Jim Grant's Tech Tips

92 Chevy Lumina Z-34, Learning to Idle
Q: I recently had to have my '92 Chevy Lumina towed into the dealer because of a dead battery. The work order stated "Removed & Replaced Battery" and "Re-Learn Computer Idle" what does "Re-Learn Computer Idle" mean? I'm not able to read about this in my service manual..... Herbert

A: When a battery goes dead in a vehicle it will also erase any adaptive strategies that the vehicle's on-board computer had stored in memory. Adaptive strategies are merely the computer's ability to correct for vehicle age and driving habits. When the computer loses its electrical power (dead battery) the adaptive strategies are lost and the computer has to start re-learning all over again. On 90's vehicles, the re-learned process is fairly quick. In most cases the vehicle's engine has to be brought up to operating temperature and/or driven. This allows the computer to get its thoughts back together and properly control things such as idle speed, allowing the vehicle to become its old self. Not taking the appropriate re-learn steps could cause temporary driveability problems that would needlessly upset the vehicle owner.