Lexus Repair: Check engine light, lexus rx300, 1999 lexus rx300

Question
1999 Lexus RX300 - check engine light on.  How do I determine the code that is causing it.  Repair place wants $110 to do a "scan."  Is this necessary?  Light went on two years ago for a few weeks and went off by itself.  Thanks

Answer
Hello Lori, Most shops charge 1hr of labor for this but we do it for free if you repair it with us or $40 .5hrs of labor if you don't. You need to have a OBD2 scan tool to do this and it is the only way. Once the scan tool gives you the code number then you can look in the code book to see what it means. At times it is straight forward, other times not.