For a few years around 2007-2010, I was driving a '99 beige Ford Contour that I bought on Craigslist from a police officer down southern NH for just $1500 which was a low price even for that. It had a manual transmission, plus the check engine light came on at about 110,000 miles and never shut off till it went to a junkyard at 175,000 miles. After looking at the check engine light for maybe a month, I came up with the bright idea to just cover it with a square piece of black tape, neatly cut to size with a scissors, and I never found out what problem the check engine light was indicating; but by 175k it had about 5 other mechanical problems, so I sold it off to Mitt Romney in Wolfeboro........ha-ha-ha ...
..... sorry, couldn't resisit that remark......no it was sold for $75 to a salvage guy who hauled it away on a flat bed truck...... but one day over in Wolfeboro I think I saw Mitt out in a nice looking Cadillac.