What is the difference between the "check engine" light and the "service vehicle soon" light on a 2000 Grand Am GT? It's my wife's car and it's about to turn 100,000 miles. (It's got 99,500.) The "service vehicle soon" light just came on the other day for the first time. It has come on and gone off a few times according to her.
I had her take it to Autozone and have them put it on the scanner but they couldn't come up with anything. Could it just be a friendly reminder to get the car looked at because it's about to hit 100,000 miles? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

"Check engine" generally referes to the codes store in the ECU for the engines computer (often emmision codes). Service engiune soon refers to a maintenance proceedure that needs to be performed (possibly change the antifreeze-I thinK GM started that back then at 100k!, or change the spark plugs)?

You might want to look in your owners guide or manual as it will generally tell what is due at a maintenace interval.

Thanks! I'll check the owners manual tomorrow.

Service vehicle soon is a service reminder light. It comes on for things like an oil change thats due or even if you have a light bulb out. Check your lights and see if the owners manual says anything about your oil change being due. Its not the same as a check engine light, that is a light related to the electronics seeing a problem and throwing a fault code in the computer.

Chris R is right. You can reset the light by either pushing the reset button on the driver info center or turning the key from off to on (engine off) and pushing the gas pedal to the floor three times in five seconds. The light will blink three times if you did it properly

Chris R, Ithink you hit the nail right on the head. After posting last night, I went out and put a new headlight in because it was burned out. Tonight I'll reset it and see what happens. Thanks again, I was expecting the worst.

The service vehicle soon light come on when there is a code stored in the bcm(body control module) which could be the bulb that was burnt out.

I have a 99 grand am, and that light came on twice since I owned it, once at 88.5k miles and 120k miles. It always was a headlight burned out. That's probably what it is with your car too.