Hi ,
I registered here today because I am very sceptical of what the mechanic told me. The Ccheck engine light is on in my Hyundai Accent 2004. Apparently the exhaust pipe is damaged and part of it needs to be replaced. I'm OK with that. But, he then told me that they will have to charge me to drive the car for at least 1 hour in order to get the light to turn off. This is after replacing the exhaust. I somehow find this hard to brlieve. Surely there is some method to turn it off? I hope someone can help clarify this.

I don't know where you found this mechanic, but you don't drive the car to turn off the CEL. You clear the code with a ScanTool to turn it off. It may eventually turn off on its own after driving around for a while if you fix the cause of the CEL. But no, driving it for an hour is not the process to turn off the CEL.

Maybe the hour he wants to charge you is a diagnostic fee? If you're going to pay an hour diagnostic fee, depending on how much he's charging you, you may get better quality work done at the dealer for the same price.

If there is only the 1 exhaust code I'm pretty sure fixing the problem then resetting the codes should remedy your CEL.

Now if it's something that might pop back on in a few minutes after clearing the code then I can understand