, it indicates that a problem has been
detected with one or more of a large number of systems that are
monitored by the ECU, and that a trouble code has been stored. When
this happens it's ok to continue to drive the car until such time as
you can have the code checked and any needed repairs made, although
this should be done as soon as practical.
However when the light FLASHES, it's a different story. This means
that a real-time misfire is being detected, i.e. RIGHT NOW. This is
something that must be addressed immediately as a sustained misfire
can result in raw fuel being dumped into the catalytic converter,
causing it to overheat and possibly sustain permanent damage.
Possible causes of misfire are plugs, wires, coils, bad gas,
burned/sticking valves, jumped valve timing, intake leak. You should
have a shop look at it as soon as possible.
In the case of a steady light where a code is stored, the light will
go out on its own once the problem that set the code is no longer
detected. The light can also be cleared using a scan tool, and the
last method is to disconnect the battery. Note though that just
clearing the code or doing a full ECU reset (which is what the battery
disconnect does) won't fix anything that may be wrong so the light
will likely come back on again unless the root cause is found and
fixed.
But when the light flashes there is no code to clear, it will continue
to flash as long as the misfire condition exists. Only when the
misfire stops or is repaired will the light go out.
One other thing I should mention- if anyone happened to work on the
car recently, and found two green plugs under the driver side dash
that were just hanging and plugged them together, this would activate
a diagnostic mode and make the light flash constantly. One way to tell
if this is what happened is that the light will flash with the key in
the "run" position even with the engine not running. In this case all
you need to do is find the green plugs and disconnect them again.