My maintenance required light has been flashing and is now on solid. According to the manual this is some sort of mileage timer that's supposed to remind me to have scheduled maintenance performed. Any idea what maintenance this refers to, or is it simply an 8k timer to remind me of whatever maintenance is due at that time according to the schedule? Seems sort of useless to me. Nothing like an idiot light trying to tell me there's something seriously wrong with my car when it's just a silly timer.

I beleive it is just a reminder for an oil change. Your manual tells you how to disengage it. I change my own oil and the light comes on every six months or so. I have to get the manual out each time to turn it off.

it reminds us to change oil.........flashes then goes off and if not reset after a certain milage it stays on.... .to reset uses the following procedure

depress the light dimmer knob before turning on ignition, turn on ignition while depressing same and leave on till light goes off. should not return until the next oil cycle is met.
i always forget that it does it and i say uhoh but then i remember and I too have to get the book out to reset.

I know the first time it came on I thought it was the Check Engine Light and was pretty concerned. I was totally embarrassed when I brought it to AutoZone to read the code and he told me that not only was there no code stored, but I was wrong about the light. :::sigh::: Which reminds me that I need to reset mine, I just changed the oil Thursday evening.

Thanks!
--Larry