# Odd behavior before Check Engine Light comes on.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-behavior-before-check-engine-light-comes-on/527715>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 4, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-behavior-before-check-engine-light-comes-on/527715 "2010-02-04T21:05:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-behavior-before-check-engine-light-comes-on/527715/21 "2010-02-05T19:49:21Z")

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Gonna hunt for the part and report back.

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**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-behavior-before-check-engine-light-comes-on/527715/22 "2010-02-05T19:59:57Z")

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> [@GreasyJack](#):
>
> I don’t believe such a mode exists

As Gary has already shown, it most certainly does indeed exist, (and is probably unconcerned by your disbelief).

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**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-behavior-before-check-engine-light-comes-on/527715/23 "2010-02-05T21:48:46Z")

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> [@RedSwinglineOne](#):
>
> The fact that the car will not accelerate is due to the engine going into ‘limp mode’ caused by the computer receiving no signal/signal out of range from the TPS.

Okay, I see what you mean.

I still don’t think that the engineers would make the engine go into such a severely limited limp-home mode because of a sensor as unimportant as the TPS, but I suppose that doesn’t mean they didn’t.

[QUOTE=bucketybuck]  
As Gary has already shown, it most certainly does indeed exist, (and is probably unconcerned by your disbelief).  
[/QUOTE]

Yes, and I conceded that such a mode does apparently exist on some vehicles. That doesn’t mean that it exists on this vehicle nor does it mean that it is the issue at hand. For what it’s worth Googling “limp home mode dodge dakota” only brings up issues related to the transmission.

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